To Thomas Jefferson from Louis Guillaume Otto, 25 September 1787
From Louis Guillaume Otto
A Newyork le 25. 7bre. 1787
Monsieur
Je profite du depart d’un Batiment Marchand pour vous addresser plusieurs exemplaires de la nouvelle Constitution proposée par l’Assemblée federale de Philadelphia. On espere assés généralement que les peuples ratifieront ce nouveau plan de Gouvernement; du moins les patriotes et les amis de l’Amerique le desirent avec ardeur.
Je suis avec respect Monsieur, de Votre Excellence le très humble et très obeissant serviteur
Otto
RC (DLC); endorsed. Recorded in SJL as received 15 Nov. 1787. Enclosure: The copies of the Federal Constitution that Otto sent may have been newspaper reprints from the first public text—that which appeared in the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser for 19 Sep. 1787—or they may have been one of the pamphlet editions that appeared in Philadelphia and elsewhere almost immediately.
The present letter and its enclosures preceded by five days the similar one that Otto wrote Montmorin, perhaps because the copy of the Constitution sent the latter was in translation; both letters were received in Paris on 15 Nov. 1787 and both evidently went by the same merchant vessel (Otto to Montmorin, 10 and 30 Sep. 1787; Arch. Aff. Etr., Paris, Corr. Pol., E.-U., xxxii; Tr in DLC). The official copy of the Constitution that Washington sent TJ on 18 Sep. arrived more than a month after the present communication. Otto’s copies were the first that TJ received directly from America, but he had already received a copy forwarded by Adams some two days before the present letter and its enclosures arrived (see TJ to Smith, 13 Nov. 1787).