1From Thomas Jefferson to Sir John Sinclair, 12 March 1797 (Jefferson Papers)
I take shame to myself at this late acknolegement of the receipt of so many of your favors: but the fact is that while I was here in my former office, it’s unremitting duties obliged me to interdict to myself the pleasure of private correspondence. On return to my farms I felt myself, tho’ an old man, yet too young a farmer to hazard any thing in the line which you are so firmly and usefully...