William Short to Thomas Jefferson, 22 June 1819
From William Short
Philada June 22. 1819
Dear sir
I had the pleasure of writing to you at some length on the 25th ulto—& I would not give you this trouble now if I were certain that letter had reached your hands. But I have some apprehension that my servant may have been negligent in carrying that letter to the post-office, as I have lately heard that you were at Monticello & not at Bedford, as I had at first supposed, on not hearing from you. It is possible also that the inconvenience you now experience in writing, & the great load of this labor which is always on your hands, may have prevented your letting me know that my letter had been recieved. I send this therefore, merely that I may be certain that there has not been negligence in this case in my servant, & for that purpose I will carry this letter myself to the post-office so that I shall be certain that you will have knowlege of my letter of the 25th ulto & also of the present; unless indeed there should be some failure in the post betwixt this & Monticello, which I do not apprehend.
My last letter was written in part at the request of a gentleman here, who has some intention of offering for the chair of Anatomy with you, & who wished therefore to know when this chair would be established, & what should be the mode of applying for it. I took the liberty also of speaking to you of a most able Mathematician here, who, I understood from Mr Patterson, would be willing to accept the Mathematical chair in your University, & who certainly might be considered in that case as a Dieu-donné. I mentioned also in the same letter what Poletica had said to me, & the information he wished to obtain as to the affairs of Kosciusko, & as to which the person who charged him, had given him a reference to you.
I think there must have been other matters also in that letter which do not occur to me at this moment, as it was a very long one—I will not add to this at present, further than to express the great pleasure I should have in hearing from you if it were not at too great a charge on you, & to repeat the assurance of all those sentiments with which I am, dear sir,
W: Short
RC (MHi); endorsed by TJ as received 27 June 1819 and so recorded in SJL; with notes by TJ at foot of text relating to his reply of [29] June 1819: “
fire. | |
university | |
profs | math. |
anat. | |
Poletica | |
Correa. |
dieu-donné: “gift from God.”
Index Entries
- anatomy; collegiate education in search
- Corrêa da Serra, José; proposed visit of search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Correspondence; fatiguing or painful to search
- Kosciuszko, Tadeusz (Thaddeus) Andrzej Bonawentura; estate of search
- mathematics; University of Virginia professorship of search
- Monticello (TJ’s Albemarle Co. estate); fires at search
- Nulty, Eugenius; as mathematician search
- Patterson, Robert; recommends E. Nulty search
- Polética, Pierre de; and T. Kosciuszko’s estate search
- Short, William; and fire at Monticello search
- Short, William; and J. Corrêa da Serra search
- Short, William; and P. de Polética search
- Short, William; and University of Virginia search
- Short, William; letter carried by servant of search
- Short, William; letters from search
- Virginia, University of; Faculty and Curriculum; anatomy professorship search
- Virginia, University of; Faculty and Curriculum; mathematics professorship search