Thomas Sumter (1768–1840), planter and public official, was the son of TJ’s acquaintance, the Revolutionary War militia general Thomas Sumter (1734–1832). Born in Stateburg, South Carolina, he served in the South Carolina House of Representatives, 1794–95. In 1801 TJ appointed Sumter secretary to the United States legation in Paris, a position he held until resigning the following year. He then worked as James Monroe’s secretary in London in the latter part of 1803 before returning home to South Carolina. Sumter was lieutenant governor of that state for one two-year term starting late in 1804. TJ appointed him a lieutenant colonel of light artillery early in 1809, and later that year President James Madison named Sumter the United States minister plenipotentiary to the Portuguese court, then based in Rio de Janeiro. He remained in that position until 1819, after which he retired from public life. In 1840 Sumter owned seventy-six slaves. He died in Stateburg (BDSCHR description begins Walter B. Edgar and others, eds., Biographical Directory of the South Carolina House of Representatives, 1974– , 5 vols. description ends , 4:546–7; PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, James P. McClure, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 44 vols. description ends , 33:440–1, 624–5; JEP description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States description ends , 1:401, 405, 2:93, 94, 119 [6 Jan., 1 Feb. 1802, 7, 9 Jan., 6, 7 Mar. 1809]; Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser., 3:228–9, 590–3, 5:231, 564; Madison, Papers, Retirement Ser., 2:66–7; DNA: RG 29, CS, S.C., Sumter Co., 1830, 1840; Robert L. Meriwether, W. Edwin Hemphill, Clyde N. Wilson, and others, eds., The Papers of John C. Calhoun [1959–2003], 12:169, 183–5, 188; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 23 June 1840; Sumter Co. Will Book, D2:7–8; gravestone inscription in Thomas Sumter Memorial Park, Sumter Co.).

Sumter’s favor of 4 July 1821 is recorded in SJL as received 14 July from Washington, D.C. While the letter is otherwise unlocated, its address cover (addressed: “To Thomas Jefferson Esqr Monticello State of Virginia”; franked; postmarked Washington, 10 July) was reused for the PoC of TJ to Thomas Eston Randolph, 26 Sept. 1822, which is on verso.

The departure of John VI and his court from Rio de Janeiro to Portugal in 1821 marked the end of thirteen years that they were based in Brazil (Kirsten Schultz, Tropical Versailles: Empire, Monarchy, and the Portuguese Royal Court in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1821 [2001]). Ignaz von olfers became the secretary of legation and physician at the Prussian mission in Rio de Janeiro in 1818 (Walther Killy and Rudolf Vierhaus, eds., Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie [1995–2003], 7:487).