§ Gotthard Mauritz von Rehausen to James Monroe. 29 November 1806, London. Rehausen requests a prompt decision in two cases related to estates left by two Swedish subjects deceased at Boston. The more considerable of the cases concerns the estate of the captain of a merchant vessel, Elias Norberg; the other concerns the estate left by shipwright Tallström.

The two estates are in the hands of Boston businessman Ebenezer Dorr, whom the Supreme Court of Massachusetts directed to deposit them in the state treasury,1 according to the report of the Swedish consul at New York, Mr. Gahn.

State law, to which foreigners established there, as Norberg was, are subject, decrees that a deceased person’s estate must fall to the closest relative, a requirement that accords with Swedish law. But the heirs, particularly those of Norberg, cannot take possession of the estate until they prove their right to it before the Massachusetts court.

Norberg being a very common name in Sweden, and being borne by more than one captain of a Swedish merchant vessel, several claimants to the estate presented themselves and, through their agents in America, tried to prove that they had the rights to it. The court therefore placed the Norberg estate of $84212 in the state treasury until the legal heir should be known.

The great distance between America and Sweden as well as the indigence of the heirs make researching the question almost impossible in America, whereas it could be done more easily and just as legally in Sweden.

Rehausen thus requests that Monroe ask the U.S. government to ask the State of Massachusetts to turn over researching and deciding this affair to the Swedish government. For this purpose, the total amount of the estates in question would be paid to Mr. Gahn to whom the Swedish government has already ordered the sum to be sent; he will give his receipt and have the money sent to Sweden.