James Madison Papers

To James Madison from Tench Coxe, 13 January 1791

From Tench Coxe

13th. Jany. 1791.

Mr. Coxe has the honor to request a few Minutes conversation with Mr. Madison this Evening at 7 or ½ after 7 OClock on the subject of the Enquiries he made at the Treasury. If agreeable he will call on Mr. M. at his lodgings for that purpose, unless he shall be informed by a Note directed to him at the Treasury, before three OClock that it will not be convenient then. In that Case he wishes Mr. M. to favor him with another appointment, that will suit his own convenience.

Mr. Coxe wishes, if Mr. Boudinot be in Congress, that Mr. Madison would ask him for two papers relative to Navigation, wch. Mr. C. gave him, & he now encloses a third.1 He would wish Mr. M. to have read them before he has the pleasure to see him.

RC (DLC). For enclosure, see n. 1.

1One of the papers on navigation was doubtless “Thoughts on the Navigation of the United States,” which Coxe prepared at the request of Elias Boudinot, chairman of a committee appointed to draft a navigation bill. After this business was transferred to the secretary of state in March 1791, Coxe sent Jefferson a copy (printed in Boyd, Papers of Jefferson description begins Julian P. Boyd et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (19 vols. to date; Princeton, 1950—). description ends , XIX, 411–16; see also Cooke, Tench Coxe, pp. 225–27). Another of the papers alluded to in this note may have been one stating thirteen “facts [that] are to be relied on,” which Coxe also transmitted to Jefferson (printed in Boyd, Papers of Jefferson description begins Julian P. Boyd et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (19 vols. to date; Princeton, 1950—). description ends , XIX, 235). JM copied extracts from these two papers, which he titled “Notes on Exports and Navigation” and dated January 1791 (DLC). A third memorandum on navigation written by Coxe, perhaps the one enclosed, was an analysis of U.S. tonnage statistics (DLC). This memorandum is printed in Boyd, Papers of Jefferson description begins Julian P. Boyd et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (19 vols. to date; Princeton, 1950—). description ends , XIX, 234–35.

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