RC (DLC); at foot of text: “The President of the U. States.”; endorsed by TJ as received from the State Department at Orange on 16 Sep. and “guards for N.Y.” and so recorded in SJL.

I HAD BEEN APPRISED: Daniel Brent had sent Madison, on 7 Sep., a copy of Edward Livingston’s letter to Dearborn of 1 Sep. (Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser description begins William T. Hutchinson, Robert A. Rutland, J. C. A. Stagg, and others, eds., The Papers of James Madison, Chicago and Charlottesville, 1962–, 33 vols. Sec. of State Ser., 1986–, 9 vols.; Pres. Ser., 1984–, 6 vols.; Ret. Ser., 2009–, 1 vol. description ends ., 3:556).

AND ALSO FROM HIMSELF: the communication from Louis André Pichon has not been found. Brent’s letter of 7 Sep. informed Madison that “Mr Pichon intends, if he can effect it, to send the Ships and Negroes to France.” Pichon wrote to Madison from Frankfort, Pennsylvania, on 25 Sep., after his visit to New York. He assured Madison that the “prisonniers de couleur” would be transported to France. The French chargé instructed Louis Arcambal to collect information about any of the involuntary émigrés who escaped before the ships left the harbor (Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser. description begins William T. Hutchinson, Robert A. Rutland, J. C. A. Stagg, and others, eds., The Papers of James Madison, Chicago and Charlottesville, 1962–, 33 vols. Sec. of State Ser., 1986–, 9 vols.; Pres. Ser., 1984–, 6 vols.; Ret. Ser., 2009–, 1 vol. description ends , 3:555, 598–9).

WE PROPOSE TO BE WITH YOU: the Madisons, Thorntons, and Mrs. Ann Brodeau departed from Montpelier on the morning of 18 Sep. for a week-long stay at Monticello. Accompanied for 12 miles along the way by Bishop James Madison and his son, they arrived after dark because of bad roads and warm weather. According to Anna Maria Thorn ton’s diary, an approaching storm and the dangerous terrain prompted all of the party except for Mrs. Brodeau to walk the final three-quarters of a mile, with lightning illuminating their way and a violent thunderstorm commencing shortly after their arrival. Mrs. Thornton recorded her expectation of seeing Monticello as an “unfinished house” and her first impressions of “being much struck with the uncommon appearance & which the general gloom that prevailed contributed much to increase.” She described a place that had been “so frequently pulled down and rebuilt, that in many parts without sides it looks like a house going to decay” from the time it was built. Monticello had “a whimsical and a droll appearance” and she concluded there was “something grand and awful in the situation but far from convenient or in my opinion agreeable—it is a place you wou’d rather look at now and then than live at” (MS in DLC: Anna Maria Brodeau Thornton Papers; Irving Brant, James Madison: Secretary of State 1800–1809 [Indianapolis, 1953], 44).