To James Madison from James Shuter, 27 October 1804 (Abstract)
§ From James Shuter
27 October 1804, New York. “I have written you two letters sometime since relative to a demand on the spanish govermt. for the seizure and detention of the ship Pegasus on the coa⟨st⟩ of Peru, to which you have oblidgingly favor’d me with answers1—the owners have lately recd. advice from Madrid⟨,⟩ that the Council of the Indies have decreed restitution in this case of the whole amount deducting duties,2 and it is now our wish Sir if agreeable to you, to have your opinion, whether under present existing circumstances with Spain, it would be prudent to send a person to Madrid to attend to the further settlement of this business. I pray you to excuse my again troubling you.”
RC (DNA: RG 76, Preliminary Inventory 177, entry 322, Spain, Treaty of 1819 [Art. XI] [Spoliation], Misc. Records, ca. 1801–24, box 5, envelope 6, folder 16, ship Pegasus). 1 p.; docketed by Wagner.
1. See JM to Shuter, 21 Apr. 1804, , 7:95.
2. Capt. Otis Liscom in the Pegasus was selling his cargo along the coast of Peru when the ship was seized and condemned in 1801. At the time of seizure he had on board $31,000 in gold, $50,000 worth of tobacco, and a trunk full of watches (Eugenio Pereira Salas, Los primeros contactos entre Chile y los Estados Unidos, 1778–1809 [Santiago de Chile, 1971], 330).