RC (DNA: RG 59, MLR); addressed: “The President of the U.S.”; endorsed by Tobias Lear. Tr (Lb in same, SDC). Not recorded in SJL.

For Judge Turner’s answer, see note to TJ’s letter to him of 9 Nov. 1792. On 10 Dec. 1789 the General Assembly of Virginia adopted a resolution offering to contribute $120,000 toward the erection of public buildings in the Federal District if Congress agreed to locate the capital on the banks of the Potomac, provided that Maryland made a similar donation of at least three-fifths that amount. In the November session of the following year, the Maryland General Assembly agreed by resolution to the Virginia proposal and appropriated $72,000. The Virginia legislature fulfilled its pledge on 27 Dec. 1790 by passing an act which appropriated the $120,000. Each state’s payment was to be made in three equal, annual installments (see Vol. 17: 164; Hening, description begins William Waller Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, Richmond, 1809–23, 13 vols. description ends xiii, 125; Laws of Maryland, Made and Passed at a Session of Assembly … in … 1790 [Annapolis, n.d.]). Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton was professor of natural history and botany at the University of Pennsylvania.