From Thomas Jefferson to Henry Remsen, 25 January 1799
To Henry Remsen
Philadelphia Jan. 25. 99.
Dear Sir
I take the liberty of inclosing you a letter to be put into the mail of the British packet about to sail.
I ought sooner to have thanked you for a paper you inclosed to me in Virginia, giving the first information I had of the calumny respecting Logan’s journey1 to Europe. a few days before his departure he informed me he was going to Hamburg & thence to Paris, & asked & recieved from me a certificate of his being an American citizen of character, family & fortune, merely to serve him in case he should be questioned on his journey in the present convulsed state of Europe. I had been led to believe his object was private business & so certified; and neither counselled his journey, nor authorised him to say one word politically in my name or any body’s name2 nor wrote a scrip of a pen by him to or for any mortal. this you will have seen that he has candidly declared to the public. however it serves to keep up the ball of a French faction for the present session, and against the next they will invent some other.
I must beg the favor of you to send either to me or to mr Barnes a note of what I am indebted for the newspaper & price current, which he will immediately remit. my wish is to continue a subscriber.
I beg you to accept assurances of the unaltered & sincere esteem of Dr. Sir
Your friend & servt
Th: Jefferson
RC (J. M. Fox, Philadelphia, 1946); at foot of text: “Mr. Remsen”; endorsed. Enclosure: TJ to Lucy Ludwell Paradise, recorded in SJL under this date but not found.
Regarding the newspaper Remsen sent from New York concerning the calumny respecting Logan’s journey, see TJ to Aaron Burr, 12 Nov. 1798. TJ’s certificate for George Logan is printed at 4 June 1798.
By a draft on John Barnes on 9 Jan. 1799 TJ ordered payment of $150 to John Francis on account (MS in ViU: Edgehill-Randolph Papers, written and signed by TJ, endorsed by Barnes, signed on verso by Francis; , 2:996). TJ on the 22d requested Barnes to pay $10 “to the bearer for his mother,” Henrietta Gardner, for washing. According to Barnes’s endorsement the bearer was Jacob Lawrence, TJ’s servant in Philadelphia early in 1799 (MS in ViU: Edgehill-Randolph Papers, written and signed by TJ, endorsed by Barnes; , 2:808, 962, 995, 997). On 5 Jan. TJ ordered payment of $10 to Philadelphia publishers John Thompson and Abraham Small to complete payment for a copy of the first hot-pressed Bible printed in the United States. Another draft on Barnes, dated 21 Jan., ordered payment of $13.50 to Sebastian Voight (probably connected to Philadelphia clockmaker Henry Voight) for a “clock plate & wheels” (MSS in MHi, written and signed by TJ, endorsed by Barnes; , 2:829, 979, 996, 997; see No. 1469).
Newspaper & price current: see TJ to Remsen, 25 Mch. 1798.
Letters from Remsen to TJ of 28 Apr. and 10 May 1798, received on 1 and 11 May respectively, are recorded in SJL but have not been found.
1. Word written over partially erased “mission.”
2. Remainder of sentence interlined.