To James Madison from Richard Söderström, 27 June 1804 (Abstract)
§ From Richard Söderström
27 June 1804, Philadelphia. “Permit me to be troublesome In requesting you will be so obliging to lay the inclosed Commission before the President of the United States, and Obtain his Approbation for Mr: William Scarbrough1 of Savanna in the State of Georgia to Act as his Swedish Majestys Vice Commercial Agent in Said State and place.”
RC (DNA: RG 59, NFC, vol. 1). 1 p.; docketed by Wagner as received 2 July.
1. William Scarbrough (1776–1838) was the son of a South Carolina planter who, after a commercial apprenticeship in Europe in 1796–98, built a prosperous shipping business in Savannah, Georgia. He was an early enthusiast for steam-powered ships, and his experiments in that line, though successful in demonstrating steam’s potential, left him a bankrupt in 1820. Scarbrough served as Danish vice-consul from 1802 to 1820 (Kenneth Coleman and Charles Stephen Gurr, Dictionary of Georgia Biography [2 vols.; Athens, Ga., 1983], 2:868–70).