To James Madison from Jacob Wagner, 15 August 1806
From Jacob Wagner
Department of State 15 Augt. 1806
Dear Sir
A favourable opportunity offering for Philadelphia, I have returned Mr. Duponceau his books.1 I do not see what we can do to assist Murray; but I have acknowledged the receipt of his papers.2 Mr. Harvey has been advised to collect depositions to shew that his son was forcibly or deceptively placed on board the Leander, which he intimates he would have it in his power to do. The two cases of British aggression require, I believe, nothing to be done upon them; but being enormous they deserve perusal: that of the Eliza we had some months ago in a more concise form. I have been studious in the enclosed draft of a letter to Genl. Armstrong upon the case of Stoddert & Mason not to commit us against Swan, however strong my prejudice is against the fairness of his proceeding.3 It must have been by accident that the letter from the President, which I now forward, escaped you at Orange: I regret it on account of the great-coat.4 The answer to the complaint against Genl. Ney is a little incoherent as well as illhumoured. I shall send you by the next mail a draft to Simpson, desiring him to ransom the people of the Indefatigable.5 Be pleased to direct me about the fee for Mr. Edwards: it appears not immoderate.
The newspapers, you will perceive, are playing off their ingenuity upon the date of the Commission issued to Swartwout’s successor.6 There is nothing puzzling in it to those who wish to understand it. A commission does not supersede from its date, nor yet from the time of its being delivered to the person named in it, but from the time of notice of its being issued being given to the former officer. The date the commission in question bears was inserted in it before it left our office in blank as to the name; and it was fortunate, as the removal now appears to have been determined upon before the acquittals and not to have been produced by them. I have the honor to be Your faithful Servt.
Jacob Wagner
P. S. We had two copious showers on tuesday last, but they have not been sufficient to replenish the streams or to penetrate the ground.
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM.
1. For the books, which JM used in writing his pamphlet An Examination of the British Doctrine, Which Subjects to Capture a Neutral Trade, Not Open in Time of Peace (1806), see Peter S. Du Ponceau to JM, 23 Oct. 1805, 10:460.
3. The enclosed draft was evidently JM’s 15 Aug. 1806 letter to John Armstrong (see below), which Armstrong acknowledged on 24 Dec. 1806. He provided further details of the case in his 11 May 1807 letter to JM, addressing the administration’s question as to whether James Swan had managed to convince the French board of liquidations that a debt he owed to that government was actually owed by the firm of Taney and Simond, and to reduce the amount of their liquidated claim for the cargo of the ship Carolina Planter accordingly (DNA: RG 59, DD, France, vol. 10). As the trustees of Taney and Simond, Benjamin Stoddert and John Mason brought suit against Thomas W. Griffith and others in the Washington County, D.C., chancery court in October 1807, asserting that the defendants, as agents and sub-agents of Taney and Simond, had made arrangements to fraudulently collect funds totaling $41,300 on bills issued by the French government in payment of the firm’s claims, which funds were actually due to Stoddert and Mason (National Intelligencer, 8 Apr. 1808).
5. For the Indefatigable, see James Simpson to JM, 27 Mar., 5 and 22 Apr., and 7 and 26 May 1806, 11:430–32, 462–63, 497, 546–48, 620–21.
6. The New-York Herald was probably among the newspapers to which Wagner referred. On 9 Aug. 1806 it published a piece entitled “A Dilemma,” which reported that four days earlier, Peter Curtenius had received a commission for himself as marshal of New York, “dated the beginning of May last,” along with a letter of removal to be delivered to the incumbent, John Swartwout. Assuming that the latter document was also dated in May, the writer suggested that either the administration had “antidated” it, or had actually removed Swartwout in May; if this were the case, his subsequent summoning of juries for the recent trial would have been nugatory, the entire proceedings a “farce,” and “Smith and Ogden must be tried over again.” In defense of the administration, the 8 Aug. 1806 issue of the New York American Citizen speculated that Thomas Jefferson had decided in May to remove Swartwout, had issued Curtenius’s commission at that time, and had held it in order to avoid appearing to influence the trials of Smith and Ogden. This theory may be partially confirmed by Jefferson’s note on a 19 July 1806 cabinet meeting: “Swartwout. If the case v. Ogden & Smith is determined at the present session, he is to be removed immedly. If it lies over to another term, let him remain to another” (DLC: Jefferson Papers; filed at 5 Mar. 1806).