To Thomas Jefferson from Edmund Randolph, [after 18 March 1792]
From Edmund Randolph
Friday P. M. [after 18 Mch. 1792]
E. R. to T. J.
The existence of the bill is, I believe, unquestionable. I remember to have heard my uncle speak of Mr. Montagu’s communication. But I possess no copy, nor can I direct you to any place, where you can obtain it.
Mr. Remsen some time ago sent a box, which for months past has been supposed to contain my papers. When I opened it, starch, instead of papers, was found to be the contents. I shall again write to him, and urge a further search in Mr. Bowne’s warehouse.
RC (DLC: TJ Papers, 98: 16771–2); partially dated, being conjecturally assigned (see note below); addressed: “Mr. Jefferson Market-Street”; endorsed by TJ: “E. Randolph’s notes.”
My Uncle: probably Peyton Randolph, who was successively the king’s attorney in Virginia and speaker of the House of Burgesses during the tenure of Edward Montagu as the colony’s agent in London from 1759 to 1770 (Michael G. Kammen, A Rope of Sand: The Colonial Agents, British Politics, and the American Revolution [Ithaca, N.Y., 1968], 325). Neither the Bill nor the Communication has been identified.
The BOX, which evidently contained records of Randolph’s Virginia law practice, including the cases TJ transferred to him in 1774, was probably that discussed in Henry Remsen to TJ, 16 Mch. 1792; TJ to Remsen, 18 Mch. 1792; and Randolph to TJ, 4 July 1792. See also TJ to Robert Fleming, 11 Sep. 1792.