To Thomas Jefferson from John Vaughan, 29 December 1801
From John Vaughan
Philad: Decr 29. 1801
Dr Sir
By Mr Brun, a friend of Kosiusco’s, & who is strongly recommended to me, I have the pleasure of sending, some Specimens of Coins & Medals made in England, they are from Mr Jos: Priestly, & were meant to have been sent to you long since, had not an accident prevented, which it is immaterial now to mention—I have taken the Liberty to annex a list of Certain Societies to which (by an order of some standing) our Transactions were to be sent—The Existence or State of these Societies being unknown—I am desirous of getting some information on the Subject—M De Nemours, to whom I had written relative to those of France, seems very uncertain whether they1 exist & if they do, under what name—with respect to those of Spain, The minister here refers me to the Consul General, daily expected, who is a man of Letters, & belongs to the Sociedad Bascongada The most ancient in Spain—As to the Italian Societies I am completely in the Dark, & wish as early as you have opportunity, that some light could be thrown upon it; by seizing the first moments of Peace, we shall render the delay, less perceptible, because it will be accounted for by the War—The Truth has been that we never could procure them from Mr. Aitkin, until the present moment—I should not have intruded on the time you must now necessarily devote to Political Objects—Could I have thought of any other Channel from whence I could get correct information.
I remain with the greatest respect Your obt. Servt. & friend
Jn Vaughan
D Coxe & the other Physicians are progressing with the Vaccine—he wd be happy when opportunity offers to learn, the Result of the use of the Variolous Matter sent for Dr Gantt.—
RC (DLC); at foot of text: “His Excellency Thomas Jefferson Washington.” Recorded in SJL as received 9 Jan. 1802.
For Brun, see Charles Le Brun to TJ, 10 Mch. 1802.
Minister: Carlos Martínez de Irujo. On 22 Jan. 1802, Irujo wrote Madison to announce the arrival at Philadelphia of the new Spanish consul general, Valentín Tadeo Echavarri de Foronda. TJ recognized Foronda’s credentials in an exequatur signed on 29 Jan. (FC in Lb, DNA: RG 59, Exequaturs; Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser., 2:416; 3:493–4).
The American Philosophical Society elected Foronda to membership in July 1802. Since 1776, he had been a member of the Real Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País, which was organized in the Basque region in 1765. The group pursued questions relating to science, technology, agriculture, and commerce. It was the oldest provincial or municipal society of the kind in Spain (, Proceedings, 22, pt. 3 [1884], 326; Robert S. Smith, “Economists and the Enlightenment in Spain, 1750–1800,” Journal of Political Economy, 63 [1955], 346–7; J. Ignacio Tellechea Idigoras and others, Real Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País, Euskalerriaren Adiskideen Elkartea: Edición Conmemorativa del II Centenario de la Muerte del Fundador de la Real Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País, D. Xavier Ma. de Munive e Idiáquez, Conde de Peñaflorida (1729–1785), 12 vols. [San Sebastian, Spain, 1985], 1:1–352; 5:93, 96; 12:53).
Mr. Aitkin: Philadelphia printer Robert Aitken published the first three volumes of the Transactions of the . In November 1801, the society gave a committee “discretionary powers” to settle Aitken’s accounts (, Proceedings, 22, pt. 3 [1884], 132, 186, 213, 317; Vol. 26:79).
1. MS: “the.”