James Martin (ca. 1753–1831), attorney, was born in Boston, the son of Anne Gordon Martin, a Massachusetts woman from a prominent mercantile family, and William Martin, a British artillery officer who remained loyal to the Crown during the American Revolution. He received his legal education in England, was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1773, left the colony soon thereafter, and spent much of the next two decades in the West Indies. Martin returned to America in 1791 and began the lengthy but ultimately successful process of reclaiming his parents’ property in Massachusetts, which had been confiscated during the Revolutionary War. After joining the New York bar in 1792 and briefly working in Aaron Burr’s law office, Martin acquired an estate in Jamaica, Long Island. He lived on Long Island thereafter except for a stint from 1813–15 at the Treasury Department reviewing forfeiture cases for Albert Gallatin (PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 34 vols. description ends , 29:156–7; Maeva Marcus and others, eds., The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789–1800 [1985–2007], 6:199–211; Linda K. Kerber, “The Paradox of Women’s Citizenship in the Early Republic: The Case of Martin vs. Massachusetts, 1805,” American Historical Review 97 [1992]: 349–78, esp. 349, 362, 372; DNA: RG 29, CS, N.Y., Queens Co., 1800, 1820, 1830; Martin to Gallatin, 12 Sept. 1815 [NHi: Gallatin Papers]; New-York Spectator, 20 Dec. 1831).

On the verso of the address leaf of the RC, Martin quoted as follows from his 4 July 1796 oration spoken at jamaica long island, a speech he had previously enclosed in full to TJ on 20 July 1796 and which TJ had deposited in his library (Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends no. 3179): “The people of England suffered their parliament 80 years ago to prolong their own Existence from three years to Seven—with that Act commenced the Æra of their destruction—A Seven Years Legislator became an object worth corrupting and we are too well accquainted with their History not to see how their Government has availed itself of the infirmity—A Similar disease grows with our Growth and must Subdue at Length—At least the poetry looks prophetic—Supreme Laws of the Land can be made by twenty people some of whom are Legislators for Six Years!—It is the duty of those whose profession, as has been well said, teaches them to Snuff the Approach of Tyranny in every tainted Breeze to suggest such things to you and it is your Duty to consider them Happy people! that can say quietly We the people having conferred an Authority by mistake or which has been abused by design think proper to revoke it &c &c.” The phrase on sensing “the Approach of Tyranny in every tainted Breeze” came from Edmund Burke’s famous 22 Mar. 1775 parliamentary speech on conciliation with the American colonies.

Martin disapproved of the six-year terms to which United States senators were elected and had a theoretic dread of the constitutional right of the United States president and Senate to create binding law without the approval of the House of Representatives by making treaties with foreign powers. The enclosed letter to quincy, presumably addressed to the prominent Massachusetts Federalist Josiah Quincy, has not been found. The acting secretary of the treasury was William Jones (DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ).