From James Madison to Dolley Payne Madison, [30 July] 1818
To Dolley Payne Madison
Monticello Thursday Morning [30 July 1818]
My dearest
We arrived here about half an hour by sun.1 We had a hot ride, but have not suffered from it. The ladies enquired affectionately after you, and recd. the message with which you charged me. None of the deputies were with Mr. Jefferson. We set out this forenoon for Mr. Divers, with whom we shall dine & pass the night, and tomorrow morning proceed for Rockfish Gap. I fear I shall not have an opportunity for some days of writing, and this will not reach O. C. House till saturday. I shall however embrace every oppy. I can as yet make no guess of the time we shall be detained. I hope it will not be many days; and I shall not lose a moment in getting home. The situation in which I left my mother & sister Rose2 would hasten me, if other motives were wanting than my anxiety [to] be again with you. Your devoted husband
J. Madison
I find by a letter from the President to Mr Jefferson of same date with the one to me,3 that he expected to leave Washington abt. Friday for Loudon, and to come on thence to Albemarle—with his family.
RC (ICHi). Undated; conjectural date assigned on the basis of JM’s attendance at the Rockfish Gap commission meeting on 1–3 Aug. 1818. Addressed by JM to “Mrs. Dolly P. Madison Montpellier near Orange Court House Virginia,” and franked.
1. By sun: before sunset.
2. “Mother M[adison] is very sick again & Fanny here nursing her,” Dolley Payne Madison to Anna Cutts, ca. 23 July 1818 (Mattern and Shulman, Selected Letters of Dolley Payne Madison, 231).
3. James Monroe to JM, 22 July 1818. See also Monroe to Thomas Jefferson, 22 July 1818 (DLC: Jefferson Papers).