To Thomas Jefferson from Elkanah Watson, 18 October 1803
From Elkanah Watson
Albany. 18th Oct 1803
Sir
As few Americans have tho’t proper to Submit their observations & travels in other Countries to the press; my Short Tour in Holland was on that account Considered Interesting, & I Submitted to its publication Several years ago, without however being at that time Known as the Author.
But Since the fact has become Notorious, will you Sir, do me the honer to accept, the Inclosed little essay as a Small token of my profound Respect & Veneration
Elkanah Watson
RC (DLC); at foot of text: “The President of the United States”; endorsed by TJ as received 17 Mch. 1804 and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure: A Tour in Holland, in MDCCLXXXIV (Worcester, Mass., 1790), by “An American,” consisting of eight letters to various correspondents from 24 May to 23 June 1784 and an appendix on the Dutch East Indies; the eighth letter identifies Haarlem resident Laurens Janszoon Coster, not Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, as the inventor of movable type (see No. 3872; Vol. 8:447, 448n).