In the five-month period covered by this volume of the Secretary
of State Series, Madison and Jefferson work jointly to acquire
final possession of, and establish a preliminary government for,
the territory acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of May 1803 while
simultaneously dealing with merchants' complaints arising from the
associated claims convention. The loss and destruction of the
frigate Philadelphia at Tripoli and the enslavement of the crew, an
incident which Madison considered of far less import than did U.S.
consuls in Europe and Africa and later historians, shocked
Americans. From France, Robert R. Livingston reported the discovery
of a royalist assassination plot against Napoleon and the
retaliatory kidnapping and execution of the duc d'Enghien, scion of
the Condes. At Madrid, Charles Pinckney continued his attempts to
persuade the Spanish court to accept both responsibility for French
depredations against U.S. commerce in Spanish ports and the
American interpretation of the boundary between Louisiana and
Florida.
Because of the range of State Department responsibilities,
Madison's correspondence displays a broad overview of not only the
diplomatic but also the social and commercial life of the early
republic. The volume documents Jefferson's experiment in republican
etiquette leading to the infamous controversy involving Jefferson,
Madison, and British minister Anthony Merry at Washington and James
Monroe at London. Also covered are the slow deterioration of the
close relationship between Madison and Spanish minister Carlos
Yrujo, who were linked by the friendship between their wives, and
the case of a married worker at the Philadelphia Mint who absconded
with another woman, leaving behind him a series of complaints
against his supervisor. Consular dispatches chronicle the
quarantine of U.S. vessels throughout Europe from fear of yellow
fever imported from the Americas; the customs, terrain, and
agriculture of Algiers as described by Consul General Tobias Lear;
and the sad tale of the U.S. consul at Rotterdam whose mind was so
deranged as to require him to be "subjected to the Straight
Waistcoat." Access to people, places, and events discussed is
facilitated by detailed annotation and a comprehensive index.
General
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