1. The enclosures were 1) a 20 May 1806 letter from Capt. James B. Many to James Wilkinson (4 pp.), reporting that on a recent expedition to Prairie du Chien, he had succeeded in identifying a fort site at the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers and in ransoming two Osage boys from their captors but had encountered hostility from Indians under the influence of the North West Company; and 2) a summary (3 pp.), enclosed in Many’s letter, of an Indian council on the upper Mississippi, discussing communications from the North West Company that accused the U.S. government of promoting warfare between tribes, reported British officials’ refusal to do so, promised military aid from the British government and the North West Company if necessary, and declared “that all the Nations with whom the Americans had had intercourse, had uniformly suffered so much from sickness and disease, that they were becoming extinct, and that they felt themselves much vexed that they … should be subject to such a father as their American father has proved to be; and that if he should attempt or wish to do them ill, that they … would be justified in retaliating.” The summary was signed by Louis Grignon on 7 May 1806, before Prairie du Chien justice of the peace Harry Munro Fisher.

2. PJM-SS description begins Robert J. Brugger et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison: Secretary of State Series (12 vols. to date; Charlottesville, Va., 1986–). description ends 11:625–26.