Autograph Letter, signed. 3 pp. + integral stampless address leaf. To Dr. Richard E. Meade, Edinburgh, Scotland.
The importance of this letter from one young Virginian living in England to another, who was studying medicine in Scotland, is its introduction of William Green Munford, the American teenager who carried it from London to Edinburgh - the “fellow Citizen [who] will hand you this note…our Countryman, this prodigy, a young man only seventeen years of age travelling like Greeks of old, to find and converse with great Characters. In America he is the friend of Jefferson, in Paris, the Companion of Volney; in London, a guest of Godwin, and now he is on his way to see Dugald Stewart of Edinburgh…” Stark, Meade and Munford all rejoiced that “… every account from America is pleasing to the Heart of a good Republican. All is Peace and Harmony, eatables and drinkables in abundance - and above all, Jefferson is to be elected President. This is point settled.” In fact, the election would result in an Electoral tie between Jefferson and Aaron Burr, to be settled the following year. According to the editor of Jefferson’s Papers, Munford – also known as “Montfort” - was a Virginia college student who had charmed both Jefferson and Burr before taking this European trip, in which he was involved in “the most abominable swindling”. Returning to America to propose to Jefferson some “plan as incomprehensible as it was unworthy”, Munford, complaining that he had been “abandoned” by friends and family, next secured the “protection” of Burr, their friendship catching the attention of Burr’s enemy, Alexander Hamilton who suspected Munford of being a French secret agent. When Congress met to resolve the Electoral deadlock, Munford turned up in Washington to lobby legislators to vote for Burr. After Hamilton threw his weight to Jefferson, who was at last elected President, with Burr as Vice President, both men dropped Munford. He re-surfaced in Europe and died in France of smallpox in 1804. The US Consul at Bordeaux concluded that, in all probability, this brilliant youth who had caught the eye of so many great men, had indeed been a French spy.