1To Thomas Jefferson from William Wirt, with Jefferson’s Notes, 4 May 1797 (Jefferson Papers)
Mrs. Gilmer directs me to enquire whether you can furnish her with 20,000. 6 penny nails 10,000. 16 penny do. 200. 30. penny do.? In what time they can be got ready? Or, if they be now ready, whether it would suit you to take a draught for the amount on Mr. James Brown of Richmond payable on sight, or to wait for the money until the post from Richmond to Charlottsville gets again in...
2To Thomas Jefferson from William Wirt, with Jefferson’s Notes, 15 July 1797 (Jefferson Papers)
In a day or two I will come up and settle with you for the nails which were furnished us some time ago —and at the same time for 500. 8d. and 50. 30d. do. if you will be so obliging as to have them sent by the bearer. Yr. obt. Servt. (500) 5 ℔ VIII d. 12d 0-5-0 50. 3 ℔ XXX 10d. 0-2-6 0-7-6 RC ( MHi ); addressed: “Mr. Jefferson Monticello.” Furnished us some time ago : see Wirt to TJ, 4 May...
3To Thomas Jefferson from William Wirt, 20 July 1802 (Jefferson Papers)
I have just received yours of the 13th . and can only assure you of my constant attention to your interest. I cannot think, with patience, of your having that repose, to which you are so ju[stly] entitled, interrupted, in this way—and yet, rather [incon]sistently, I am sincerely pleased at having an opportunity of being, any way, useful to you: for I am, in very truth, devotedly yours RC ( DLC...
4To Thomas Jefferson from William Wirt, 8 January 1803 (Jefferson Papers)
I understand that the office of a judge for the Indiana Territory is vacant by the death of Mr. Clarke, and that Mr Ninian Edwards of Kentucky has been proposed for that appointment. I hope that I am not presuming too far on my acquaintance with you in certifying my opinion of Mr. Edwards. Having known him from youth to manhood, I feel a pleasure in having it in my power to declare, with...
5William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 10 July 1809 (Jefferson Papers)
Alexander M c Rae esq r & Maj r John Clarke , two gentlemen, justly reputed for integrity and talents, and well known I believe, Sir, to you, are just about to embark for Europe , with views which I am authorized to state to you. In conjunction with severa l other gentlemen, they have formed a project of introducing m anu factures into Virginia
6William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 18 January 1810 (Jefferson Papers)
About four years ago you were so good as to state that if the life of Henry was not destined to come out very speedily you would endeavour to recollect what might be of service to it and that having run your course with him for more than twenty years and witnessed the part he bore in every great question you would perhaps be able to recal some interesting anecdotes. I do not refer to your...
7William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 24 May 1810 (Jefferson Papers)
I have just recieved your favor of the 19 th and will, with very great pleasure, attend to its request and instructions. M r Wickham had previously made known your desire both to M r Hay and myself: he cannot join us in the defence although he is still unresolved to take the plaintiff’s case. You conjecture rightly as to the cause of action—it is Livingston’s expulsion from the batture by an...
8William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 27 June 1810 (Jefferson Papers)
Your last favor was brought to me from the post-office, too late, by some accident, to be answered by the returning mail. It gives me pleasure to assure you that succeeding interviews have completely removed the apprehensions expressed to my friend D. Carr in relation to this cause: and did I not know to whom my letter was addressed & by whom, alone, its contents are known, I should regret...
9William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 9 August 1810 (Jefferson Papers)
I have perused, with equal pleasure and conviction, your view of the question touching the batture at New Orleans : the copy is now returned. With such aid, I think it must be the fault of your counsel if they leave any room for candor to doubt or even for sophistry to cavil, with any hope of success. I had noted a few slight omissions which it will be necessary to supply in order to clear the...
10Enclosure: Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on William Wirt’s Comments on the Batture Statement, [ca. 20 August 1810] (Jefferson Papers)
Obj. that Joutel’s journal may not be admitted as evidence of the Charter to Crozat . Ans. I leave the establishment of this as legal evidence to the gentlemen in actual practice, who are so much more familiar with the authorities than I am. I have no doubt they will be able to shew that tho’ we may not resort to books of history for documents of a nature merely private, yet we may for those...
11William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 10 April 1811 (Jefferson Papers)
I have your favors by the last mail and will attend to them with much pleasure. If any thing could be done for Colo. D. here, it would be by shewing the copy of your letter to him. I shall retain it for another mail that I may recieve your directions as to making use of it or not. You may rely upon it that D.’s name has no magic in it here: he is considered as the foe of M r Madison . And the...
12William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 17 April 1811 (Jefferson Papers)
Yours of the 15 in reply to mine of the 10 th inst. has been brought to me from the office this instant. The copy of your letter to D. has been shewn to one person only— W m H. Cabell . The effect of it was to dispose him to lend D. $500. And I wrote my letter in a persuasion produced by that incident, as well as by its effect on my own feelings, that with the use of that letter, something...
13William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 19 May 1811 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of the 3 rd covering a copy of your letter to Colo. D. arrived at a time when I was absent on an excursion to the superior court of Powhatan from which I have just returned. If the bulwark of vanity which surrounds D. be not impregnable, or the spirit of faction which rules him, as wild and deaf as the winds of winter, I think your letter must touch him—but I much fear that he is...
14William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 15 April 1812 (Jefferson Papers)
I have your favor by the last mail, covering an hundred dollars (a draft on Gibson & Jefferson ) as a fee in the suit of Livingston against you. This is much more than an equivalent for any trouble I have had in the case. In truth, I have had no trouble in it. The investigation has been to me both a pleasure and instruction, and in itself, a compleat remuneration. From you I should never have...
15William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 20 July 1812 (Jefferson Papers)
I have just rec d yours of the 13 th and can only assure you of my constant attention to your interest. I can not think with patience, of your having this repose, to which you are so justly entitled, interrupted, in this way and yet, rather inconsistently I am sincerely pleased at having an opportunity of being any way useful to you: for I am yours in very truth devotedly yours Tr ( MdHi :...
16William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 27 July 1814 (Jefferson Papers)
The summer vacation of our courts, gives me an opportunity of taking up the materials which I have been for several years collecting for a life of Patrick Henry , and seeing what I could make of them. Will you have the goodness to excuse the following questions suggested, in a great degree, by a comparison of the communication you were so kind as to make , with others, from different quarters....
17William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 15 March 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
The clerk of the court of chancery has, this day, for the first time put into my hands the fi: fa. in your case with Scott which I hasten to enclose to you—and beg you to believe me as ever RC ( MHi ); endorsed by TJ as received 17 Mar. 1815 and so recorded in SJL . RC ( DLC ); address cover only; with
18William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 24 July 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
Henry ’s resolutions , as given by Judge Marshall , were copied from Prior Documents . Your conjecture that the 5 th resolution was the 5 th as offered by M r Henry , or at all events that which produced “the bloody debate” derives great strength from the resolutions of
19William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 10 August 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
I suppose it proceeds from the circumstances of my having lived in your neighbourhood, for several years; the brotherly intimacy and affection which has always subsisted between your nephews, the M r Carrs , and myself; and the paternal kindness with which you have always treated me, that I feel a sort of filial right to be more troublesome to you, than my judgment can entirely approve: but I...
20William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 24 August 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
I accept, with gratitude, the terms on which you are willing to remark on my manuscript—and send herewith three sections, ninety one pages. There will be an advertisement prefixed to it, stating the authorities on which the narrative is founded, and appealing to the candor and indulgence of the public on account of the peculiar disadvantages under which the work has been written. This, I...
21William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 10 September 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
I thank you for the remarks with which you have been so good as to accompany the return of the sheets. The story of Livy I had from Judge Nelson who gave it as a declaration to him from M r Henry himself. I think with you that the statement must be inaccurate: his indolence forbad it and Livy I find is not among the books left by him, of which I have a catalogue—I have moderated the passage...
22William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 25 September 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
W m Wirt , with respectful compliments to M r Jefferson , sends a few more sheets of the biography—and thinks he may venture to add the consoling assurance that a few more pages, (20, or at the most 30) will put an end to the trouble to which M r Jefferson has been so kind as to subject himself. RC ( MHi ); dateline at foot of text; endorsed by TJ as received 1 Oct. 1816 and so recorded in SJL...
23William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 2 October 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
I sent you about three or four weeks ago a second, and by the last mail, a third parcel of my biographical M.S.—Not having heard of their arrival and having had frequent proofs of the irregularity of the mails, I begin to be fearful that the packets have miscarried.—I beg you to be assured that it is not with the most distant intention of hurrying you in the kind and obliging office which you...
24William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 23 October 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
I now submit to you the last sheets of my sketches of M r H. which I am sorry to find more numerous than I expected, and I pray you to forgive the very great trouble which I am sincerely ashamed of having imposed on you.—Your remarks have been of great service to me not only by enabling me to correct mistakes in fact, but by putting me on a severe inquisition of my style which I am perfectly...
25William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 9 September 1817 (Jefferson Papers)
The rev d John H. Rice , of this place, a gentleman of great erudition, is about to publish a magazine, in which he proposes to give a view of the literature and literary men of Virginia . To this end, he is anxious to procure a complete catalogue of all the works, of any merit, which have been published, by Virginians, since the first foundation of the colony—the names of the respective...
26William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 28 December 1818 (Jefferson Papers)
Your letter of the 10 th Ult o reached this place after I had set out for Baltimore on public business, which kept me from home a full month, tho’ in the expectation, all the while, of returning on every succeeding day or two, at the farthest. I regret this delay, as I do most sensibly my misapprehension of your first letter relative to the proper court of probate of the will of General...
27William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 6 July 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
The only court in this district which has original cognizance in matters testamentary is the Orphans’ Court , the laws of Maryland , which, you know, are in force in the district, not having been altered by congress in this respect. If you will send me Gen l Kosciusko ’s will, with a certificate of it’s proof and of your relinquishment of the executorship, I can have the will proved here and...
28William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 23 September 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
A young gentleman of S t Mary’s county , in the state of Maryland , M r William Edelin , being about to become a student in the college at Charlottesville , I have been requested to give him a letter of introduction which will make his reception in your county respectable and his situation, as a stranger, more comfortable. I have not the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with M r Edelin ;...
29William Wirt to Thomas Jefferson, 9 March 1820 (Jefferson Papers)
The gentleman who hands you this is M r Albert Insinger , who has been introduced to me as Son to the Prior of the great commercial house of Insinger, & Co. of Amsterdam . M r Insinger being on a tour through Virginia , & being desirous of paying his respects to you, I have been requested to give him a letter of introduction, which I do with very great pleasure, because I am sure you will,...
30To Thomas Jefferson from William Wirt, 20 July 1823 (Jefferson Papers)
This will be handed to you by M r Benj. Lincoln Lear whom I had the pleasure, some time past, to recommend to you as qualified to fulfil your wishes with regard to Gen l Kosciusko’s will. A further acquaintance with Mr. Lear has confirmed the favorable opinion I then expressed of him. He is one of the most correct, amiable, inteligent and respectable of our young gentlemen: and I am sure you...
31To Thomas Jefferson from William Wirt, 2 April 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
A letter from my friend, M r Thomas A. Emmet, of New York, informs me that his son, Doctor John P. Emmet, has been chosen Professor of Chemistry & c in the University of Virginia, and, as he is going to a land of strangers, he feels the solicitude natural to a parent that he may find his happiness as well as his interest promoted by the change of residence. I have not the advantage of a...
32To Thomas Jefferson from William Wirt, 11 June 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
Doct. Caldwell, of the University of Transylvania, being on his way homeward from a short excursion to the North of us, and being desirous of paying his respects to you, as he passes, is yet fearful that you may possibly not recollect him and has accepted the offer of this note of introduction, which I have much pleasure in giving him, both as it may contribute to the gratification of a...
33To Thomas Jefferson from William Wirt, 13 July 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
My friends Colo Tennant, a distinguished merchant of Baltimore, and his son in law, M r Kennedy, one of my favorite brethren of the bar of that city, being about to pass through your part of the country, are desirous of an opportunity of paying their respects to you; and I give them this introduction with great pleasure, not only on account of their own merits and high standing in society, but...
34To Thomas Jefferson from William Wirt, 8 April 1826 (Jefferson Papers)
I hasten to acknowledge your favor of the 6 th inst. just rec d by which I have been both pained and gratified. I beg you to be assured that I had no agency, direct nor indirect, in giving this trouble to the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virg a and I regret exceedingly the suggestion that led to it. I am very sensible of the kindness of the motive which prompted my friend to make...
35To Thomas Jefferson from William Wirt, 24 July 1805 (Jefferson Papers)
In this intermission of your public labours I hope there may be nothing improper, in begging the aid of your memory towards a little literary project which I have on foot. I am collecting memoirs of the late Patrick Henry. His life and example appear to me to afford some fine lessons. His faults, as well as his virtues will be instructive and I propose to myself to become his biographer, not...
36To Thomas Jefferson from William Wirt, 16 September 1805 (Jefferson Papers)
An excursion to the western part of this State, from which I did not return untill last evening, has hitherto prevented me from acknowledging your favor of the 4. Ult. in answer to a request of mine relatively to Mr. Henry. You are so obliging as to tell me that if the work I propose is not destined to come out speedily you will endeavour to recollect what may be of use to it. I find it...
37To Thomas Jefferson from William Wirt, 14 January 1808 (Jefferson Papers)
I fear you have forgotten my disposition, since you seem to think that your favor of the 10th. might require an apology. It is to me obliging and grateful, beyond expression. I cannot, better, deserve your good opinion, than by answering your proposition in the same spirit of frankness, in which it is made. My desire to go into the army proceeded from no dislike to my profession: it arose from...