ner in which you have notified it. I will employ in this arduous charge with diligence and integrity the best of my poor talents, which I am conscious are far short of what it requires. This I hope will ensure to me from Congress a kind construction of all my transactions, and it gives me no small pleasure that my communications will pass through the hands of a gentleman with whom I have acted in the earlier stages of this contest & whose candor & discernment I had the good fortune then to prove and to esteem. Your letter finds me at a distance from home, attending my family under inoculation. This will add to the delays which the arrangement of my particular affairs would necessarily occasion. I shall lose no moment however in preparing for my departure and shall hope to pay my respects to Congress & yourself at sometime between the 20th & the last of December.

TO JAMES STEPTOE.

J. MSS. Nov 26, 1782.

DEAR SIR, I received in August your favour wherein you give me hopes of your being able to procure for me some of the big bones. I should be unfaithful to my own feelings were I not to express to you how much I am obliged by your attention to the request I made you on that subject. A specimen of each of the several species of bones now to be found is to me the most desirable object in natural history, and there is no expense of package or of safe transportation which I will not gladly

reimburse to procure them safely. Elk horns of very extraordinary size, or anything else uncommon would be very acceptable. New London in Bedford Staunton in Augusta or Fredericksbg, are places from whence I can surely get them. You will hear of my being gone to Europe, but my trip there will be short. I mention this, lest you should hesitate forwarding any curiosities to me. Any observations of your own on the subject of the big bones or their history or on anything else in the Western country will come acceptably to me, because I know you see the works of nature in the great, & not merely in detail. Descriptions of animals, vegetables, minerals, or other curious things, notes as to the Indians, information of the country between the Mississippi & waters of the South Sea &c. &c. will strike your mind as worthy being communicated. I wish you had more time to pay attention to them.

I perceive by your letter you are not unapprized that your services to your country have not made due impression on every mind. mind. That That you have enemies you must not doubt when you reflect that you have made yourself eminent. If you meant to escape malice you should have confined yourself within the sleepy line of regular duty. When you transgressed this and enterprised deeds which will hand down your name with honor to future times, you made yourself a mark for malice & envy to shoot at. Of these there is enough, you know, both in & out of office. I was not a little surprised however to find.

one person hostile to you, as far as he has personal courage to show hostility to any man. Who he is you will probably have heard, or may know him by this description-as being all tongue, without either head or heart. In the variety of his crooked schemes however his interests may probably veer about so as to put it in your power to be useful to him, in which case he certainly will be your friend again if you want him. That you may long continue a fit object for his enmity and for that of every person of his complexion in the state, which I know can only be by your continuing to do good to your country & to acquire honour to yourself is the earnest prayer of

who subscribes himself, with great truth &

sincerity, Your friend & servt.

TO FRANÇOIS JEAN, CHEVALIER DE CHASTELLUX. J. MSS. AMPTHILL Nov 26, 1782.

DEAR SIR, I received your friendly letters of and June 30 but the latter not till the 17th of Oct. It found me a little emerging from the stupor of mind which had rendered me as dead to the world as she was whose loss occasioned it. Your letter recalled to my memory that there were persons still living of much value to me. If you should have thought me remiss in not testifying to you sooner how deeply I had been impressed with your worth in the little time I had the happiness of being with you you will I am sure ascribe it to it's true cause the state of

The death of Mrs. Jefferson.

dreadful suspense in which I had been kept all the summer & the catastrophe which closed it. Before that event my scheme of life had been determined. I had folded myself in the arms of retirement, and rested all prospects of future happiness on domestic & literary objects. A single event wiped away all my plans and left me a blank which I had not the spirits to fill up. In this state of mind an appointment from Congress found me, requiring me to cross the Atlantic. And that temptation might be added to duty I was informed at the same time from his Excy the Chevalier de Luzerne that a vessel of force would be sailing about the middle of Dec. in which you would be passing to France. I accepted the appointment and my only object now is so to hasten over those obstacles which would retard my departure as to be ready to join you in your voyage, fondly measuring your affections by my own & presuming your consent. It is not certain that by any exertion I can be in Philadelphia by the middle of December. the contrary is most probable. But hoping it will not be much later and counting on those procrastinations which usually attend the departure of vessels of size I have hopes of being with you in time. This will give me full leisure to learn the result of your observations on the natural bridge, to communicate to you my answers to the queries of Monsr de Marbois, to receive edification from you on these and on other subjects of science, considering chess too as a matter of science. Should I be able to get out in tolerable time and any extraordinary delays

VOL. III.-5

in

attend the sailing of the vessel I shall certainly do myself the honor of waiting on his Excy Count Rochambeau at his Head quarters and assuring him person of my high respect and esteem for himan object of which I have never lost sight. To yourself I am unable to express the warmth of those sentiments of friendship & attachment with which I have the honour to be, Dr Sir,

Your most obedt & mo hble servt.

TO JAMES MADISON.

J. MSS.

AMPTHILL IN CHESTERFIELD Nov 26, 1782.

DEAR SIR,-Your favour by Colo Basset is not yet come to hand. The intimation through the attorney I received the day before Colo Bland's arrival by whom I am honoured with yours of the 14th inst. It finds me at this place attending my family under inoculation. This will of course retard those arrangements of my domestic affairs which will of themselves take time and cannot be made but at home. I shall lose no time however in preparing for my departure; and from the calculations I am at present enabled to make I suppose I cannot be in Philadelphia before the 20th of December, and that possibly it may be the last of that month. Some days I must certainly pass there; as I could not propose to jump into the midst of a negotiation without a single article of previous information. From these data you will be enabled to judge of the chance of availing myself of his Excy the Chev de la Luzerne's kind offer, to