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LS as secretary of state, signed “Jas. Monroe,” one page, 7.5 x 9.5, July 27, 1814. Addressed from the “Department of State,” a letter to John Steele, the Collector of Customs in Philadelphia, in full: “I enclose herewith a passport for the brig Perseverance, Capt. Whitney, which you are requested to deliver to him when he is prepared to sail, taking care, that on clearing out, he conforms to all the necessary regulations of your port, not inconsistent with the permission which has been granted to the brig.” In very fine condition.
Written during the closing stages of the War of 1812, this letter dates to a remarkably fraught moment in the Madison administration. Just four weeks later, on August 24, 1814, British forces would capture and burn Washington, D.C., in one of the most dramatic episodes of the conflict. At the time of this letter, Secretary of State James Monroe was overseeing both diplomatic and administrative affairs as British forces concentrated in the Chesapeake region following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Signed less than a month before the Burning of Washington, it offers a glimpse of routine government business continuing on the eve of national crisis.
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