To James Madison from James Monroe, 15 August 1804
From James Monroe
London Augt. 15. 1804
Dear Sir
I thought that Mr. Pinkney had concluded the business of the bank stock, when I wrote the last letter, but found that he had left it unfinished, for Deal to which place he followed the vessel, being compelled to go by the situation of Mrs. P., & his engagments with the captain. The state of the affr. promising a prompt conclusion on his return he was sent for & actually did return & conclude it. The premium to the captn. of 200 guineas to take him up at Falmouth, and other disbursements have forc’d him to take of the funds transferr’d [an]other five hundred pounds wh. he will expln. & acct. for to the govt. of Maryland. I enclose you a letter just recd. of Mr. Forbes,1 wh. explains a difficulty he finds himself under, with his new comn. He did not expect that I wod. forward it, so that you will excuse its being written entirely as a private one. I hope the President will see no objection in complying with his request. I send you some statments from Mr. McKenzie & Glennie on publick subjects.2
I enclose a proposition of a Mr. Bellamy relative to discovery wh. is explaind by his pape⟨r.⟩3 I told him that our govt. could give no premium. He is a respectable man. A civil answer for me to deliver him is all he expects.
Will you be so good as forward the enclosed letters to Mr. Wormley,4 & to Mr. Waller the letter from Mrs. Paradise5 with whom you are probably acquainted. I write in great haste for Mr. P. who is on the point of setting out. Very sincerely I am yr. friend & servt
Jas. Monroe
My letters to my brother I fear have not reachd him will you have the goodness to see that this does?
RC (DLC: Rives Collection, Madison Papers). For surviving enclosures, see nn. 1–2.
1. The enclosure is John Murray Forbes to Monroe, 31 July 1804 (DNA: RG 59, CD, Hamburg, vol. 1; 4 pp.), in which Forbes explained his request to have his consular credentials redrawn as a commission to the various governments of Lower Saxony and to receive a small salary during the British blockade of the Elbe River. Forbes made much the same argument about his commission in his letter to JM, 4 Aug. 1804.
2. These enclosures (DNA: RG 59, DD, Great Britain, vol. 12) are Mackenzie and Glennie to Monroe, 9 Aug. 1804 (1 p.), covering a copy of a letter addressed to them from Mayne and Brown of Lisbon, 18 July 1804 (2 pp.), giving information about the six forged bills totaling £4,000 ostensibly drawn by Commodore Preble on Mackenzie and Glennie and offering their services to “elucidate this nefarious transaction”; and Mackenzie and Glennie to Monroe, 31 July 1804 (1 p.; docketed by Wagner), covering a statement of the facts in the case of the Brutus, George Haley, master (2 pp.), and a copy of the report of the registrar of merchants, 31 July 1804 (1 p.), describing the damages, amounting to £2,431 12s. 6d., that the High Court of Admiralty had ordered to be paid Haley.
3. Enclosure not found.
4. Ralph Wormeley Jr. (1744–1806), a Virginian who had served in the House of Delegates and the Virginia Ratifying Convention of 1788, had written Monroe on 4 June 1804 his thanks for services rendered his son in London (, 6:208–9 n. 12; Daniel Preston, A Comprehensive Catalogue of the Correspondence and Papers of James Monroe [2 vols.; Westport, Conn., 2001], 1:158).
5. Lucy Ludwell Paradise (1751–1814) was a Virginia heiress who married the Englishman John Paradise in 1769. In between various trips to Europe and America, they made their home in London. Mrs. Paradise returned to Virginia permanently in 1805 (Archibald B. Shepperson, John Paradise and Lucy Ludwell of London and Williamsburg [Richmond, Va., 1942], 7, 11, 433, 446; , 8:490 n. 1).