1To James Madison from Richard Peters, 31 December 1807 (Madison Papers)
I percieve there is a Plan on Foot, for building a Bridge in your Quarter. I send the enclosed; that if any thing useful can be extracted from it, some Service may be done to the Community of Bridge-Builders. It will, at least, teach them to shun, what has perplexed others. If it be thought ego tistical instead of sta tistical, the Smell funguses & Mundunguses are welcome to the Hit. If the...
2To James Madison from Richard Peters, 30 July 1818 (Madison Papers)
I very thankfully acknowledge the Receipt, yesterday, of your very entertaining & apposite Address to your Agricultural Society. It is well calculated for your Auditory; & would be so for any other. But peculiarly for Virginia Gentlemen Farmers; who must have mental Amusement, mixed with practical Instruction. And you have done great Justice to your Subject in both Respects. I am very much...
3To James Madison from Richard Peters, 4 February 1796 (Madison Papers)
I enclose you the Memorial I troubled you about which I should sooner have sent but that I thought it best to accompany it with a Translation. It is addressed under a mistaken Idea of the old Arrangement of Congress. But this will not affect the Substance. This young Man never had a Commission tho’ he did the Duty he mentions. He came to this Country & left it with the Marquis. The Facts he...
4To James Madison from Richard Peters, 6 April 1811 (Madison Papers)
I recieved your Letter & the Grains of sweet Corn; for which I return you Thanks. We have, here, that Species of Corn; but I always find that Change of Sied [ sic ] ameliorates. I am much obliged by your Attention to my Request as to the Big-Rye . I hope it will be successful; & that a most valuable Grain will be added to our Stock. I have hoed & cleaned my small Patch, planted last Autumn. I...
5To James Madison from Richard Peters, 31 December 1792 (Madison Papers)
I percieve, by the News Papers, that Congress are about establishing Fees in the Admiralty Side of the District Court. I have heard that considerable Deductions have been made from the Fees as mentioned in the Bill first brought forward by Mr Smith of S. C. I saw that Bill & objected both to the Clause embarrassing the Seamen in their Lien upon the Ship, & to the Quantum of Fees. The first I...
6To James Madison from Richard Peters, 18 May 1803 (Madison Papers)
I have recieved from our old Friend Genl. Ternant, who is now in Paris, a Letter dated 14th March last. He mentions the very few of our revolutionary Characters left in that Republic (if it may be so called) who under the old Government assisted us in our War. He writes to me respecting our Friend la fayette as if it were in my Power to do him Service. I can only lament that he is mistaken. I...
7To James Madison from Richard Peters, 9 August 1807 (Madison Papers)
From Motives of long & un altered personal Esteem, & as a small Token or Keep-sake, I send you a Collection of Admiralty Decisions, published by my Son. I consented to their Publication, to save myself Trouble, & not with any View to juridical Fame. I know not that they will give you much Information, as a Member of the Corps diplomatique . As to the Subject which now justly rouses the...
8To James Madison from Richard Peters, 31 March 1790 (Madison Papers)
I know your Time is so much occupied that unless on some very important Occasion it ought not to be interrupted. I send you a Pamphlet given to me by a Member of our House Mr Herman Husbands. As he reprobates the System of Finance it will not be the less pleasing to you on that Account. Having drawn the Principles of the federal Government from higher Sources than we ever thought of he must be...
9To James Madison from Richard Peters, 18 March 1810 (Madison Papers)
The enclosed contains Letters to several of the French Savans who, with great Civility, & some very profitable Attention, have corresponded with our Philadelphia Agricultural Society. I have sent Letters thro’ private Conveyances; & have Reason to believe they have miscarried, owing to the Uncertainty of such Conveyances. I take the Liberty of requesting you to have the Letter to Genl...
10To James Madison from Richard Peters, 20 July 1789 (Madison Papers)
It is but within a Day or two that I recieved yours of the 14th. in which you very properly leave me as you found me on the Subject I rambled into. But I will revenge myself by sending you a Copy of an old Fable which I have in a curious Collection I keep by me entitled “ Aunciente connynge Balladdes .” I am chained to my Chair by my old Tormentor the Piles & I maliciously wish not that all my...
11To James Madison from Richard Peters, 26 February 1793 (Madison Papers)
Always attentive to your Requests I have looked over & considered the Bill about which you spoke to me. Time is too short to correct it. Yet I rather retract this Idea, not being in the Predicament of one of our State Circuit Judges, who wrote, a few Weeks ago, a long Letter to our Assembly, & told them “his Time was so prodigiously taken up that he had not Leisure to shorten his Letter.” I...
12To James Madison from Richard Peters, 24 August 1789 (Madison Papers)
I have to acknowledge your Favour of the 19th. I am obliged by your Information & acknowledge that some of your Reasons are the best that can be given. They are such therefore as I knew you could give. But many of them are founded on Apprehensions which forgive me for saying I think too highly wrought. I believe that a Firmness in adhering to our Constitution ’till at least it had a longer...
13To James Madison from Richard Peters, 4 March 1823 (Madison Papers)
I received with great pleasure your letter of the 22d Feby, not for any polite expressions it contains, so much as the gratification I enjoy when I see the hand writing I have been accustomed to be familiar with, in olden times, & days of tribulation. So few of us remain, of those who bore the burthens, & encountered the dangers of those times & days; & so dispersed in distant sections of our...
14To James Madison from Richard Peters, 1 June 1801 (Madison Papers)
I have been much engaged since the Reciept of your Favour, enclosing Robinson’s Cases, & Strickland’s Observations on American Agriculture. I return you my grateful Acknowledgments for your Kindness & Attention. It was with Difficulty I prevailed on the Printer to continue the Publication of Robinson’s Cases. It is a Work much interesting to the Citizens of these United States, diplomatic,...
15To James Madison from Richard Peters, 11 March 1811 (Madison Papers)
Genl Armstrong, when in France, sent me over some Seeds; &, among them, about 2 Quarts of most remarkably fine Rye , of a Species entirely unknown here. With my usual Desire to disperse what I obtain in this Way, I distributed, in very small Portions, the whole of what I had, except about half a Pint. I planted my Modicum in single Grains, in Drills; &, after some Growth, I found that each...
16To James Madison from Richard Peters, 5 July 1789 (Madison Papers)
It is better to be late in thanking you for your Present of Tobacco by Mr Delany than not to do it at all. You have given me the Quid but as to the pro quo you must find it in the Satisfaction you enjoy in doing civil Things. I am in the Midst of a popular Assembly of Mowers & Haymakers & my Harvest will overtake me before I am ready for it. You are in the Midst of a popular Assembly of...
17To James Madison from Richard Peters, 1 September 1826 (Madison Papers)
I send to you our 5th Volume of Memoirs of the “Philadelphia Society for promoting Agriculture”; not so much for the interest of its contents, as for the opportunity it affords of renewing to you assurances of the unremitted regards I have ever felt towards you, not only personally, but as one of the few remaining founders of all the Prosperity, Strength & Respectability our singularly...
18To James Madison from Richard Peters, 24 August 1818 (Madison Papers)
Your favour of the 15th. arrived in time to enable me to add a little Note to the Errata of our 4th. Vol: which I copy. ☞ “A highly respectable friend has been so good as to point out to me my careless Mode of expression in my ‘Notices to a young Farmer,’ page XXXVI. I mention Wheat being so injured by stagnant water, ‘as to become abortive; & produce only Cheat .[’] I should have said, and...