Your favor of the1 has been duly recieved; & it would have given me great pleasure to have been able to inform you that I possessed the Merino race of sheep, because I should then have certainly had the greater pleasure of furnishing you with them. I did possess a race of Spanish sheep which Robert Morris had recieved as Merinos. they had some valuable properties; but having sent the wool for examination to Philadelphia and Wilmington, it was there pronounced to be not Merino. raising sheep myself only for the table & coarse manufactures, I have substituted the Barbary sheep for those abovementioned. the last I possessed of the Spanish race I gave to mr Eppes of your house, and do not now possess a single one of them. If unable to gratify you in the particular wish you entertained, it still furnishes me an opportunity of expressing the high esteem I felt for you during the term of our joint concern in the public service, and of assuring you of it’s continuance, with sentiments of great respect & consideration.

Th: Jefferson.