To James Madison from William Jones, [ca. 18 October 1814]
From William Jones
[ca. 18 October 1814]
The Secretary of the Navy respectfully submits the accompanying proceedings to the President and asks his decision on the sentence against Joseph Wallace.1
He also refers the President particularly to that part of the proceedings and testimony which develope the nefarious robbery committed upon the public magazine on the eastern Branch and the perpetrators of that act.2
The Secy intends to submit the proceedings to the Attorney for the district in order that a criminal prosecution may be instituted against the offenders. Upwards of $26000. worth of public property have thus been stolen by Ewell.3
RC (DLC). Unsigned; in Jones’s hand. Undated; dated 26 July 1814 in the Index to the James Madison Papers; conjectural date assigned here based on evidence in n. 1. Enclosure not found.
1. On 17 Oct. 1814 at the Marine Corps headquarters in Washington, “by Order of the Navy Department,” Marine Pvt. Joseph Wallis was tried for desertion, found guilty, and sentenced “to be Shot to Death” (DNA: RG 127, Orders Issued and Received). The forty-first article of “An Act for the better government of the Navy of the United States,” 23 Apr. 1800, required that capital sentences be confirmed by the president ( 2:45, 51).
2. Jones ordered the same court-martial to try Marine Cpl. Thomas Patterson, commander of the naval magazine on the Eastern Branch (Anacostia River), for the destruction of more than four hundred barrels of gunpowder thrown into the river on 26–28 Aug. 1814 (DNA: RG 127, Orders Issued and Received).
3. For the bad blood between Jones and Thomas Ewell and for Ewell’s interest in the powder stored in the magazine, see Ewell to JM, 27 July 1813, 6:477–81.