James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, 9 August 1805
From James Madison
Philada. Aug. 9. 1805.
Dear Sir
I select the enclosed papers relating the ship N. Jersey from a mass of which this is but a certain portion. They will enable you to decide on the question to which alone the case is reduced. This is whether in the claims under the French Convention Insurers stand in the shoes of the insured. The printed memoire by DuPont (de Nemours) deserves to be read as a Chef d’oeuvre of the kind. Whatever the merits of the question in the abstract may be, I should suppose that in relation to the present case it must have been decided by the decisions in many preceding ones, a great proportion of the claims, probably the greater part, having been in the hands of Insurers. It is surmised that Swann in connection with a Corrupt member of the Council of liquidation has created the difficulty in order to secure his own claims out of a fund that might not be equal to the aggregate of claims. It is more easy to suppose this than to account for the opinion of Armstrong as stated by DuPont, which if just ought to have been applied to all claims of the like sort, and whether just or not, can scarcely be proper in its application to one, as an exception to similar claims. I understand from the parties interested that in fact a considerable part of the indemnication in the case of the N. Jersey is due & claimed not by Insurers, but by the owners themselves in their own right. And they are very urgent that something should pass from the Executive which may possibly be in time to save them from the erroneous interposition of the agent of the U. States. I have explained to them the principles on which the Ex. has proceeded, and the little chance there is that the whole business1 will not have been closed before any communication can reach Genl. Armstrong. I have suggested also the repugnance to any communication previous to intelligence from himself on the subject. In reply they urge considerations which are as obvious as they are plausible. I shall do nothing in the case till I receive your sentiments. If these do not forbid, I shall transmit the case to Armstrong in a form which will merely glance at the point on which it is understood to turn, and will imply our confidence that he will do what is right on it.
I find by a postcript from Cadiz of June 28. that Bowdoin had arrived at Santander. The time is not mentioned.
The wine &c. carried into Halifax, was sent by Govr. Wentworth with polite intentions, by a vessel going to N.Y. which had no occasion to enter on her own own acct. The consequence has been that she was entered on ours, and the foreign tonnage advanced, amounting to $168. including Majr. Butlers share. The duties & other charges will add not less than $50 more. This being a debt of honor admits of no hesitation. I shall pay your part, and if necessary write to Barnes to replace it. The articles are to go round to Washington.
Mrs. M. is in a course of recovery, according to appearances, & the opinion of Docr. Physic. Unfortunately an essential part of the remedy, the Splinter & bandage, must it seems be continued till the cure is compleated. I fear therefore that our detention here will be protracted several weeks at least.
The drouth here is intense. The pastures have entirely failed, so as to drive the graziers to the Hay Stacks; and the evil is doubled by the failure of the 2d. Crops of Hay.
Yrs. respectfully & faithfully
James Madison
RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 15 Aug. and “Insurers. Bowdoin” and so recorded in SJL. Enclosures: (1) Memorial of Philip Nicklin and Robert Eaglesfield Griffith, Philadelphia, 25 July, stating that they are part owners of the cargo of the ship New Jersey, which was captured by a French privateer on its return voyage from Canton, China, in 1798 and taken to Puerto Rico as a prize; the various owners and insurance underwriters of the vessel and its cargo employed Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours and Joseph E. G. M. De la Grange as agents; when the French council for the liquidation of claims under the Convention of 1800 asked John Armstrong for information, he first stated erroneously that the ship and cargo were at least partially British-owned; he corrected that statement, but has “retained the extraordinary idea that indemnity for Maritime spoliation, was not due to American Underwriters who had paid a loss to the original American owner,” and this opinion from him has put a stop to recovery of the loss; Nicklin and Griffith protest this “unauthorized, mistaken, and injurious, interposition of the Minister of the United States” and declare that “Because for the voluntary act of a public Minister which involves his fellow Citizens in a heavy loss, his own fortune and the faith of Government must furnish an ultimate indemnity” (, 10:133-8). (2) Louis Marie Turreau to Madison, 4 Aug., stating that he has received a complaint that Captain Drummond of the ship Fox of Boston had left Martinique without paying customs duties; he encloses a 27 May letter from Pierre Clément de Laussat, now the prefect at Martinique, to France’s commissary of commercial relations at Boston, Marc Antoine Alexis Giraud, asking him to inform the local officials of this matter (, 10:167-8; see TJ to Madison, 17 Aug.).
printed memoire by DuPont: probably the “Protest Entered by Messrs. Dupont de Nemours, and La Grange, against the Conduct of General Armstrong” (Memorial of the Owners and Underwriters of the American Ship, the New Jersey [Philadelphia, 1806], [45]-56; see also , 10:136).
It is surmised: American merchant James Swan had made a number of claims that had been rejected by the American commissioners (same, 7:165-7; 8:321n).
On 30 June, Anthony Merry informed Madison that Nova Scotia governor John Wentworth had worked with the admiralty court at Halifax to free TJ’s, Madison’s, and Pierce Butler’s detained shipments of wine (same, 10:228).
The drouth here: on 5 Aug., the Trenton Federalist reported that the “pasture lands and English meadow, and some of the most luxuriant natural meadows, are burnt up to that degree by the rays of the sun, as to present to the eye nothing but a melancholy scene of decayed vegetation,” which required some farmers to supply their animals with hay.
1. Preceding two words interlined in place of “affair.”