From James Madison to Nathan Williams, 3 November 1806
To Nathan Williams
Washington Novr. 3. 1806
Sir
Your favor of Sepr. 5. was received during my recess in Virginia;1 and having been communicated to the President, & taken a circuit in getting back, could not be conveniently acknowledged, till my return to this place; since which it has been displaced from my attention by a crowd of other objects, and an indisposition from which I am yet not compleatly recovered. I now beg you to accept my thanks; and to be assured that I do justice to the motives which prompted the communication. Let me add that any further particulars which may throw light on the subject can not fail to be received as a further proof of your solicitude for the public welfare; and that due attention will be paid to any limits you may think fit to prescribe as to the use to be made of them. I remain Sir very respectfully Yr. mo: obedt. hble servt.
James Madison
RC (DNDAR).
1. Williams’s 5 September 1806 letter communicated to JM “an extraordinary expedition in the western territories and down the Ohio.” Comfort Tyler had “returned from the western country full of cash” and intent on collecting three hundred “young, active & enterprising men” for unspecified purposes. According to Williams, Tyler worked on behalf of Aaron Burr and others, raising suspicion that Tyler sought to foster support for Burr’s possibly nefarious designs in the West (PJM-SS, 12:277–78 and n. 1; see also xxix).