To Thomas Jefferson from Charles Thomson, 1 February 1780
From Charles Thomson
Secretary’s Office, 1 Feb. 1780. Encloses the journals of Congress to complete the state’s set to 1 Jan. 1780, hereafter to be printed in monthly pamphlets regularly sent, and requests a reply to his letter of 20 Nov. 1779, the request therein not being made “by idle curiosity but a desire of promoting public Utility and the cause of America.”
RC (MdAA: Red Books); 1 p.; in a clerk’s hand, signed by Thomson; at foot of text: “His Excellency The Governor of Maryland”; consists of a circular letter to state executives. Enclosures: presumably the weekly journals of Congress for the period 22 Nov.-31 Dec. 1779 (, XV, 1462). See Thomson to TJ, 20 Nov. 1779, for the last known occasion when he forwarded the weekly journals to TJ.
Thomson’s request for a reply to his 20 Nov. 1779 letter may have been omitted from the copy sent to the governor of Virginia because TJ had already responded to the earlier letter on 31 Dec. 1779.