To James Madison from David Montagu Erskine, 2 November 1806
From David Montagu Erskine
Union Tavern Washington Novbr. 2. 1806.
Sir
I have the Honor to inform you of my arrival in the City last night, having been appointed by His Britannic Majesty to succeed Mr. Merry as Envoy Extraordinary & Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States.
I take the liberty to request to be informed of what time I may have the Honor to present to you the Copy of my Credentials, & to have an audience of the President.1 With the highest respect I am Sir Your most Obedt humble. Servt.
DM Erskine2
RC (DNA: RG 59, NFL, Great Britain, vol. 4). Docketed by Wagner as received “s. d.”
1. JM received Erskine on Monday, 3 November, and presented him to Thomas Jefferson (National Intelligencer, 5 Nov. 1806).
2. David Montagu Erskine, second Baron Erskine (1776–1855), attended the Charterhouse School, Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge. During a 1799 stay in the United States, he married Frances Cadwallader. He represented Portsmouth as a member of Parliament beginning on 19 February 1806 and was appointed minister plenipotentiary to the United States the following July. British foreign secretary George Canning recalled Erskine in 1809 after he contravened his instructions in negotiating an agreement with the U.S. government to rescind orders-in-council and reestablish trade with the United States (PJM-PS, 2:9). Erskine received an appointment as minister plenipotentiary to Stuttgart in 1824 and took an appointment to the Munich legation in 1828. Shortly after the death of his first wife and remarriage to Anne Bond in 1843, he retired from public service. Anne died in 1851, and he married Anna Graham the next year. Erskine died at Butler’s Green, Sussex, on 19 March 1855.