James Madison Papers

From James Madison to Virginia Auditors of Public Accounts, 25 September 1780

To Virginia Auditors of Public Accounts

RC (Mrs. Henry M. Sage, Albany, N.Y., 1958).

Philadelphia Sepr. 25th. 1780

Gentlemen

The inclosed is a state of my receipts and expences from the 20 of March to the 20 of Sepr. being two complete quarters.1 I am sensible that the law directs that it should have been transmitted at the end of the first quarter, but my account of extra expences, being mixed with that of some Gentlemen of the family who were absent,2 I could not then do it with the precision I wished, and as no particular inconveniency seemed to attend it I postponed the settlement till the end of the second quarter. As I find by a resolution past the last session of Assembly that they make a point of it I shall not fail in future to conform punctually to the law.3

You will observe from the account that there is a ballance in favor of the State of 9962⅓. The contrary being the case with Mr. Jones when he left this place, I advanced him upwards of that sum which he is to replace from the Treasury. I mention this circumstance, that my being out of money may expedite a compliance with his draughts.4

I am Gentlemen with due respect Yr. obt & humble Servt.

James Madison Junr.

1. For the inclosure, see the following expense account for 20 March to 20 September 1780.

2. By “Gentlemen … absent,” JM probably meant Cyrus Griffin, who had resigned early in June (before JM’s first quarter ended on the 20th) as a Virginia delegate, and also some of JM’s fellow boarders with whom he needed to apportion certain of the incidental expenses mentioned in his account below.

3. Resolutions of the House of Delegates, 12 July 1780 (Journal of the House of Delegates description begins Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia; Begun and Held At the Capitol, in the City of Williamsburg.Beginning in 1780, the portion after the semicolon reads, Begun and Held in the Town of Richmond. In the County of Henrico. The journal for each session has its own title page and is individually paginated. The edition used, unless otherwise noted, is the one in which the journals for 1777–1781 are brought together in one volume, with each journal published in Richmond in 1827 or 1828, and often called the “Thomas W. White reprint.” description ends , May 1780, p. 84).

4. The letter from Joseph Jones to JM on 9 October 1780 (q.v.), in which this financial transaction is clarified, also indicates that JM had written Jones about 25 September, inclosing the present letter to the auditors and his appended accounts. This letter to Jones has not been found.

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    Madison Papers
    Title
    From James Madison to Virginia Auditors of Public Accounts, 25 September 1780
    Author
    Madison, James
    Recipient
    Virginia Auditors of Public Accounts
    Date
    25 September 1780

    Reference

    Cite as
    “From James Madison to Virginia Auditors of Public Accounts, 25 September 1780,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-02-02-0063. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, vol. 2, 20 March 1780 – 23 February 1781, ed. William T. Hutchinson and William M. E. Rachal. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962, pp. 96–97.]

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