From James Madison to Levett Harris, 20 November 1806 (Abstract)
To Levett Harris, 20 November 1806 (Abstract)
§ To Levett Harris. 20 November 1806, Department of State. “Mr. Alexander Smith having brought to hand your dispatches,1 it is seen with regret that my letter of 2 did not accompany the one which the President addressed to the Emperor.3 Though it is probable that the defect will have been remedied by the receipt of a duplicate, it has nevertheless been thought proper to repeat a copy under this cover.”
Letterbook copy (DNA: RG 59, IC, vol. 1). 1 p.
1. JM referenced Harris’s two 10 August 1806 letters to JM, which Smith delivered (see PJM-SS, 12:202–3).
2. JM to Harris, 15 Apr. 1806, ibid., 11:481.
3. In an 18 April 1806 letter to Harris, Thomas Jefferson had requested that Harris forward correspondence to Alexander I of Russia and promised that JM would explain the material more fully to Harris in a separate letter; this is the 15 April 1806 letter Levett had not yet received on 10 August (see ibid., 12:202, 203 n. 2). For Jefferson’s letter to Alexander I, see Ford, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 8:439–41.