To James Madison from Jacob Wagner, 10 September 1805
From Jacob Wagner
Department of State 10 Septr. 1805.
Dear Sir
With this you will receive among other communications an interesting letter from Genl. Armstrong.1 I have sent a duplicate of the List of claims liquidated finally and an extract of the letter respecting them, for the use of the Secretary of the Treasury. The 20,000 florins referred to in the correspondence respecting the Wilmington Packet stands in the name of the Secretary of State, to the use of the true owners, in the Bank of the U.States. There being other classes of claimants beside those who have applied to Genl. Armstrong, it is necessary that the clashing pretentions should be judicially decided upon by interpleading. I shall be obliged by your signing the exequaturs and the letter for Pedersen2 & sending the package to him or to the Post office.
Dispatches have been received at the Navy office and forwarded to Mr. Smith at Baltimore, announcing the details of the cessation of hostilities with Tripoli and the liberation of the Prisoners. We have nothing by the conveyance. I do not know the particulars with a precision, which would authorize me to repeat them. I fear however that a considerable sum of money has been given, and that the intentions of the Govt. with respect to the Exile Achmet have not been so amply fulfilled as they would have desired.3
I this day forward to Genl. Turreau your answer to his letter respecting Genl. Moreau.4
The Secretary of War departed yesterday for Monticello. I remain, Dear Sir, faithfully & affecty. Your most obed. servt.
Jacob Wagner
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM.
1. The enclosure has not been found, but it was probably John Armstrong’s letter of 3 July, discussing the settlement of U.S. citizens’ claims against France.
3. For the article of the treaty with Tripoli dealing with the return of his family to Ahmad Qaramanli, see Tobias Lear to JM, 5 July 1805, n. 8.
4. The letter has not been found, but was doubtless the one of 30 Aug. 1805 described in the index to Notes to Foreign Ministers as “relative to Genl. Moreau” (DNA: RG 59, Notes to Foreign Ministers and Consuls, vol. 1). For Turreau’s request that Moreau’s stay in the United States not be marked by demonstrations, see Turreau to JM, 14 Aug. 1805.