To James Madison from Ann Cary Randolph Morris, 22 May 1815
From Ann Cary Randolph Morris
Morrisania May 22d 1815
Respect and admiration for your Talents and Virtues have attended me through life. I now take the Liberty of recommending, as Consul at Gibraltar, Mr. Samuel Larned of Providence Rhode Island. He is a member of a most respectable family. I know them personally. His age, nearly thirty, his mind highly honorable, and his talents very considerable. With sentiments of perfect esteem I subscribe myself your humble Servant
Ann C. Morris 1
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM.
1. Ann Cary Randolph Morris (1774–1837), daughter of Thomas Mann Randolph Sr., was widely rumored to have given birth in October 1792 to an illegitimate child fathered by her brother-in-law, Richard Randolph, while she was living with him and her sister Judith at Bizarre, their Cumberland County, Virginia, estate. Richard Randolph was arrested and tried in April 1793 for murdering the supposed child but was not convicted. He died in 1796, and Ann continued to live with Judith at Bizarre until 1806. She then migrated to Newport, Rhode Island, by way of Richmond. In 1808 she met Revolutionary War financier Gouverneur Morris, and they were married the following year (Cynthia A. Kierner, Scandal at Bizarre: Rumor and Reputation in Jefferson’s America [New York, 2004], 1–7, 30–31, 42, 59–60, 88, 91, 109, 111, 121–22, 126, 163).