The Signed Cover and Notation for the Coded Letter of James Madison, Urging Virginia to Endorse Peace with Britain
An early and important free frank signed by the Father of the Constitution
In 1780, Madison, who had served as Colonel in the Orange County militia during the Revolution, became a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. He was in that position when, in March 1782, the British approved a negotiated peace with the colonists. In May those discussions began.
On May 28,...
In 1780, Madison, who had served as Colonel in the Orange County militia during the Revolution, became a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. He was in that position when, in March 1782, the British approved a negotiated peace with the colonists. In May those discussions began.
On May 28, Madison wrote to fellow delegate Joseph Jones, using cypher to communicate secretly. In this long and coded letter, Madison wrote that the funds that Benjamin Franklin had negotiated were nearly spent and that the states would have to contribute to the work of Congress. He wrote of intrigue in Europe and jockeying by European parties, and of the Dutch intention to publicly support American Independence.
Most importantly, he urged the state of Virginia to embrace the peace that was then being negotiated in Paris. “I find that the minister of France has been informed by some correspondent in Virginia that the late intelligence from Britain has produced very unfavorable symptoms in a large party. He seems not a little discomposed at it. The honour of the state concurred with my own persuasion in dictating a consolatory answer to him. For this reason as well as for others I think it would be expedient for the legislature to enter into a unanimous decla[ra]tion on this point. Other states are doing this and such a mode of announcing the sense of the people may be regarded as more authentic than a declaration from Congress. The best form I conceive will be that of an instru[c]tion to the delegates. Do not fail to supply me with accurate and full informations on the whole subject of this paragraph.”
This early Free Frank was once attached to that letter to Jones. Autograph document signed, May 28, 1782, to Joseph Jones, with Jones’s docket. The entire body of the cover is in Madison’s hand. It is signed once at the top right, and then again in third person at bottom left, where Madison has written, “The post master at Fredericksburg will oblige Mr. Madison by forwarding this to Richmond if Mr. Jones shall have set off for the latter place.”
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