31From James Madison to Joseph Jones, 12 December 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). The cover sheet bears the penciled note, “returned by Mr. M.” JM probably added this many years later, after retrieving this letter, among others, from Jones’s nephew, James Monroe. Agreeably to your favor of the 2d. instt. which came to hand yesterday I shall send this to Fredericksbg. I am sorry that either your own health or that of your lady should oblige you to...
32From James Madison to Joseph Jones, 19 December 1780 (Madison Papers)
Printed text ( Madison, Papers [Gilpin ed.] Henry D. Gilpin, ed., The Papers of James Madison (3 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1840). , I, 76–77). The manuscript is now lost. Besides the text below, JM probably added the news about the army mentioned in his letter of the same date to Edmund Pendleton ( q.v. ). Yours of the eighth instant came to hand yesterday. I was sorry to find the Assembly had...
33From James Madison to Joseph Jones, 14 November 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). I am glad to find by your favor of the 5th. inst: recd. yesterday that your health & that of your family have admitted of your going to Richmond. The tardiness of other members is very unfortunate and inexcusable at the present critical moment. I wish when they do meet the vigor & wisdom of their measures may make amends for it. I do not learn that any of the States...
34From James Madison to Joseph Jones, [10 October] 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). I received yesterday yours of the 2d. inst: Some of the questions mentioned in it I anticipated in my last. The clause of the resolutions you left on the table relating to Indian purchases is still undetermined. Many attempts have been made to bring the Vermont dispute to an issue, but the diversity of opinions that prevail on one side & the dilatory artifices...
35From James Madison to Joseph Jones, 17 October 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). The Post having failed to arrive this week, I am deprived of the pleasure of acknowledging a line from you. Congress have at length been brought to a final consideration of the clause relating to Indian purchases. It was debated very fully and particularly, and was in the result lost by a division of the house. Under the first impression of the chagrin I had...
36From James Madison to Joseph Jones, 25 November 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). Probably at the time that JM recovered this letter from Jones’s nephew, James Monroe ( JM to Jones, 19 September 1780 , headnote), he wrote on the last page, parallel to its right hand margin, “Georgia & S. C.—uti possidetis.” On 8 January 1822 JM sent a copy of the letter, together with copies of other letters relating to the same issue, to Hezekiah Niles, who...
37From James Madison to Joseph Jones, [24] October 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). JM neglected to include the day of the month in the date line of this letter. The first paragraph, however, makes it almost certain that he was writing on 24 October. Many years later he or a member of his family bracketed the second, fourth, and fifth paragraphs with a view to their publication. Your favor of the 9th. which ought to have come on Monday last did not...
38From James Madison to Joseph Jones, 5 December 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). I had yours of the 25th. Ulto. by yesterdays post. I congratulate you, on the deliverance of our Country from the distresses of actual invasion. If any unusual forbearance has been shewn by the British Commanders, it has proceeded rather I presume from a possibility that they may some time or other in the course of the war repossess what they have now abandoned than...
39From James Madison to Joseph Jones, 19 September 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). Wishing to recover his letters to Jones, JM wrote for them on 21 October 1817 to James Monroe , the nephew of Jones and custodian of his papers. Monroe returned eleven, all dated in 1780. Of these, the one given below is the earliest. JM, or some other person at an undetermined time, bracketed portions of these letters for publication. The last two paragraphs of this...
40From James Madison to Joseph Jones, 21 November 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). Your favor of the 10th. came by yesterday’s post. I am glad to find you have at last got a house [of Delegates] and have made so auspicious a beginning, as a unanimous vote to fill up our line for the war. This is a measure which all the States ought to have begun with. I wish there may not be some that will not be prevailed on even to end with it. It is much to be...
41From James Madison to Joseph Jones, 28 November 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). Yrs. of the 18th. came yesterday. I am glad to find the legislature persist in their resolution to recruit their line of the army for the war, though without deciding on the expediency of the mode under their consideration, would it not be as well to liberate and make soldiers at once of the blacks themselves as to make them instruments for enlisting white Soldiers?...
42Board of Admiralty to John Langdon, 14 April 1780 (Madison Papers)
FC ( NA : PCC , Marine Committee Letter Book, fol. 279). We have been favoured with your letters of the 5th and 18th Ulto., wherein you inform us that unless you are supplied with Money either from the Navy Board or Admiralty, it will not be in your power to Ship the Masts &c for Martinico. We are sorry to say that such is still the low state of the Treasury; that it will be impossible for us...
43Virginia Delegates in Congress to William Livingston, 21 December 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC (New York Public Library). The text of this letter is in Madison’s hand. The letter and its address sheet have become separated—the former is in the Emmet Collection and the latter among the papers of William Livingston. We received this morning a letter subscribed by Peter Thornton informing us that he is the son of a gentleman in Virginia, that he lately made his escape from N. York and...
44To James Madison from Philip Mazzei, [7 December] 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). Water stains have entirely eliminated the last four lines of this letter and largely blotted out what appears to have been the first eight lines. [Questa serv?]irà di supp[lemento alla pr?]ecedente d[el 30 del passato?] unicamente [un’aneddoto che potrebbe causare una revoluzione?] della Regina [d’Ungheria] della guerra [al me questo?] ultimo [L’Imperatore è tutto...
45To James Madison from Joseph Jones, 19 September 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). I must Request you will so far oblige me as to enclose me every week Dunlaps paper or either of the others containing any thing worth reading. Mr. Dunlap told me he would furnish you with the papers for me. I must also request you to send me the monthly Jou[r]nals as soon as printed and such information of the proceedings from time to time as you may think necessary....
46To James Madison from Edmund Pendleton, 6 November 1780 (Madison Papers)
Tr ( LC : Force Transcripts). My friend Mr Griffin left me this Morning by whom I sent you my best Wishes for yr health which he told me was low. I hope the Approaching Cold Season may brace up yr Nerves. I judged from yr Account of the number of the Enemy embarked from New York, that they were in pursuit of something to eat; we now hear they have pick’d up a quantum suffici[en]t to load their...
47To James Madison from Edmund Pendleton, 13 November 1780 (Madison Papers)
Tr ( LC : Force Transcripts). I have yr favr of the 31st past & am pleased to hear the former Account of the Arrival of the Cork fleet proved premature, since we are so bad Christians as to be gratified with the distress of our Enemies. It was probably the transports with their new levies which were mis taken for the others. The Enemy here have collected a handsome recruit of Provisions, but...
48To James Madison from Edmund Pendleton, 25 September 1780 (Madison Papers)
Tr ( LC : Force Transcripts). I am made very happy by yr obliging favr of the 12th promising to indulge me in the desireable correspondence; since I requested it I have been informed you have ill health, I cordially wish its speedy restitution, but intreat you’l not Injure it by devoting to me too much of that small portion of time which health as well as vigor of mind requires should be...
49To James Madison from Joseph Jones, 2 October 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). I thank you for your favour of the 19th. ult. and the inclosures. It was really a mortifying circumstance to find the French Fleet converted into twelve British Ships of the line and four Frigates from which nothing can effectually relieve us but the arrival of a superior number of French Battle Ships and unless these come I fear many of our people not only here but...
50To James Madison from David Jameson, 26 July 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Rives Collection of Madison Papers). In my last I inclosed you the Journals so far as they were printed, and some other papers, since that I have recd. your favour of the 11th., and now agreable to your request inclose you the papers last published at our printing offices. it will be very agreable to me to continue this weekly Although our Capes & Bay are infested with privateers...
51To James Madison from Reverend James Madison, 3 August 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). I recd. your last of ye 18th. July, as well as ye preceeding, enclosing ye European Intelligence. I hope at last ye Blessings of peace cannot be far from us. If Russia adheres to her Memorial, and ye. Dutch have not lost their antient spirit, if ye Irish too proceed in their reasonable & just Demands, wh. I have no Doubt they will, because they are reasonable & just,...
52To James Madison from Edmund Pendleton, 20 November 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC (University of Virginia Library). This is apparently the only one of the many letters written by which still exists in original manuscript form ( Pendleton to JM, 27 August 1780 , headnote). How it alone survived is problematical. Perhaps the neatly printed “To James Madison Nov: 20th: 1780.” near its bottom margin was added by an autograph collector to whom JM gave the letter. The letter...
53To James Madison from Edmund Pendleton, 8 October 1780 (Madison Papers)
Tr ( LC : Force Transcripts). I have yr obliging favr of the 26th past, I know not when my first letter, after you kindly accepted my proposed correspondence, should have reached you, but be assured I have not miss’d a week since, nor shall I unless sickness prevents me, being a very Punctual tho’ not an entertaining correspondent; at this time I have not a word of foreign or domestic...
54To James Madison from David Jameson, 16 August 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Rives Collection of Madison Papers). I wrote to you the 12t. or 13t. by a private hand, since which I am favoured with yours of the 1st. I acquainted you with the reason of my silence for sometime past and mentioned to you that the £20,000 for which I had taken out a wart. was sent by Col Bland for the Virga Delegates By a letter from the French Minister to the Govr. I find reason to...
55To James Madison from David Jameson, 18–19 November 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Rives Collection of Madison Papers). By Post this week I recd your favour of the 7th. and can offer nothing in excuse for my not enlarging on the subject of the Invasion but that I could only have said something similar to what you had from the Govr. or in Dixons paper We have had nothing worth notice from below for several days past, indeed we are not likely to know what the Enemy...
56To James Madison from David Jameson, 23 August 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Rives Collection of Madison Papers). I have to acknowledge your favour of the 8th. mentioning the reports from the West Indies. Notwithstanding our Bay is so closely watched by the Enemy’s private armed Vessels we have had some arrivals, and they give us reason to believe Jamaica is invested by the combined Fleets. If it is, I must suppose so great an Armament will find little...
57To James Madison from Joseph Jones, 24 November 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). Jones’s dating of this letter is so indistinct that it could be either the “24th” or “25th.” References in his text to specific actions taken by the legislature on particular days make certain that he was writing on the 24th, even though JM acknowledged the letter as of 25 November. I have yours of the 14th: and from my soul wish I could inform you we proceed with...
58To James Madison from Joseph Jones, 2 January 1781 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). I was not in a condition to visit Fredericksburg the last week or you should then have been informed that Mr. Braxton has taken the Warrant upon the Treasurer and agreed to give Bills payable in Philadelphia for the amount of 110,000 £. Mr. Fitzhugh was to bring them up but is not yet arrived unless he came yesterday wch. may be the case as Braxton wrote me it was...
59To James Madison from Edmund Pendleton, 27 August 1780 (Madison Papers)
Tr ( LC : Force Transcripts). Although the originals of this letter and, with few exceptions, the more than one hundred others which Pendleton wrote to JM are probably no longer extant, three partial collections (of which at least one is independent of the other two) are available. About 1890, Frederick B. McGuire of Washington, D.C., who had in his possession a considerable portion of...
60To James Madison from Philip Mazzei, 30 November 1780 (Madison Papers)
RC ( LC : Madison Papers). The cover sheet is addressed to “Honble: James [Mad]ison Esqre. Member of C[o]ngress from Virginia.” Below the address are several unintelligible words and also “Nantes March 20. 1781 Received & forwarded by Sir Your very obt sr[?]. Jona. Williams Jr.” Along the opposite margin appears “p[er] the Luzerne Capt Bell. for Philadelphia Q [?]. D. C.” Captain Thomas Bell...