To James Madison from Edmund Pendleton, 25 November 1782
From Edmund Pendleton
Tr (LC: Force Transcripts). Addressed to “Hon. Mr Madison.” At the top of the left margin of the first page of the transcription, the copyist wrote “MSS. [M]cGuires.” See , I, xxii, xxiii.
Virginia, Nov 25th 1782
Dear Sir
I have yr favr of the 12th & am very sorry you did not discover the forgery in the note sent, before you had purchased the Lace,1 that you might not have incurr’d the advance, a circumstance I wish’d by all means to avoid, & am the more concern’d at, as I don’t know how I can hand you the money, until one of yr Colleagues shall set out for Philada., and that I may not be acquainted with & so miss the opportunity; I can only promise to embrace the first that offers,2 and that I will not make a future request of the sort. The Lace pleased my friend3 well & you have his & my thanks for your trouble in procuring it.
The Impeachment of the Governor, talked of the first of the Session, at Richmond, died away, & he is reelected without opposition;4 young Mr Marshall is elected a Counsellor in the room of Mr Bannister who resigned: he is clever, but I think too young for that department, which he should rather have earned as a retirement & reward by 10 or 12 years hard service in the Assembly.5
I am told they are adopting an Oeconomical System. The War Office, Quarter Master &c. which at the expense of about £12,000 a year, have had the direction during this of about 120 State Troops, are to be laid aside, and that business thrown upon the Governor & Council.6 2 Auditors to be cashier’d, & that board reduced to one. and one Judge to constitute the Court of Admiralty instead of 3.7 Thus far I am told is resolved, but whether these may live thro’ their forms of proceeding, or how much further they may carry the reform, I know not; nor do I hear what is to become of the Bank scheme intended to be brought forth.8
I am told Colo Baylor is just come here from Green’s camp & says Charles Town was not evacuated when he left the Camp, so that I suppose the counter Orders had reached the Garrison in time & they mean to hold it yet a little longer.9
We have a strange story circulating here & said to come from some sailors, that Gibralter is taken, but that in a Naval conflict between Ld How & the Combined Fleets of our friends, the latter had lost 11 ships & the former three; there is nothing in the manner of its coming to me that even Squints at Authenticity.10 You have probably by this time something decisive on these Subjects—events wch may determine Peace or War; may it produce the latter.11
If Sir Guy Carleton did not consult his Master’s pleasure or the emoluments of office, more than his own Honour, he would disdain to continue a moment in a department in which he has been so degraded as to be authorized to communicate that as done, which now appears not to have been intended, and which must render his future correspondence wth Us awkward & unworthy of the least regard; but such is the consequence of banishing moral Rectitude from Courts, & adopting finesse & Intrigue, other words for lying & deceit, in its stead.12
I find I am moralizing, which they say is but a step from growing dul and therefore will only add my complts to Mr Jones & his Lady & that I am wth unfeign’d regard,
Dr Sir Yr very Affe friend
Edmd Pendleton
I have this moment reced Mc Fingal from you & The Case of the Episcopal Church from Mr Jones—thrice thanks to both.13
1. Pendleton almost certainly was not referring to JM’s but to Joseph Jones’s letter of 12 November enclosing the lace and the forged note. See Pendleton to JM, 19 August, and n. 11; JM to Randolph, 12 November 1782 (first letter), and n. 7.
2. Unless Pendleton found an earlier “opportunity,” JM may not have been reimbursed for the lace until Theodorick Bland reached Philadelphia about 22 January 1783 (JM to Randolph, 19 November 1782, n. 22).
3. Unidentified.
4. See Pendleton to JM, 8 November; Randolph to JM, 8 November 1782, and n. 3.
5. For John Banister see Randolph to JM, 8 November 1782, and n. 10. Captain John Marshall (1755–1835) was admitted to the bar of Virginia on 28 August 1780, retired from the continental army on 12 February 1781, attended as a delegate from Fauquier County on 9 November 1782, when the October session of the General Assembly first had a quorum, and was elected nine days later to the Council of State. He then was only twenty-seven years of age. Beveridge attributes the selection of Marshall for this high office to his unusual ability to make friends, and the influence of his father, Colonel Thomas Marshall, and of his prospective father-in-law, Jacquelin Ambler. Mary Ambler and John Marshall were married on 3 January 1783 (, October 1782, pp. 10, 27; Albert J. Beveridge, The Life of John Marshall [4 vols.; Boston, 1916–19], I, 143, n. 1, 161, 165, 209, and n. 1). Pendleton probably failed to recall that JM at the age of 26 and without a decade of “hard service in the Assembly” had been elected to the Virginia Council of State (, I, 3, 216).
6. Under authority of the statute of 8 July 1780 establishing the war office, as amended on 23 June 1781 (, X, 291–92, 426–29; , May 1780, p. 79; May 1781, p. 32), the executive had already abolished the commissary department and discharged some of the personnel, while reducing the pay of others, of the quartermaster and hospital departments (, III, 130, 161; , III, 354; Randolph to JM, 26 October 1782, n. 6).
In a letter of 19 November to the General Assembly, Governor Harrison remarked, “Every plan of prudent Oeconomy (where the Executive have the direction) that I can think of has been adopted” (, III, 381). Three days earlier, the House of Delegates had appointed a committee to draft a bill for abolishing the office of commissioner of war and adding his duties to those of the executive. Although the resulting measure was not enacted into law until 24 December, Colonel William Davies, the commissioner, had resigned nearly three weeks before (Calendar of Virginia State papers, III, 393; , October 1782, pp. 21, 27, 79; , XI, 133–34). By the time the act was passed the assumption of so much extra work by the executive had obliged the Governor in Council to appoint a third clerk and to reestablish the office of the commissary of military stores. As Harrison reminded the legislature on 20 December 1782, “The human Mind and body require relaxation and exercise, very little of which have hitherto fallen to my share and I can expect none in future” (, III, 409; , III, 194, 197).
7. See Randolph to JM, 16 November, and n. 9; 22 November 1782, and n. 8.
8. See Randolph to JM, 16 November, and nn. 10, 11; 22 November 1782, and n. 9.
9. Colonel George Baylor (1752–1784) of Caroline County, whose regiment of 3d Continental Dragoons had been merged with the 1st Continental Dragoons on 9 November 1782. Baylor’s official purpose in returning to Virginia was to assemble recruits and horses for his command (, III, 390, 417; , III, 147). From 15 August 1775 to 9 January 1777 he had been one of Washington’s aides-de-camp. In recognition of his conspicuous bravery, Congress on 1 January 1777 promoted him to the rank of colonel, resolved to present him with a horse “properly … caparisoned,” and recommended to Washington that he be placed in command of a regiment of light horse (, VII, 7).
During the night of 27–28 September 1778, at Old Tappan, N.Y., the British caught Baylor’s troopers off guard, killed many of them, severely wounded him, and made him a prisoner (, XII, 1062; Douglas S. Freeman, George Washington, V, 77, and n. 184). Soon after his exchange, he was assigned to a cavalry command in the southern department and served there until the end of the war. On 30 September 1783 Congress promoted him to the brevet rank of brigadier general (, XXV, 633). See also T. E. Campbell, Colonial Caroline, pp. 275, 290. For the alleged “counter Orders” and the British evacuation of Charleston, S.C., see JM to Pendleton, 15 October, n. 11; Virginia Delegates to Harrison, 29 October 1782, and n. 6.
10. For the lack of truth in the “strange story,” see JM to Pendleton, 15 October 1782, n. 10.
11. Either Pendleton meant to write “former” rather than “latter,” or he or the copyist omitted writing “not” between “it” and “produce.”
12. See JM to Pendleton, 15 October, and nn. 1, 6; 29 October; Virginia Delegates to Harrison, 29 October 1782, and n. 3.
13. See JM to Randolph, 10 November 1782, and n. 2. David C. Claypoole, the editor of the Pennsylvania Packet, advertised in the issue of 16 November 1782 that the anonymous pamphlet, “The Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered” was “Just Published” and for sale at his office on Market Street, Philadelphia. The author, the Reverend William White, D.D. (1748–1836), later became the bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania. Edited by Richard G. Salomon, the pamphlet was reprinted in 1954 in Philadelphia by the Church History Society.