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& tedious attack of bilious fever, to bear a journey to the Mountains whither I am about setting out. The Physicians prescribe it as essential to my thorough recovery, & security agst a relapse at the present season. For recent occurrences & the general state of affairs, I refer to the official communications going by this conveyance. If it were less inconvenient to me, to lengthen my letter, I should recollect that I send it, without expecting that it will find you at Petersburg, should it happen not to be intercepted on its passage. Accept my affectionate esteem & best wishes.

TO HENRY DEARBORN.

MAD. MSS.

WASHINGTON, Augt 8th, 1813

DEAR SIR I have recd yours of the 24th July.1 As my esteem and regard have undergone no change, I wish you to be apprized that such was the state of things, and such the turn they were taking, that the retirement which is the subject of your letter, was pressed by your best personal friends.

It was my purpose to have written to you on the occasion, but it was made impossible by a severe illness, from which I am now barely eno' recovered for a journey to the Mountains, prescribed by my Physicians as indispensable. It would have been

In the letter of July 24 from Utica Dearborn said he intended to retire to his family near Boston and asked that an inquiry be made into his conduct.-Mad. MSS. The request was denied; but, ostensibly because of his ill-health, he was relieved of his active command and transferred to New York, considered an important post. Madison to Armstrong, Sept. 8, 1813.—Madison's Works (Cong. Ed.).

entirely agreeable to me, if as I took for granted was to be the case, you had executed your original intention of providing for your health, by exchanging the sickliness of Niagara for some eligible spot, And I sincerely lament every pain to which you have been subsequently exposed from whatever circumstance it has proceeded. How far the investigation you refer to would be regular, I am not prepared to say. You have seen the Motion in the House of Representatives comprehending such an object; and the prospect held out of resuming the subject at another session. I am persuaded that you will not lose in any respect by the effect of time and truth. Accept my respects & best wishes.

TO ISAAC SHELBY.1

MAD. MSS.

Montpelier, Aug. 12, 1813.

DEAR SIR I recd your favor of the 18th July a few days only before I left Washington, which was on the 9th instant. If any doubt had ever existed of the patriotism or bravery of the Citizens of Kentucky, it would have been turned into an admiration of both by the tests to which the war has put them. Nor could any who are acquainted with your history and character, wish the military services of your fellow Citizens to be under better direction than yours. How far a call on you and them, according to the provision made by your Legislature, will take place,

1 Governor of Kentucky.

VOL. VIII.-17

must depend on the wants of Gen' Harrison who will be regulated in his applications for succour by his own prospects on L. Erie, & by the operations on & below L. Ontario, which must have a considerable bearing on his. We do not despond tho' we ought not to be too sanguine, that the effect of our naval preparations on the several Lakes, and the proper use of the forces assembled on & convenient to them, will soon relieve the distant militia & volunteers from much of the demands which the course of the war on our inland frontier has made on them. Should it happen otherwise it is consoling to know that such resorts exist as those to which your letter contains so favorable an example.

TO JOHN GRAHAM.

MAD. MSS.

MONTPELIER, Augt 28th, 1813.

DEAR SIR I have recd your favor of the 26th. I cannot recollect off-hand, very much about the letter from Turreau to R. Smith, of which a translation is printed at Georgetown.1 My general im

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The letter appeared in the Federal Republican of Georgetown. It was dated June 14, 1809, and started out: "The federal government is going to settle all its differences with Great Britain, and to make a treaty of amity, of commerce and of navigation with that power. Turreau then proceeded to point out the undesirability from France's point of view of a treaty with the United States and recited the wrongs committed by the United States upon France. The manner as well as the matter of the letter made it one which the United States could not have received without dismissing Turreau. On August 31, Graham wrote the Federal Republican, saying the letter was one which he had translated for Secretary Smith when it was received, but that it had been withdrawn by Turreau. Both letters may be found in Niles's Weekly Register, v., 37.

pression is that it was considered at the time as highly exceptionable in several passages; that it was noticed that T. by a ruse diplomatique, which distinguished between the existing & preceding administrations, and assumed the air of a private instead of an Official paper, had attempted to cover & pass off here a rudeness which might be recd as a proof of his energetic zeal, by his own Gov and that unless T. preferred taking back the paper, a proper notice of its offensiveness ought to be taken; it being of course left to R. S. to manage the business with T. A further appeal to my memory, may give more precision to these circumstances, and may recover others from the oblivion into which they have fallen. The case will probably be the same with you. If you can pronounce with certainty from your own knowledge, or the information of Mr. Smith that the letter was taken back by T. (a thing not very unusual in such cases, and of which there have been examples with other foreign Ministers, British, if I mistake not, as well as French 2) it may be well perhaps that the fact sha be noticed in the Newspaper. An antidote in some form, to the mischievous intent of the publication seems due to the crisis chosen for it. If no answer were given to the letter, which the records will test, that alone would be animadversion, in one of its modes, of no inconsiderable force. It is unfortunate that the individual possessing the fullest knowledge of all

1 Mr. Erskine.

2 Mr. Pichon.

circumstances, cannot be resorted to. If he has himself conveyed the paper to the printer, as you conjecture, it is another evidence of the folly which has marked his career; since the position which he occupied and the address of the paper to him as "une lettre simple," we assign to him more particularly any reproach of want of sensibility to its offensive contents; For he will hardly pretend that he was controuled in the expression of it. The time for doing that was the time when he mustered the whole of that & every other species of denunciation agst the object of his tormenting passions. If the original of the French letter was returned to T. without a copy having been taken, as may be inferred from the sending of a translation to the Printer, and your translation is not found in the Office, the translation sent must have been yours; and the public will decide between the Clerks in the Depart and the then head of it. It is sufficiently known that he carryd with him out of it, copies of other papers which he wished to possess, with a view to eventual publicity.

If the date of the translated letter be correctly published, the letter must have been rec before the rejection of Erskine's arrangement was known, and at a period when a reconciliation with England was considered as certain. This consideration might properly have had weight, in disposing the Cabinet to bear with less impatience an exceptionable tone from a French Minister, whose feelings on such an event, wd naturally mingle themselves with his complaints on other subjects, some of which, par

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