To James Madison from James Robertson, 22 May 1804 (Abstract)
§ From James Robertson
22 May 1804, Antwerp. “I have the honor to send you enclosed duplicate of the Table of the Colis Fees1 which I addressed you by my last respects of the 9th Inst:2 by which I had the honor of informing you that Mr Jacob Ridgway had exhibited to me the 28th April his appointment to this Agency and that his Intention being then to enter into office, on receiving his Exequatur, I should thenceforth cease to Act in Mr. Barnet’s name.
“Mr. Ridgway having since thought proper to take Charge of the Agency without waiting for that formality I have delivered it up to him the Twelfth Instant and made an Entry thereof in the Book of Record as ⅌ Copy enclosed.3
“I beg leave to observe, Sir, that Mr Ridgway having received Instructions relative to the Agency a few Weeks before his Commission, I immediatly informed Mr. Barnet of this Circumstance and received from him the enclosed Copy of his Letter to Mr. Robt. R Livingston on the occasion,4 and of the Minister’s reply [not found], both which I have the honor to communicate to you.”
RC and enclosures (DNA: RG 59, CD, Antwerp, vol. 1). RC 2 pp. For surviving enclosures, see nn. 1, 3, and 4.
1. For the enclosed table (2 pp.; in French; docketed by Wagner as received in Robertson’s 22 May dispatch), see Robertson to JM, 10 May 1804, n. 3.
2. Robertson no doubt referred to his letter to JM of 10 May 1804.
3. The enclosed entry (1 p.; docketed by Wagner) is certified by Robertson as a true copy.
4. In his letter to Livingston, 27 Mar. 1804 (2 pp.; misfiled under March 1803), Isaac Cox Barnet noted that Ridgway’s receipt of instructions must have been “the result of inadvertency” and referred to JM’s letter to him of 30 Sept. 1803 (, 5:475).