1. Here JM inserted an asterisk, and below the last line of Colvin’s note wrote: “*No. 9. vol. 3. Vol. 1. for 1817.” Colvin enclosed an offprint of the Washington National Register, a publication that had commenced in March 1816 under the direction of Joel K. Mead. The ninth number opened with an essay, dated 1 Mar. 1817, entitled “Retirement of President Madison,” a six-page assessment of JM’s management of the executive branch after 1809. The account, probably written by Colvin himself, was by no means an unqualified catalog of praise. Although the author paid tribute to JM’s enlightened mind and political virtues, he was quite critical of the ways in which the president had followed the advice of Albert Gallatin in the Treasury department. That JM had “erred” in several respects was “not to be doubted; but his errors have not greatly, and but temporarily, affected the general interests of the nation.” The author concluded that JM’s tombstone might well record that he was “a man of abilities” who was “as honest a statesman as the sordid claims of importunate friendships and the knavery of demagogues would permit him to be.” This tempered assessment may have owed much to the circumstances surrounding Colvin’s role in the dismissal of Robert Smith from the State Department by JM in 1811 (PJM-PS description begins Robert A. Rutland et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series (10 vols. to date; Charlottesville, Va., 1984–). description ends 3:405–8 and 408–9 nn. 3–9).