To Thomas Jefferson from John Craig Millar, 10 July 1795
From John Craig Millar
Philadelp[…] of the Departt. of State July 10th. 1795
Sir
I have perhaps to solicit your forgiveness for the freedom I have used in not having immediately transmitted the inclosed, upon my arrival in the United States. My apology is—that I received it in circumstances which were inconsistent with the supposition of dispatch being requisite. Entertaining likewise not a distant hope of having it in my power to be the Bearer of the letter to Virginia, I was extremely unwilling to relinquish so probable a means of procuring the honour of a personal Interview with you.
I very much regret that the kindness of my friends in providing employment for me in this office, has at the same time, by rendering me stationary for some time in Philadelphia, deprived me of the Satisfaction I should have felt in being permitted to wait on you. Mean time, as I do not know the whole of the Nature of the inclosed letter, I cannot any longer detain it. I have the honor to be Sir with high respect Your obedient Servant
John Craig Millar
RC (ViW); torn; at foot of text: “Thos. Jefferson Esqre.”; endorsed by TJ as received 21 July 1795 and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure: Dugald Stewart to TJ, 1 Mch. 1795.
John Craig Millar (1760–96), son of the noted law professor John Millar, was a Scottish attorney and author of Elements of the Law Relating to Insurances (Edinburgh,
1787). Ill health and Whiggish political beliefs led him to immigrate to America in 1795, where he served as a clerk in the Department of State and died of sunstroke in the Pennsylvania backcountry (, s.v. “Millar, John”; William C. Lehmann, John Millar of Glasgow, 1735–1801 :His Life and Thought and his Contributions to Sociological Analysis [Cambridge, 1960], 26, 411, 412).