United States of America, ss.

The President of the United States,

To the Judges of the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Columbia in the County of Washington Greeting:

Because in the record and proceedings, as also in the rendition of the judgment of a plea which is in the said Circuit Court, before you or some of you, between Matilda Derrick for herself & her children Lucy, Matilda, & Louisa infants &c Petitioner and George Mason & Alexander Moore Defendants on a Petition for freedom a manifest error hath happened, to the great damage of the said Defendants as by their complaint appears. We being willing that error, if any hath been, should duly be corrected, and full and speedy justice done to the parties aforesaid in this behalf: Do command you, if judgment be therein given, that, then under your seal distinctly and openly, you send the record and proceedings aforesaid, with all the things concerning the same, to the Supreme Court of the United States, together with this writ, so that you have the same at Washington, on the first Monday of February next, in the said Supreme Court, to be then and there held; that the record and proceedings aforesaid being inspected, the said Supreme Court may cause further to be done therein to correct that error, what of right, and according to the laws and custom of the United States should be done.

Witness, the honourable John Marshall Chief Justice of the said Supreme Court, this first Monday of August in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty three.

E. B. Caldwell Clk. Sup. Ct. U. S.