1. Willis’s 3 Nov. 1802 letter to Pinckney (4 pp.; docketed by Wagner as received in Pinckney’s 6 Nov. dispatch) explained that he had learned in December 1801 that bills of exchange he had accepted amounting to “between five and Six thousand pounds Sterling, would certainly all be protested,” while other bills for nearly £7,000 had been drawn against a person unknown at Barcelona by an individual who “had Recently failed,” leaving Willis with no security. Benjamin B. Mumford had given him bills for $18,000 which were to go to London for negotiation and for which Mumford had no authority to draw. And Willis had several smaller losses amounting to over $30,000. Since failure of the London bills would affect his other bills circulating in Europe, he determined to leave at once for England and arrived in time to save American citizens Thomas and George Payne of Boston and others from injury. He returned to Barcelona to find vice-consul Stirling had neglected to follow instructions and had even allowed Willis’s clerk William B. Bowen, who was suspected of colluding with Mumford, to have unsupervised access to Willis’s books, allowing Bowen to create the appearance of Willis’s being in debt to Murray & Mumford of New York. Mumford, knowing he could not support the claim, had left Barcelona. Willis had proof Mumford was involved in “the vilanous Act of Embroiling” his books. Mumford took advantage of Willis’s friendship to conspire with Bowen and persuade Stirling, who was also Willis’s cashier, to release large sums of money to Mumford. Bowen went to Marseilles with Mumford and falsely swore that Willis owed Murray & Mumford over $22,000. Murray & Mumford had attached much of his property on that basis. “These were Acts of vilany which no foresight could guard Against.” Willis included a copy of a 23 Jan. 1801 order (1 p.), for payment to him of 375 livres from Mumford.