We have the honor of acknowledging the receipt of your letter of the 21st Jany., & beg leave to assure you of our entire concurrence in your proposition of a weekly correspondence.
With respect to the expences of the late expedition agt. the Indians, we shall act according to circumstances though from present appearances we have very little hopes of getting them placed to the account of the Continent.(1)
We have the pleasure to acquaint you that from information recd. to day from Genl. Lincoln, there is every reason to conclude the rebellion in Massachusetz bay is on the point of being extinguished: the party under Shay (the ring leader) is dispersed. The Genl. has taken one hundred & fifty prisoners, & is pursuing the fugitives.
As there is now a Congress, we shall attend particularly to your request respecting the Arms, & give you information thereon in our next.(2) We have the honor to be with the highest respect yr. Excys. Most Obed Servts.,
Willm. Grayson.
Js. Madison Jr
RC (TxU); reprinted from Madison, Papers (Rutland), 9:266.
1 In his January 21 letter to the delegates Randolph had enclosed one of January 24 to the president requesting that Congress consider "the propriety of Virginia taking Credit for the Expenditures against the United States" incurred in its expedition against the Indians north of the Ohio River in the summer and fall of 1786 since the expedition enhanced the "federal Interest." He enclosed copies of letters from the commanders Gen. George Rogers Clark and Col. Benjamin Logan. See Journals of the Virginia Council, 4:29; and PCC, item 71, 2:467-74. Randolph's letter with its enclosures, however, was not read in Congress until July 28, when it was referred to Secretary Charles Thomson. His July 30 report was referred to a committee consisting of James Mitchell Varnum, Abraham Clark, and Nathan Dane, which reported on August 2 that Randolph's request could not be complied with -- "the said expedition not having been authorised by or conducted under the knowledge or direction of the United States." See JCC, 33:430n.2, 441, 449-50.
Clark, in the meantime, had embroiled both Virginia and Congress in a foreign dilemma. While Logan's expedition along the Great Miami had met with success, Clark's foray against the Indian villages on the upper Wabash had ended abruptly when his militia deserted, forcing him to retreat to Vincennes where he engaged in illegal recruitment and seized goods belonging to Spanish subjects, partly in retaliation for Spain's closure of the Mississippi to Kentucky traders. Prominent settlers who opposed Clark protested to the Virginia government, which disavowed Clark's actions, revoked his authority, and appealed to Congress to negotiate with the Indians. See JCC, 32:189-99; PCC, item 71, 2:490-519; Journals of the Virginia Council, 4:46-47; and Cal. of Va. State Papers, 4:182ff. For a review of Clark's activities at this time, see James A. James, The Life of George Rogers Clark (1928; reprint ed., New York: AMS Press Inc., 1970), pp. 347-80; and Leonard C. Helderman, "The Northwest Expedition of George Rogers Clark, 1786-1787," Mississippi Valley Historical Review 25 (December 1938): 317-34. See also the enclosures to Charles Thomson to Randolph, February 16, and Thomson to Randolph, April 30, note 1.
2 See Virginia Delegates to Randolph, December 24 , and February 19, note 2.