To James Madison from James Monroe, 31 January 1816
From James Monroe
Department of State January 31. 1816
The Resolution of the House of Representatives of the 4th inst: requesting the President to cause to be laid before that House (if in his opinion it will not be inconsistent with the public welfare) any authentic information he may have received, or communications which may have passed between this Government and the Government of Great Britain, in relation to the transactions at Dartmoor Prison, in the month of April last, as far as the American Prisoners of war there confined were affected by such transactions,1 having been referred to the Secretary of State—He has the honor to submit to the President, the accompanying papers, marked A B & C, as containing all the information in this Department called for by the Resolution, or immediately connected with it.2 All which is respectfully submitted
Jas. Monroe
RC and enclosures (DNA: RG 233, President’s Messages, 14A–D1). RC in a clerk’s hand, signed by Monroe. JM forwarded the report to the House of Representatives the same day (ibid.). For enclosures (146 pp.; printed in , Foreign Relations, 4:19–56), see n. 2.
1. The resolution was introduced by James Pleasants Jr. of Virginia ( 14th Cong., 1st sess., 452).
2. Monroe enclosed a list (1 p.) of the documents marked “A”: an extract of notes of a conversation between Lord Castlereagh, Henry Clay, and Albert Gallatin, 16 Apr. 1815 (3 pp.); an extract from Clay and Gallatin’s 18 Apr. 1815 letter to London agent for American prisoners Reuben G. Beasley (2 pp.); a letter from Charles King to John Quincy Adams, 26 Apr. 1815 (3 pp.); a report on the 6 Apr. 1815 events at Dartmoor Prison by King and Frances Seymour Larpent, 26 Apr. 1815 (8 pp.); a letter from Castlereagh to Clay and Gallatin, 22 May 1815 (2 pp.); a reply from Clay and Gallatin to Castlereagh, 24 May 1815 (1 p.); an extract from Adams’s 23 June 1815 letter to James Monroe (2 pp.); a letter from Anthony St. John Baker to Monroe, 3 Aug. 1815 (2 pp.); and Monroe’s reply, 11 Dec. 1815 (1 p.). For the first six documents, see Daniel Brent to JM, 6 Sept. 1815, 9:599 and n. 1, 600 n. 2; for Baker to Monroe, 3 Aug. 1815, see Stephen Pleasonton to JM, 7 Aug. 1815, ibid., 515, 516 n. 2; for Monroe to Baker, 11 Dec. 1815, see Monroe to JM, 14 Aug. 1815, ibid., 531–32 and n. 2. The enclosed extract of Adams’s 23 June 1815 letter to Monroe recounted Adams’s statement to Castlereagh regretting that the British government had not ordered a trial of the officer commanding the troops who fired on American prisoners at Dartmoor.
The enclosures marked “B” consisted of copies of depositions given in England on 8 and 21–25 Apr. by British soldiers, prison personnel, and American prisoners who had witnessed the 6 Apr. 1815 events at Dartmoor; and one deposition made in Philadelphia on 19 June 1815 by returned American prisoner John C. Clement.
Finally, Monroe enclosed a list (2 pp.) of twenty-four documents “in packet marked C,” which included copies of U.S. commissary general for prisoners John Mason’s 6 Mar. 1815 letters to Beasley and to British agent George Barton: the first instructed Beasley to request that the British government follow the example of the United States by paying for the immediate passage home of prisoners of war held in England, and, if the British refused, to contract for the immediate transportation of the prisoners at U.S. expense; the second informed Barton that orders had been given for immediate transportation of British prisoners from the United States to England, and described Mason’s liberal arrangements for accommodations, provisions, and medical care for the men on the passage. The remaining enclosures consisted of Beasley’s correspondence with various persons on the Dartmoor affair and on the prisoners’ release and transportation back to the United States. These documents included Beasley’s 13, 15, and 18 Apr. 1815 letters to Mason, with enclosures (see JM to Monroe, 12 June 1815, 9:392–93, 394 n. 3); a 19 Apr. 1815 letter to Beasley from Alexander McLeay, secretary of the transport board, stating that the admiralty had agreed to pay a portion of the cost of sending its American prisoners home, “leaving the interpretation of the Article in the late Treaty of Peace upon this subject for future explanation”; Beasley to Mason, 30 Apr. 1815, enclosing copies of Clay and Gallatin’s letter to him of 18 Apr. 1815, King and Larpent’s report on the Dartmoor affair, and King to Adams, 26 Apr. 1815 (see under enclosures marked “A” above), and contesting the prisoners’ accusation that he had not acted expeditiously to obtain their release; and extracts of Beasley to Mason, 10 Oct. 1815, enclosing copies of his correspondence with McLeay, Dartmoor officials, and the prisoners that documented his efforts to have them sent home in a timely manner.