To James Madison from William Keais, 23 April 1804 (Abstract)
§ From William Keais1
23 April 1804, Collector’s Office. “Inclosed is the Deposition of Capt. Eldridge2who arrived at this Port from Jamaica on the 12th. instant, this is the only one that has been taken here since the commencement of Hostilities; as there has not any thing else happened to the commerce of this place worth taking notice.”
RC and enclosure (DNA: RG 76, Preliminary Inventory 177, entry 143, France, Unbound Records Relating to Spoliation Claims, ca. 1885, box 20, folder “Schooner Hannah, Captain Eldridge”). RC 1 p.; docketed by Wagner. For enclosure, see n. 2.
1. William Keais was collector of the port of Washington, North Carolina (, Miscellaneous, 1:276).
2. The enclosure (2 pp.), dated 23 Apr. 1804, is a deposition made by Josiah Eldridge, master of the schooner Hannah, to the effect that on his voyage to Jamaica he had been robbed of cash, clothes, and provisions by a French privateer and that on the return trip he had been stopped by another French privateer and robbed of about seventy gallons of rum.