THE WRITINGS OF

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

CORRESPONDENCE.

1784-1785.

TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA.1

(BENJAMIN HARRISON.)

PARIS, Aug. 20, 1784.

SIR,-A few days after my arrival here Colo. Le Maire, writer of the enclosed letter called & asked me to forward it to you with such explanations as I could give. As to his commission, having lost the original as he therein mentions, he asks an authenticated copy of it, which he thinks will enforce some application he is making to this government. As to lands, I remember the gift of 2000 acres, & think the entry of it will be found in the minutes of the council some time in the summer or autumn of 1779. A letter was written to Colo. Shelby or to Maj Martin, (the Cherokee agent) to locate the war

1 From the original in the possession of Mr. F. J. Dreer, of Philadelphia.

rant on the best lands possible; and I believe it was meant that every expence should be borne by the state so that Le Maire should receive an actual grant clear of all charges & trouble. But of these things the minutes & letters of the Executive will give more certain information; or if these should have been lost, Mr. Blair will probable recollect the circum

stances.

TO JAMES MADISON.

MAD. MSS.

PARIS, II November, 1784.

I am obliged to you for your information as to the prospects of the present year in our farms. It is a great satisfaction to know it & yet it is a circumstance which few correspondents think worthy of mention. I am also much indebted for your very full observations on the navigation of the Mississippi. I had thought on the subject, & sketched the anatomy of a memorial on it, which will be much aided by your communications.-You mention that my name is used by some speculators in western land jobbing, as if they were acting for me as well as for themselves. About the year 1776 or 1777 I consented to join Mr. Harvey and some others in an application for lands there; which scheme, however, I believe he dropped on the threshold, for I never after heard one syllable on the subject. In 1782 I joined some gentlemen in a project to obtain some lands in the western part of North Carolina. But in the winter of 1782 and 1783, while I was in expectation of going to Europe, and that the title to western lands might

possibly come under the discussion of the ministers, I withdrew myself from this company. I am further assured that the members never prosecuted their views. These were the only occasions in which I ever took a single step for the acquisition of western lands, & in these I retracted at the threshold. I can with truth therefore declare to you, & wish you to repeat it on every proper occasion, that no person on earth is authorized to place my name in any adventure for lands on the western waters, that I am not engaged in any but the two before mentioned. I am one of eight children to whom my father left. his share in the loyal company, whose interests, however, I never espoused, and they have long since received their quietus. Excepting these, I never was nor am I now interested in one foot of land on earth off the waters of James river.

I shall subjoin the few books I have ventured to buy for you. I have been induced to do it by the combined circumstances of their utility and cheapness. I wish I had a catalogue of the books you would be willing to buy, because they are often to be met on stalls very cheap, and I would get them as occasion should arise. The subscription for the Encyclopædia is still open. Whenever an oppor

tunity offers of sending you what is published of that work (37 vols.) I shall subscribe for you and send it with the other books purchased for you.

Whatever money I may lay out for you here in books, or in anything else which you may desire, may be replaced crown for crown (without bewildering

ourselves in the exchange) in Virginia by making payments.

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Colonel Le Maire, whom you know, is the bearer of this; he comes to Virginia to obtain the two thousand acres of land given him for his services in procuring us arms, and what else he may be entitled to as having been an officer in our service; above all things, he wishes to obtain the Cincinnatus eagle, because it will procure him here the order of St. Louis, and of course a pension for life of one thousand livres; he is so extremely poor that another friend and myself furnish him money for his whole expenses from here to Virginia. There I am in hopes the hospitality of the country will be a resource for him till he can convert a part of his lands advantageously into money; but as he will want some small matter of money, if it should be convenient for you to furnish him with as much as ten guineas from time to time on my account, I will invest that sum in books or anything else you may want here by way of payment. He is honest and grateful, and you may be assured that no aid that you can give him in the forwarding his claims will be misplaced. *

*

DEAR SIR,-Your journey to the Westward having prevented my writing to you till now that a letter may probably find you at Congress I shall resume the correspondence discontinued since I left Boston.

My passage was remarkably short, being only 19 days from land to land, & I suffered little by sickness. Having very thick weather when we approached the coast of Europe, we fell in with no vessel which could take me & put me on the French coast as I had intended. I therefore went ashore at Portsmouth where I was detained three or four days by a fever which had seized my daughter two days before we landed. As soon as she was clear of it I hired a vessel to carry me over to Havre, from whence I came on to this place, thro' a country than which nothing can be more fertile, better cultivated & more elegantly improved. It was at the time when harvest was beginning, & it is principally a farming country.

I informed you from Boston that before I had received your letters of May 25 & June 1, I had packed up our cypher and therefore could not there make out the passages which were put into cypher. I have tried it here & find that by some unfortunate mistake, probably in the young gentleman who wrote the cypher, it will not explain a single syllable. He has arranged all the numbers in their regular order, and then placed against each the words, syllables &c in alphabetical order. You can judge whether this was the plan of it. The want of the cypher would have restrained me from mentioning some things were I not assured of the fidelity of the bearer hereof Colo. Le Maire.

I am to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of Aug. 9. from New York, but not of the previous one therein mentioned to be sent by Mr. Short, he being not yet come, nor any tidings of him.