From Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1 February 1793
To George Washington
Feb. 1. 1793.
Th: Jefferson has the honor to send to the President the speech of De Coin, written at length from his notes, very exactly. He thinks he can assure the President that not a sentiment delivered by the French interpreter is omitted, nor a single one inserted which was not expressed. It differs often from what the English Interpreter delivered, because he varied much from the other who alone was regarded by Th:J.
RC (DNA: RG 59, MLR); addressed: “The President of the U.S.”; endorsed by Tobias Lear. PrC (DLC); partially faded and overwritten in a later hand. Not recorded in SJL.
Jean Baptiste Ducoigne, a Kaskaskia chief, was a member of the delegation of Illinois and Wabash Indians currently conferring with Washington about the peace treaty General Rufus Putnam had negotiated with their tribes the previous September. TJ undoubtedly sent the President the speech of Ducoigne as set down in the first six manuscript pages of his minutes of the first day of the conference with this delegation (Minutes of a Conference with the Illinois and Wabash Indians, printed under 1 Feb. 1793, and note). The notes TJ took at the conference have not been found.