John Bartow Prevost (1766-1825) was born in New Jersey, the son of a Swiss-born British officer who died in 1779 and Theodosia Bartow Prevost, who in 1782 married Aaron Burr. When James Monroe was appointed minister to France in 1794, Burr recommended his stepson as secretary to the legation. Monroe gave Prevost the position a year later. Prevost proved himself an “honorable, estimable man,” and following the acquisition of Louisiana Monroe encouraged Madison and TJ to consider his former secretary for an appointment in the new territory. Prevost retired from the Orleans superior court in 1806. In 1807, he publicly distanced himself from his stepfather’s intrigues, and after an unsuccessful run for Congress in New Orleans, returned to New York. In 1817, President Monroe asked him to serve as a political agent in South America, a position he held until his death in Peru (Kline, Burr description begins Mary-Jo Kline, ed., Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr, Princeton, 1983, 2 vols. description ends , 1:lxiv, lxvi; Monroe, Papers description begins Daniel Preston, ed., The Papers of James Monroe, Westport, Conn., 2003- , 6 vols. description ends , 3:3-4, 415; 4:161; Madison, Papers description begins William T. Hutchinson, Robert A. Rutland, J. C. A. Stagg, and others, eds., The Papers of James Madison, Chicago and Charlottesville, 1962- , 41 vols.; Sec. of State Ser., 1986- , 11 vols.; Pres. Ser., 1984- , 10 vols.; Ret. Ser., 2009- , 3 vols. description ends , Sec. of State Ser., 5:563; Terr. Papers description begins Clarence E. Carter and John Porter Bloom, eds., The Territorial Papers of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1934-75, 28 vols. description ends , 9:608; Claude Halstead Van Tyne and Waldo Gifford Leland, Guide to the Archives of the Government of the United States in Washington [Washington, D.C., 1904], 14:27; New-York Evening Post, 23 Mch. 1807, 2 May 1815, 13 Jan., 23 Aug. 1825; Boston Columbian Centinel, 10 Aug. 1814; Monroe to TJ, 15 Mch. 1804).