Details
MADISON, JAMES, President. Autograph letter signed ("James Madison Jr.") to an unknown correspondent ("Your excellency"), Philadelphia, 20 May 1783. One page, 4to, short fold tears, very faint mat-burn.
THE PROVISIONAL TREATY OF PEACE, SIR GEORGE CARLTON AND GENERAL WASHINGTON
A fine early letter of Revolutionary war date. "Your Excellency's favor of the 9th inst. was duly recd. by yesterday's mail. We had communicated to Mr. Thomson the mistake contained in your preceding letter, relative to a recall of the Territorial session, but have now corrected it as you desire. If our official & joint correspondence with your Excellency be less circumstantial than that which individual delegates may enter into with their private friends, we persuade ourselves that your Excellency is too sensible both of our public & private respect for your character, to impute to any defect of either. The defect can only proceed from the necessity in the former case of confining ourselves not only to such matters as are worthy of the public & for which we can be officially responsible, but to such also with respect to which no diversity of private opinions may exist.
"Notwithstanding the numerous arrivals from Europe we receive no other information than what passes through the public prints. Sir G. Carlton in answer to a letter from General Washington on the subject of the provisional Treaty repeats the same sentiments regarding the Negroes, which he advanced in the conference at Orange Town; entering a Caution however against their being considered as a final construction of the article...."
The last paragraph of this letter is illustrated in Charles Hamilton, American Autographs, 1983, ii:384.
THE PROVISIONAL TREATY OF PEACE, SIR GEORGE CARLTON AND GENERAL WASHINGTON
A fine early letter of Revolutionary war date. "Your Excellency's favor of the 9th inst. was duly recd. by yesterday's mail. We had communicated to Mr. Thomson the mistake contained in your preceding letter, relative to a recall of the Territorial session, but have now corrected it as you desire. If our official & joint correspondence with your Excellency be less circumstantial than that which individual delegates may enter into with their private friends, we persuade ourselves that your Excellency is too sensible both of our public & private respect for your character, to impute to any defect of either. The defect can only proceed from the necessity in the former case of confining ourselves not only to such matters as are worthy of the public & for which we can be officially responsible, but to such also with respect to which no diversity of private opinions may exist.
"Notwithstanding the numerous arrivals from Europe we receive no other information than what passes through the public prints. Sir G. Carlton in answer to a letter from General Washington on the subject of the provisional Treaty repeats the same sentiments regarding the Negroes, which he advanced in the conference at Orange Town; entering a Caution however against their being considered as a final construction of the article...."
The last paragraph of this letter is illustrated in Charles Hamilton, American Autographs, 1983, ii:384.