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117

James Monroe

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:6,000.00 - 8,000.00 USD
James Monroe

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Auction Date:2010 Jun 16 @ 10:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Bid online at www.rrauction.com. Auction closes June 16.

LS signed as secretary of state, “Jas. Monroe,” four pages on two adjoining sheets, 7.75 x 10, dared January 6, 1815. Letter to Thomas Butler, Marshal of the US for the District of Maryland. In full: “Government having engaged the Adeline, a vessel belonging to Mr. Guestier, of Baltimore, as a cartel, to convey a messenger with despatches to the American plenipotentiaries at Ghent, with the privilege to the owner to carry out to Europe passengers and letters, the following Rules, in relation thereto, are to be strictly observed; and for the better information of persons interested, you may communicate to Mr. Guestier, and to the Collector of the Customs at Baltimore, the contents of this letter:

1. No British male Subject to be allowed to embark, unless he is furnished with a special passport, to that effect, from this Department, to be exhibited to you, or to your proper deputy at Annapolis.

2. Women and children, being British subjects, may proceed, upon application at your office, and convincing you that they are such.

3. Alien friends, vis: Frenchmen, Germans, &c. &c. to be permitted to take passage, without a passport, upon their satisfying you, by reasonable proof, that they are persons of the description they alledge [sic] themselves to be.

4. With respect to American citizens, the Government does not interfere. It neither sanctions nor prohibits their departure.

5. The Letter bag of the cartel must be deposited at your office, where all letters, whether for persons residing in the countries of the continent of Europe, or for persons resident in Great Britain or Ireland, are to be presented for inspection. As, however, there is no disposition to examine private correspondence, further than is necessary to guard the public interests, you are at liberty to refrain from perusing letters directed to the Subjects of friendly powers, except you should have cause to Suspect, from your knowledge of the parties, or otherwise, that the ostensible address of letters, of the kind is used as a cover for clandestine and unlawful communications; in which case you will not fail to inspect them. All letters whatsoever, directed to any part of the British dominions, are to be examined at your office.

6. When the vessel is ready to sail, the letter bag is to be delivered to the captain, either by yourself, your deputy, or the Collector of the Customs at Annapolis, who will be properly instructed on the Subject. No letters are to be conveyed in any other manner.

7. You will keep a list of the passengers; one copy of which you will furnish to the Collector of the Customs at Annapolis, when the vessel is on the point of departure; and forward another copy of it to the Department of State.”

In very good condition, with intersecting folds, one through a single letter of signature, professional repair and reinforcement along horizontal folds, partial separation along hinge, scattered toning, and writing lightly showing through from opposing sides.

Accompanied by an original broadside entitled “Treaty of Peace,” one page, 8 x 17. Dover [New Hampshire], [February 18, 1815]. “Printed at the Dover Sun Office” at lower right. The text of the entire “Treaty of Peace and Amity between the United States of America and his Britannic Majesty…signed at Ghent, on the twenty-fourth day December one thousand eight hundred and fourteen…having been, by and with the advice and and consent of the Senate of the United States, duly accepted, ratified and confirmed, on the seventeenth day of February one thousand eight hundred and fifteen.” Signed in type by the signers of the Treaty, Gambier, Henry Goulburn, and William Adams for Hs Britannic Majesty, and John Quincy Adams, J. A. Bayard, H. Clay, Jona. Russell, and Albert Gallatin for the President of the United States, and, at the conclusion by President James Madison and Secretary of State James Monroe. Broadside is also very good, with intersecting folds, scattered toning and creasing, and several spots to text.

On December 24, 1814, diplomats from the United States and United Kingdom, weary of a costly war that seemingly offered nothing but stalemate and after having already met in Belgium for more than four months, signed the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812. The British government approved the final agreement within a few hours of receiving it, with the US ratifying the document on February 16, 1815. Due to the era's slow speed of communication and storms in the Atlantic, it took weeks for news of the peace treaty to reach America—during which time the British forces had already engaged American troops in the Battle of New Orleans. In was in the midst of that fighting that Monroe sent “a messenger with despatches to the American plenipotentiaries at Ghent”—undoubtedly to inform the negotiators of the British attack. A superior letter penned two weeks after the treaty was signed but more than a month before its US ratification.
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