The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 2 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 2 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
DEAR SIR,--My last to you was of October the 8th, by the Count de
Moustier. Yours of July the 18th, September the 6th and October the 24th,
were successively received, yesterday, the day before, and three or four
days before that. I have only had time to read the letters; the printed
papers communicated with them, however interesting, being obliged to lie
over till I finish my despatches for the packet, which despatches must
go from hence the day after to-morrow. I have much to thank you for;
first and most for the cyphered paragraph respecting myself. These little
informations are very material towards forming my own decisions. I would
be glad even to know, when any individual member thinks I have gone wrong
in any instance. If I know myself, it would not excite ill blood in me,
while it would assist to guide my conduct, perhaps to justify it, and to
keep me to my duty, alert. I must thank you too, for the information in
Thomas Burke's case; though you will have found by a subsequent letter,
that I have asked of you a further investigation of that matter. It is to
gratify the lady who is at the head of the convent wherein my daughters
are, and who, by her attachment and attention to them, lays me under great
obligations. I shall hope, therefore, still to receive from you the result
of all the further inquiries my second letter had asked. The parcel of
rice which you informed me had miscarried, accompanied my letter to the
Delegates of South Carolina. Mr. Bourgoin was to be the bearer of both,
and both were delivered together into the hands of his relation here,
who introduced him to me, and who, at a subsequent moment, undertook to
convey them to Mr. Bourgoin. This person was an engraver, particularly
recommended to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Hopkinson. Perhaps he may have mislaid
the little parcel of rice among his baggage. I am much pleased that the
sale of western lands is so successful. I hope they will absorb all the
certificates of our domestic debt speedily, in the first place, and that
then, offered for cash, they will do the same by our foreign ones.
The season admitting only of operations in the cabinet, and these being in
a great measure secret, I have little to fill a letter. I will therefore
make up the deficiency, by adding a few words on the constitution proposed
by our convention.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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