To James Madison from John M. Patton, 17 March 1826
From John M. Patton
Fredg. 17th. March 1826.
Dear Sir,
I received a few days after last orange county court, your much esteemed favour,1 covering two letters in relation to a claim against Benjamin F. Porter on behalf of the legatees of John S. Wood.2 I cannot refrain from expressing the gratification I have received from the proof of your confidence in me, which is implied in the selection you have made.
I should have acknowledged the receipt of it immediately—but I had some faint impression that Mr. Benjn F. Porter in anticipation of this claim being asserted had retained me as his counsel. I have just had an opportunity of communicating with him and find that my impression was well founded—and moreover upon examination I find that the claim stands precisely upon the same footing with one already in a course of litigation against Mr. Porter, in which I am his counsel. I am compelled therefore to decline acting on behalf of the Legatees of Wood.
I will deliver the papers to your Order or hand them over to any gentleman of the bar whom you may designate. Very respectfully your Obt. Servt.
Jno. M. Patton3
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM.
1. Letter not found.
2. For the legal dispute over enslaved persons in which JM was tangentially involved, see Robert C. Foster to JM, 22 June 1822; JM to Foster, 17 Aug. 1822; and Foster to JM, 6 Jan. 1824; , 2:537, 562, 3:198–99. John S. Wood was related to the Madison family through the marriage of his brother, William B. Wood, to a daughter of JM’s brother Francis (see , 3:344 n. 3).
3. John Mercer Patton (1797–1858), son of Fredericksburg merchant Robert Patton, with whom JM had business dealings, was educated as a physician at the University of Pennsylvania but never practiced. He settled in Fredericksburg and became a successful lawyer and leading member of the Virginia bar. Patton served in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1830–38, and on the Virginia Council of State, 1838–41. As senior council member, he served as acting governor of Virginia for a short period in 1841. Patton and his collaborator, Conway Robinson, were known for revising the Code of Virginia (Richmond, 1849).