Thomas Jefferson Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-42-02-0162

To Thomas Jefferson from Jonathan Dayton, 27 December 1803

From Jonathan Dayton

Brookes’s at 7 buildings
Decr. 27th. 1803

Sir.

I take the liberty of presenting to you the usual compliments & best wishes of this season of festivity & joy, and particularly of expressing my congratulations upon the happy event of the peaceable delivery of possession of one of the Forts in the city of New Orleans at the demand of the Prefect, to a company of our countrymen embodied under Mr. Clark. This may be regarded as a sure pledge for the surrender of the whole Province, agreeably to our Convention with France.   As it is possible that a copy of Mr. Laussat’s proclamation consequent thereupon, may not have been enclosed in your dispatches, I have the honor Sir, to send you one which I have received, with a request that you would do me the favor to keep it, if it be the only one in your possession.

Instead of taking the liberty of writing to you Sir, I should have called to pay you my respects & compliments in person upon this occasion, if I had not been afflicted by a painful swelling on my hand, which has confined me to my room for three days, & even now, (altho’ better) prevents me from drawing a coat over it.

I have the honor to be Sir with the highest respect Your very hum. servt.

Jona: Dayton

RC (DLC); at foot of text: “The President of the U. States”; endorsed by TJ as received 27 Dec. and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure: Proclamation by Pierre Clément Laussat, New Orleans, 30 Nov., in French, to the people of Louisiana announcing that he has accepted the transfer of the province from the commissioners of Spain and will soon transfer it to commissioners of the United States; he emphasizes the benefits the inhabitants will receive by joining a populous and powerful nation known for its industriousness and progress; they will have the rights and privileges of citizens of the United States, access to justice and a government responsive to their needs, and a place in the commerce of the Nile of America (“le Nil de Amérique, ce Mississipi”); the French Republic is voluntarily giving up the colony, but will always have a bond to its people (Proclamation. Au Nom de la République Française. Pierre Clément Laussat, Préfet Colonial, Commissaire du Gouvernement Français, Aux Louisianais [New Orleans, 1803]; printed in Terr. Papers description begins Clarence E. Carter and John Porter Bloom, eds., The Territorial Papers of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1934-75, 28 vols. description ends , 9:126-32, with translation).

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