The final volume of the Presidential Series covers Madison's last ten months in office, during which he maintained a busy schedule despite taking the longest summer vacation in all his time in Washington. Foreign policy was dominated by crises with Spain and Algiers. Negotiations with Great Britain continued over trade access and the implementation of the Treaty of Ghent. On the home front, new treaties were negotiated with Indian nations on the frontier, and Madison issued several proclamations on the sale of public lands. The Treasury Department negotiated an agreement with leading banks to restore specie payments, laying the foundation for a uniform system of currency. Before returning to Washington for his final meeting with Congress, Madison wrote a sketch for a biography that never appeared. After delivering a farewell address to the nation, Madison concluded his public service with a controversial veto on his last day in office.

The tenth volume of the Presidential Series covers the period from Madison's return to Washington from Montpelier in October 1815 to the publication of the incendiary letters of the pseudonymous "Americanus" throughout April 1816. In the months between, Madison fielded requests for support from rebel governments in Spanish America, urged his diplomats to stand firm on U.S. claims in the settlement of post- war boundary disputes with Great Britain, and contemplated retaliation for British restrictions on American trade with its West Indian colonies. Increasingly, however, his attention was focused on domestic issues. These included putting in place a viable financial system with a central bank at its core, which Madison had come to believe was a necessity; increasing the nation's revenue stream through reductions in military expenditures; exports of American goods; and the imposition of tariffs on foreign imports that threatened domestic manufactures. He was, furthermore, required to remove squatters from the public lands and to referee disputes between white settlers and Indian nations over their post-1815 boundaries. He supervised the Commissioners for the Public Buildings as they rebuilt the capital and issued pardons to those who had committed petty crimes or who had violated U.S. revenue laws.

Volume 12 of the Secretary of State Series covers June through October 1806, during which Madison waited in vain for his diplomatic initiatives with Great Britain, Spain, and France to yield results, and received mounting evidence of Aaron Burr's suspicious activities in the West. Tensions with Great Britain over impressments and attacks on U.S. shipping persisted, as efforts to negotiate met with delays in London. Spain and France threatened U.S. territories to the south and west, while Napoleon hedged on his agreement to pressure Spain into selling the Floridas to the Americans. Spain avoided the issue by complaining about the U.S. government's treatment of its minister and the handling of Francisco de Miranda's expedition against Venezuela. Madison faced criticism at home for his role in these matters, multiplied by his refusal to testify at the trials of Samuel G. Odgen and William Stephens Smith for aiding Miranda. His patience was also tested over the summer and fall by unexpected difficulties in getting the capricious Tunisian ambassador, Soliman Melimeni, out of the country. Returning to Washington in October from a two-month visit to Montpelier, Madison prepared to address the additional complications in domestic and foreign policy created by Burr's alleged conspiracy.

The Papers of James Madison project, housed at the University of Virginia, was established in 1956 to publish annotated volumes of the correspondence and writings of James Madison, the Virginia statesman most often remembered for his public service as "Father of the Constitution" and as fourth president of the United States.

The published volumes provide accurate texts of Madison's incoming and outgoing correspondence, informative notes on textual and subject matters, and comprehensive indexes. They are incomparably rich sources for students of Madison's life and valuable research tools for those interested in the general history of the period in which Madison lived (1751-1836).

The project has collected more than 27,000 copies of documents related to Madison's life, including letters, essays, notes, diaries, account books, ledgers, wills, legal papers, and inventories. The project serves the public by translating into print these decaying and often nearly illegible manuscripts, thereby preserving them for future generations and making them easier to use. The published volumes also make the contents of Madison-related documents--the originals of which are housed in some 250 archives worldwide--easily accessible to libraries and interested individuals anywhere books travel.

The "Presidential Series, " covering the years 1809 to early 1817, centers largely on Madison's record as commander-in-chief during the War of 1812, the first full-scale conflict to be waged under the U.S. Constitution of 1787. Madison's correspondence as president deals with a particularly wide range of concerns--national politics, international diplomacy and war, Indian affairs, the construction of the nation's capital, even petitions from ordinary citizens for charity and mercy--to which Madison responded.

Volume 7 of the Presidential Series, covering the period between late October 1813 and June 1814, documents Madison's response to diplomatic developments and European military events affecting the war between the United States and Great Britain. Early in 1814 the president accepted an offer of direct peace negotiations, although his country's military situation did not augur well for the outcome. He sought to improve U.S. diplomatic prospects by strengthening commercial ties with Europe in the wake of Napoleon's defeat, but also supervised planning and financing for continuing U.S. military campaigns if necessary. Some of Madison's private affairs are documented through family correspondence and a vituperative letter from a disgruntled former White House steward. In addition, there is the Edinburgh Review editor Francis Jeffrey's revealing account of conversations with Madison in November 1813. Access to people, places, and events of the period is facilitated by detailed annotation and a comprehensive index.

Volume 8 of the Presidential Series covers the suspense-filled final months of the War of 1812, as Madison awaited the outcome of peace negotiations at Ghent while defending the country against British invasion, warding off government bankruptcy, and preparing to meet armed resistance in New England. The British burned the Capitol, the President's House, and other buildings in Washington and occupied eastern Maine in the following months, but American forces thwarted attacks on Baltimore, Plattsburgh, and New Orleans. Along with Alexander J. Dallas, Madison's new secretary of the Treasury, Madison crafted a defense of the American position designed to promote U.S. alliances and fundraising in Europe and to rally support at home. The volume closes with Madison receiving a copy of the Treaty of Ghent on 14 February 1815 and delivering the peace proclamation to an astounded and joyous nation. Access to people, places, and events of the period is facilitated by detailed annotation and a comprehensive index.

During the period around volume 3 of the Retirement Series, James Madison remained largely at Montpelier, except for occasional visits to neighbors and attendance at ceremonial dinners and semiannual meetings of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia. Madison's correspondence in this period was wide-ranging and included replies to requests for advice from President James Monroe. His exchange of letters with Thomas Jefferson dealt primarily with the construction and financing of the university and the search for professors. In addition to responding to the host of individuals who sent him books and pamphlets and requested letters of introduction and recommendation to political office, Madison also engaged with such eminent men as Richard Rush, James Barbour, Henry Clay, Mathew Carey, Edward Livingston, and George Hay. In these letters he offers his opinion on constitutional issues, reiterates his support for strict separation between church and state, and expresses his views on the tariff, political parties, the common law, and public education. Finally, his private letters deal with daily life at Montpelier and the management of the plantation. Access to people, places, and events is facilitated by detailed annotation and a comprehensive index.

During the six months covered in this volume, Madison contended with the failed negotiations between Spain and the United States to settle disputed boundaries, and the failure to win French support; Great Britain's refusal to respond to U.S. complaints of the impressment of American seamen and violations of neutral trade; reports from the territorial governors of Michigan, Orleans, and Louisiana; detailed accounts of the June 1805 treaty negotiations between the United States and Tripoli; and the arrival of the Tunisian ambassador, Soliman Melimeni, in November 1805. Madison spent three months of this period in Philadelphia, where he had taken Dolley Madison to seek treatment for her ulcerated knee. Also included is a lengthy correspondence between the Madisons, written after James's return to Washington in October 1805. Access to people, places, and events discussed in this volume is facilitated by detailed annotation and a comprehensive index.

More diverse in scope than their modern counterparts, the cookbooks of colonial and antebellum America contained recipes, medical cures, and housekeeping information that women of that time deemed necessary for family life. The keepers of these ""domestic"" manuals recorded recipes and cures for their own use and the use of friends, daughters, and extended families. Because they reflect a range of daily living practices, such manuscript cookbooks serve as important social history documents. In Colonial Virginia's Cooking Dynasty, Katharine E. Harbury brings to light two cookbooks from eighteenth-century Virginia. Notable for their early dates and historical significance, these manuals afford previously unavailable insights into lifestyles and foodways during the evolution of Chesapeake society. One cookbook is an anonymous work dating from 1700; the other is the 1739-1743 cookbook of Jane Bolling Randolph, a descendant of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. In addition to her textual analysis that establishes the relationship between these two early manuscripts, Harbury links them to the 1824 classic The Virginia House-wife by Mary Randolph. Harbury provides an introduction to and analysis of the manuals. She compares them with others from the period, offers new insight into ""old myths"" of southern foodways, and contrasts three generations of culinary practice. She explains how these two cookbooks shed light on the practices of upper-class colonial society and how the recipe collections changed over time. Harbury finds that while colonial cooks did continue British culinary traditions, these manuals demonstrate that the emergence of Virginia foodways had begun as early as 1700.