SPLENDID 1803 MANUSCRIPT DOCUMENT RECOGNIZING A FRENCH COMMERCE AGENT JUST WEEKS BEFORE THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE, SIGNED BY PRESIDENT THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SECRETARY OF STATE JAMES MADISON
JEFFERSON, Thomas. Manuscript document signed. Washington City: April 5, 1803. Folio (10 by 14-1/2 inches), one sheet of laid paper, original paper seal affixed. Handsomely matted and framed with engraved portraits of Jefferson and Madison, entire piece measures 25 by 20 inches.
Original 1803 manuscript document (letters patent) signed by President Thomas Jefferson and his Secretary of State James Madison, recognizing "Citizen" Gerard Careaux as Vice-Commissary of Commercial Relations of the French Republic for the important port town Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a document highlighting the importance of commercial relations of the young republic with the French, signed just days before the French offered to sell the Louisiana territory to the United States and only three weeks before American negotiators formally agreed to the terms. With intact paper seal of the United States and handsomely framed with engraved portraits of Jefferson and Madison. A splendid signed piece.
The letters patent document, penned in a neat and bold secretarial hand, reads, "Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States of America, To all whom it may concern: The Citizen Gerard Careaux having produced to me his Commission as Vice-Commissary of Commercial Relations of the French Republic, for Portsmouth in the State of New Hampshire, I do hereby recognize him as such, and declare him to exercise such functions, powers and privileges as are allowed to the similar Agents of the most favoured Nations. In Testimony whereof, I have caused these letters to made Patent and the Seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed. Given under my Hand at the City of Washington the Fifth day of April in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twenty-seventh." The document is then signed by Jefferson ("Th: Jefferson") "By the President," and by James Madison, "Secretary of State."
This document was signed at one of the most important moments in the relationship between the United States and France; just 6 days later, on April 11, the French offered the entire Louisiana Territory to Robert Livingston, the American Ambassador in Paris, for $15,000,000, an offer that surprised Livingston, as his instructions were only to pay up to $10,000,000, but only for New Orleans and the immediately surrounding territory. Livingston was confident that the offer of the vastly larger territory would be desirable (it effectively doubled the size of the United States), and on April 30 signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty. The treaty arrived in Washington on July 4; by October 21, Congressional approvals had been obtained and the United States began taking formal possession of the vast territory.
Faint fold lines, signatures clear and dark. A fine and quite appealing framed piece.