1Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 14 May 1809 (Jefferson Papers)
I have duly recieved your favor of Apr. 3. with the copy of your General Geography, for which I pray you to accept my thanks. my occupations here have not permitted me to read it through, which alone could justify any judgment expressed on the work. indeed as it appears to be an abridgment of several branches of science, the scale of abridgment must enter into that abridgment judgment....
2From James Madison to Horatio Gates Spafford, [ca. 25 July] 1810 (Madison Papers)
I have recd. your favor of July 7. accompanied by your printed circular on the subject of your proposed Gazetteer of the State of N. York. It is certainly a commendable undertaking, and I wish you success in it. An extension of it to all the States would proportionally extend the value of the Work. It is an inconveniency incident to publications of this kind in our Country, that its rapid...
3Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 15 August 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of the 2 d inst. is duly recieved and I thank you for the mark of attention it expresses in proposing to send me a copy of your new Gazetteer. it will come safely to me under cover by the ordinary mail. but I owe abundant additional thanks for the kind expressions of respect which the letter conveys to me. at the end of a career thro’ a long course of public troubles, if my...
4From John Adams to Horatio Gates Spafford, 6 September 1813 (Adams Papers)
I have received by the Mail your Friendly Letter of L.M. 31. with your Gazetteer of the State of New York. Although I have not the pleasure of a personal Acquaintance: my thanks are not the less but the more due to you for your kind Attention and valuable present. Your Work, as it is a moment monument of industrious research and indefatigable labour in Collecting information concerning the...
5From John Adams to Horatio Gates Spafford, 7 September 1813 (Adams Papers)
I have received by the Mail your friendly Letter of 8 Mo. 31. with your Gazetteer of the State of New York. Although I have not the pleasure of a personal Acquaintance; my thanks are not the less but the more due to You for your kind Attention and valuable present. Your Work, as it is a monument of industrious research and indefatigable labour in collecting information concerning the important...
6From John Adams to Horatio Gates Spafford, 16 October 1813 (Adams Papers)
Your Ambition to Spread information of the growing prosperity of your country is amiable and deserves encouragement. The Safest conveyance of your Work, to the Emperors of France and Russia, would be through their Ambassadors to The President of The U.S. The Correspondence between my Family and my Son which was always interupted under brittish Orders or french Edicts, has been wholly Stopped,...
7From John Jay to Horatio Gates Spafford, 20 October 1813 (Jay Papers)
I have had the pleasure of recieving your Letter of the 22 r . Ult, and also the Copy of your Gazetteer which you was so obliging as to leave with my Son for me; and for which I thank you. On hearing that it was published, I had a copy purchased for my own use— I shall place one in our Town Library, and dispose of some others in the manner most likely to excite attention. As yet I have rather...
8From John Adams to Horatio Gates Spafford, 22 November 1813 (Adams Papers)
I have recd. the Gazetteer of New York, which you design for the Emperor of all the Russias, and will Send it by Mr. Ingraham, who is Soon to embark for Russia, where he has been before and acquainted in the family of our Minister God omnicient knows whether it is or is not “amiss to inform the European Potentates of the growing Strength and Numbers, and general prosperity of the American...
9From John Adams to Horatio Gates Spafford, 29 December 1813 (Adams Papers)
I have delivered the Copy of your Gazetteer of New York, intended for the American Accademy of Arts and Sciences, into the hand of The Hon. Josiah Quincy, their corresponding Secretary; and the Volume for The Emperor of Russia and that for J. Q. Adams to Mr Geyer to be taken to St Petersburg by Mr Ingraham who Sails from New York in a Cartel for England and thence to Russia. My Letters and...
10From John Adams to Horatio Gates Spafford, 2 January 1814 (Adams Papers)
I resigned the Office of President of The Academy before your Nomination and have not Since attended a Meeting of that learned and respectable Assembly. When I shall embrace my Son, a felicity for which I devoutly pray I know not. The Presidents and Mr Monroes Wishes are complimentary; but a great Gulph is fixed between him and them. I wish We may not have cause to repent of continuing our...
11Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 17 March 1814 (Jefferson Papers)
I am an unpunctual correspondent at best. while my affairs permit me to be within doors, I am too apt to take up a book, and to forget the calls of the writing table. besides this I pass a considerable portion of my time at a possession so distant, and uncertain as to it’s mails that my letters always await my return here. this must apologise for my being so late in acknoleging your two favors...
12Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 26 April 1814 (Jefferson Papers)
Your letter of the 7 th inst. is just recieved and finds me within a few days of my departure for a distant possession which I visit 3. or 4. times a year & am absent a month at a time. the suspension of these visits during winter renders indispensable as early a one as practicable in spring, and I expect to be absent all May. I hasten therefore to mention this, lest we should both be...
13Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 16 December 1814 (Jefferson Papers)
By the condition of the roads and repeated abandonments of the mail by the way your favor of Nov. 25. did not come to hand until it was certain from it’s contents, you had left Washington . I have delayed acknoleging it therefore till you might have reached Albany , and indeed the only object of doing it thus late is to express my regret at not having had the pleasure of recieving you here,...
14From John Adams to Horatio Gates Spafford, 2 January 1815 (Adams Papers)
I resigned the office of President of the Academy, before your nomination, and have not since attended a meeting of that learned, and respectable Assembly. When I shall embrace my Son, a felicity for which I devoutly pray, I know not. The President & Mr Munroe’s wishes are complementary, but a great gulph is fixed between him and them. I wish we may not have cause to repent of continuing our...
15Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 21 February 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of Jan. 28. was three weeks on it’s passage to this place. I thank you for the copies of the pamphlet you have been so good as to send me. I have read it with pleasure and observe the ingenuity of the idea. having however been myself very much of a projector in mechanics, and often disappointed in my theoretical combinations, I have learnt neither to form, nor to trust any opinion...
16Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 15 March 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favors of Feb. 15. 18. and 24. have all been recieved, and you could not even at the date of the last have recieved mine of Feb. 21. on the subject of your improvement in wheel carriages. I have now to thank you for the certificate of a right to use employ it in a carriage. it will be some time before I can make use avail myself of it. in travelling myself I have been obliged latterly to...
17Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 14 May 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of April 4 . was not recieved till the day before yesterday. I subscribe with pleasure to your American magazine, but hope you will have some agent in our state to recieve the annual subscription, nothing being so difficult as remittances to other states for want of some paper of general circulation. with respect to aiding it with materials for publication, I am become so averse to...
18From John Adams to Horatio Gates Spafford, 4 June 1815 (Adams Papers)
My Son is probably in England: but I have no Letter from him later than the 21. March, then at Paris in the Center of the curious Revolution. Charles 12th of Sweden, at Bender had a fracas with the Turks, in which he exerted his personal Strength and desperate Valour. When the Affray was over, an officer complemented him, as he thought, by saying “I am told you Majesty killed a dozen...
19Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 22 December 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
Of the last 5. months I have past 4 at a possession 90. or 100 miles S.W. from hence. this must apologise for my answering and acting at this late date on your letters of Nov. 18. & 23. I have written by this mail to the President on the subject of your request, altho more as evidence of my wish to be useful to you than with the hope of it’s effect, as the occasion I fear has past away while...
20Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 10 January 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
Of the last 5 months, 4 have been passed at my distant possession, to which no letters are carried to me, because the cross post is too circuitous and unsafe to be trusted. on my return I find an immense accumulation of them calling for answers, & among these your favor of the 25 th ult. in this you request me to examine the MS. tract it covered, to suggest amendments or alterations, give my...
21From John Adams to Horatio Gates Spafford, 26 July 1816 (Adams Papers)
I thank thee, for thy kind congratulations on my Health. There is no Man who wishes the return of my Son So much as myself. But whenever he returns it will puzzle him, as much as it did his Father, to know what to do with himself. It may also Somewhat perplex his Country: but She will give herself very little trouble about him. The American Accademy, has done honour to thee and to itself, by...
22Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 20 December 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
On my return from Bedford , after an absence of 7. weeks, I find here your favor of Nov. 23. with your magazine for Dec. 1815. for which be pleased to accept my thanks. you request permission to publish extracts from my letter of Mar. 17. 1814. on the anticivism of our professional crafts. on this subject I must observe that I have not now the buoyant spirits of youth which enabled me formerly...
23From John Adams to Horatio Gates Spafford, 31 January 1817 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your kind Letter of the 21st, and for the three Magazines inclosed, of December January and February. They contain curious and Usefull Matter. You ask my Opinion of the Essays of Franklin. You have Stated your own Opinions frankly fairly and candidly; you have explained your reasons for those Opinions, dispassionately—and your readers, I hope, will judge them, with Candour and...