President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison Sign a Ship’s Passport for a Vessel That Would Be Boarded by the British in the Lead Up to the War of 1812
Lemuel Bunce, Captain of the Venus, refused the British demand to board, but his protest was ignored
Document signed, Washington, June 6, 1801, being a ship’s passport for “Lemuel Bunce master or commander of the Ship called the Venus”, originating in New York and bound for Liverpool, and carrying “tobacco, Indian meal, wheat, rye, flour & staves”. The document is signed by Thomas Jefferson as President, James Madison as...
Document signed, Washington, June 6, 1801, being a ship’s passport for “Lemuel Bunce master or commander of the Ship called the Venus”, originating in New York and bound for Liverpool, and carrying “tobacco, Indian meal, wheat, rye, flour & staves”. The document is signed by Thomas Jefferson as President, James Madison as Secretary of State, and Joshua Sands as Collector of the Port of New York.
Lemuel Bunce was for years the commander of the Ship Venus during the Napoleonic Wars. He plied the trade from New York to Europe from in the early years of the 19th century, and was in a position to be involved in war-related events and also to have valuable information on them, the knowledge of which were of importance to American foreign policy. In November 1804, men from the British Ship Wolf boarded the Venus demanding the clothing and wages of men they called deserters. When Capt. Lemuel Bunce refused, the British brandished weapons, seized another American, and departed. This boarding of American vessels by the British was a main cause of the War of 1812.
In December 1804, in a letter to Madison, the US Consul at Lisbon, William Jarvis, reported that “Captain Bunce of the Venus, by whom I wrote under date of the 2nd being detained by contrary winds, affords me the opportunity to inform you by this Vessel that the Spanish Consul this morning informed me, that he had received advices from Barcelona by the Post of last night, that a detachment from Lord Nelson’s Fleet had captured all the Spanish Vessels that they had recently met with & some threats had been made of burning all those under a 100 Tons, which in one or two instances had actually been done.” In 1805 Bunce is mentioned in another Jarvis letter to Madison, saying “5 January 1805, Lisbon. The Romulus, Captn Nickerson by which this letter goes is the first Vessel that has sailed for the United States since the ship Venus Captn Bunce, for New York: a mortifying circumstance at a moment so pregnant with important events.” The writer believes the U.S. government will have already learned of the Spanish declaration of war against Great Britain from Bunce. Some repairs to verso. Gaps in paper not affecting autographs.
This interesting document was recently obtained by us from a private collection.

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