Note 108 — Chapter I

Stoddert refers to this person as "Jo Davies." By some this has been thought to refer to Marshall's brother-in-law, "Jo" Daveiss of Kentucky. But the latter was killed in the Battle of Tippecanoe, November 7, 1811.

While the identity of Stoddert's agent cannot be established with certainty, he probably was one John Davis of Salisbury, England, as described in the text. "Jo" was then used for John as much as for Joseph; and Davis was frequently spelled "Davies." A John or "Jo" Davis or Davies, an Englishman, was a very busy person in America during the first decade of the nineteenth century. (See Loshe: Early American Novel, 74-77.) Naturally he would have been against the War of 1812, and he was just the sort of person that an impracticable man like Stoddert would have chosen for such a mission.