I have recd. your letter of the 13th. requesting the loan of a Likness taken of me by (Stuart) and it would be agreable to me to follow the example of those who have complied with your wishes. But there is a serious obstacle in the aversion of Mrs Madison to whom the Portrait belongs, to trust it to a shift of hands, and an alternate conveyance by Land & by Water: and there is no known or probable opportunity by a single & safe hand going from this quarter direct to New York.

Her reluctance to expose the article to hazard, is the greater as this was experienced in a former case, and led to refusals to lend it in other cases. With friendly respects