I take the liberty of inclosing to you a letter for Genl Chattelux for which you will readily find means of conveyance. But I meant to give you more trouble with the one to Pelham who lives in the neighborhood of Manchester & to ask the favor of you to send it by your servant express which I am in hopes may be done without absenting him from your person but during those hours in which you will be engaged in the house. I am anxious that it should be received immediately. Mrs Jefferson has added another daughter to our family. She has been ever since & still continues very dangerously ill. It will give me great pleasure to see you here whenever you can favor us with your company. You will find me still busy but in lighter occupations. But in these & all others you will find me to retain a due sense of your friendship & to be with sincere esteem, Dr Sir Your mo ob & mo hble servt. P. S. did you ever receive a copy of the Parl. debates & Histor. Register with a letter left for you with Mr Jas. Buchanan? TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA. V. S. A. MONTICELLO Sep. 22. 1782. SIR, I do myself the honour of inclosing you a letter received from Mr Thomas Smith as agent for Mr Nathan. I have no idea that the laws, as they stand at present, can give him an action against me for assumpsits of public debts, made in council & so expressed with their unanimous advice, and this in the presence of Mr Nathan, who knew the debts to be public, who applied to me as a public officer for paiment, and who has never before pretended to consider it but as a public affair. And even were it possible that the present laws should leave me exposed to shipwreck where there never was anything in the nature of a private assumpsit, I suppose it not possible they should be permitted to remain so. The purpose of the present trouble I give your Excellency is to ask whether, should any suit be brought against me, I may take the liberty of remitting the defence wholly to the public whose concern alone it is? I had had some thoughts of abstracting myself awhile from this state by a journey to Philadelphia or somewhere else Northwardly; but I suppose it would not be safe for me to leave a state by whose laws I must certainly be protected & trust myself in another where that protection would be doubtful. TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. J. MSS. CHESTERFIELD Nov. 26 1782. SIR,-I received yesterday the letter with which you have been pleased to honour me inclosing the resolution of Congress of the 12th inst renewing my appointment as one of their ministers plenipotentiary for negotiating a peace, and beg leave through you to return my sincere thanks to that august body for the confidence they are pleased to repose in me and to tender the same to yourself for the obliging man 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 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 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. 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. one TO FRANÇOIS JEAN, CHEVALIER DE CHASTELLUX. J. MSS. AMPTHILL Nov 26, 1782. DEAR SIR, I received your friendly letters ofand 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 1 The death of Mrs. Jefferson. |