To James Madison from John Baylor, 20 February 1790
From John Baylor
Virginia Newmarket Feb: 20th 1790
Dr Sir
I have taken the Liberty of requesting the favour of you to transact an affair of the greatest consequence to my poor Brother George’s Estate, his Acct with united States as an Officer of the 3d Regiment of Light Dragoon, is yet unsettled, a Statement of which by Capt: Barret1 one of his officers and also his Deposition respecting the Accts: are in Mr. Pearce’s2 office, or with the Commissioners at New-York appointed for the purpose of settling the military Acct. What I have to request [is] that his accts may be settled agreeable to Capt. Barret’s Deposition, and exonerated by Congress. In consequence of the accts being unsettle [d] we cannot get My Brother’s final Settlements as well as three or four Hundred Dollars due his Estate. You will confer a singular favour on me for your attention to this Business. I am Dr Sir Yrs.
John Baylor3
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM. A few words, perhaps a portion of the complimentary closing, have been trimmed from the bottom of the one-page letter.
1. William Barret (1756–1815) was born in Louisa County, married Dorothy Winston, and later moved to Kentucky ( , XX [1912], 208; , p. 89).
2. John Pierce.
3. John Baylor (1750–1808) of Newmarket, Caroline County, attended Caius College, Cambridge, and married Frances Norton (Meade, Old Churches, II, 465; , XXV [1917], 319). Since 1786 George Baylor’s executors had been trying to settle his account. John Baylor’s petition on the subject was submitted to Congress on 22 Mar. 1790, but Secretary Knox’s report on the petition was eventually tabled. The account was not finally settled until the 1830s ( , XXXI, 667 n.; , III, 337, 338, 485, 488, 515, 522, 728; Resolutions on Revolutionary Claims, pp. 73, 97, 184–85, 232–33).