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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH. 1 - James Madison, The Writings, vol. 1 (1769-1783) [1900]

Edition used:

The Writings of James Madison, comprising his Public Papers and his Private Correspondence, including his numerous letters and documents now for the first time printed, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900). Vol. 1.

Part of: The Writings of James Madison, 9 vols.

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TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.1

Dear Sir,

The remittance to Colonel Bland is a source of hope to his brethren. I am almost ashamed to reiterate my wants so incessantly to you, but they begin to be so urgent that it is impossible to suppress them. The kindness of our little friend in Front street, near the coffee-house, is a fund which will preserve me from extremities, but I never resort to it without great mortification, as he obstinately rejects all recompense. The price of money is so usurious, that he thinks it ought to be extorted from none but those who aim at profitable speculations. To a necessitous Delegate he gratuitously spares a supply out of his private stock.

No addition has been made to our stock of intelligence from Europe since the arrival of the French frigates. Some letters from the Marquis de la Fayette and others have since come to hand, but they are all of the same date with the despatches then received. One of the Marquis’s paragraphs, indeed, signifies the tergiversation of Mr. Grenville, which had been only in general mentioned to us before. On the communication made by this gentleman to the Count de Vergennes of the object of his mission, he proposed verbally the unconditional acknowledgment of American Independence as a point to which the King had agreed. The Count de Vergennes immediately wrote it down, and requested him to put his name to the declaration. Mr. Grenville drew back, and refused to abide by any thing more than that the King was disposed to grant American Independence. This illustrates the shade of difference between Shelburne and Fox.

[1 ]From the Madison Papers (1840).