1. Jefferson’s docket indicates that this note was received on Saturday, 7 July 1792.

2. For British minister George Hammond’s letter to Jefferson of Thursday, 5 July, see Jefferson to GW, 5 July, n.1; for Jefferson’s response of 6 July, see Jefferson to GW, 6 July, n.1. On 9 July, Jefferson wrote Hammond two letters. In the first letter Jefferson gave as the reason for the delay in providing the administration’s answer to the British complaint that he “could not be assured of expressing to Mr. Hammond, in conversation, sentiments which should be really those of the government until there should have been a consultation on them; and that consultation has been retarded by particular accidents till this morning” (Jefferson Papers, description begins Julian P. Boyd et al., eds. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. 41 vols. to date. Princeton, N.J., 1950–. description ends 24:202). In his second letter Jefferson expressed his regret “that while the grounds of difference between our respective countries are under amicable discussion, any circumstances should arise on either side, which might excite questions of still greater delicacy or tend to disturb or imbarrass the course of the discussion. We have no information on our part of the facts which are the subject of your letter of the 5th. but the Governor of Vermont [Thomas Chittenden] will be immediately applied to for such information, on the receipt of which no time shall be lost in taking thereon those measures which shall appear proper.” Jefferson assured Hammond “of our sincere dispositions to cultivate harmony on our borders and a friendly understanding in general between the two nations” and said that the “present imbarrassment, arising so unexpectedly, is a proof how important it is to hasten to a conclusion the general settlement of our rights” (ibid., 202–3). In his letter to Governor Chittenden of this date, Jefferson asked for the needed information and emphasized “that no measures be permitted in your state, which, by changing the present state of things in districts where the British have hitherto exercised jurisdiction, might disturb the peaceable and friendly discussion now in hand, and retard, if not defeat, an ultimate arrangement” (ibid., 200; see also Jefferson to Chittenden, Hammond to Jefferson, and Jefferson to Hammond, all 12 July, ibid., 218–21). For the background to the Alburg controversy, see Chittenden to GW, 16 June, and note 1.