James Madison Papers

From James Madison to Congress, 31 January 1811 (Abstract)

§ To Congress

31 January 1811. Transmits letters written by the U.S. chargé d’affaires at Paris to the secretary of state and to the French minister of foreign relations; also transmits two letters from the agent of the American consul at Bordeaux to the secretary of state.1

RC and enclosures, two copies (DNA: RG 233, President’s Messages, 11A-D1; and DNA: RG 46, Legislative Proceedings, 11A-E3). Each RC 1 p.; in a clerk’s hand, signed by JM. Enclosures 9 pp. (see n. 1). RC and enclosures printed in ASP description begins American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States … (38 vols.; Washington, 1832–61). description ends , Foreign Relations, 3:380, 390–92.

1JM enclosed copies of letters written by Jonathan Russell to Robert Smith and to the duc de Cadore, dated 11 and 10 Dec. 1810, respectively. Both letters reported the seizure of an American vessel, the New Orleans Packet, at Bordeaux under the Berlin and Milan decrees. Russell also mentioned that the frigate Essex had been put under quarantine unnecessarily on its arrival at Lorient, delaying the delivery of dispatches from the U.S. government. The two letters from Christopher Meyer at Bordeaux, dated 6 and 14 Dec. 1810, conveyed the same information as well as a report that another American vessel, the Friendship, had been seized.

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