Motion on Stodder, Kerr, and North, [26 March] 1781

Motion on Stodder, Kerr, and North

Printed text (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XIX, 312). The bracketed names are in the JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends .

[26 March 1781]

A letter, of 22 February, from the governor of Virginia, was read, with a memorial enclosed from Messrs. Stodder, Kerr and North;1 Whereupon,

On motion of Mr. [James] Madison, seconded by Mr. M[eriwether] Smith,

Ordered, That authenticated copies of the said memorial, protests and affidavits, be transmitted to the hon. John Adams, and that he be instructed to represent the case to which they relate to their High Mightinesses the States General of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and to claim such redress for the memorialists as justice and the law of nations require.2

1. See Papers of Madison description begins William T. Hutchinson, William M. E. Rachal, et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison (2 vols. to date; Chicago, 1962——). description ends , II, 317–18.

2. No mention of this matter has been found in the published correspondence of Congress and John Adams and his secretary, Francis Dana, in Amsterdam, up to 1 July 1781. Adams’ comment about his own correspondence may also suggest the fate of the congressional order. “I am very sorry,” he wrote to the president of Congress on 15 October 1781, “to learn that Congress have received no letters from me from October [1780] to June.… Two vessels which sailed from hence [Amsterdam] for Boston, each of which had despatches from me for Congress, destroyed them; one upon being taken, and the other upon being chased. But most of my despatches were lost at St. Eustatia, I fear” (Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence description begins Francis Wharton, ed., The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (6 vols.; Washington, 1889). description ends , IV, 779).

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Source Project: Madison Papers
Title: Motion on Stodder, Kerr, and North, [26 March] 1781
Author: Continental Congress
Date: 26 March 1781

Reference

Cite as: “Motion on Stodder, Kerr, and North, [26 March] 1781,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-03-02-0012. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, vol. 3, 3 March 1781 – 31 December 1781, ed. William T. Hutchinson and William M. E. Rachal. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963, p. 31.]