1From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 26 July 1780 (Jefferson Papers)
With my letter to the President I inclose a copy of the bill for calling in the paper money now in circulation, being the only copy I have been able to get. In my letter to the delegates I ask the favor of them to furnish me with authentic advice when the resolutions of Congress shall have been adopted by five other states. In a private letter I may venture to urge great dispatch and to assign...
2From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 30 September 1781 (Jefferson Papers)
I beg leave to introduce to your acquaintance the bearer Mr. Short who comes to Philadelphia in hopes of being able to prosecute in greater quiet there than he can here the studies in which he is engaged: and I chearfully add to what you may already have heard of him my testimony of his genius, learning and merit. I do this the rather as it gives me an opportunity of saving the right of...
3From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 24 March 1782 (Jefferson Papers)
I have received from you two several favours on the subject of the designs against the territorial rights of Virginia . I never before could comprehend on what principle our right to the Western country could be denied which would not at the same time subvert the rights of all the states to the whole of their territory. What objections may be founded on the Charter of N. York I cannot say,...
4From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 26 November 1782 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favour by Colo. Basset is not yet come to hand. The intimation through the Attorney I received the day before Colo. Bland’s arrival by whom I am honoured with your’s of the 14th inst. It finds me at this place attending my family under inoculation. This will of course retard those arrangements of my domestic affairs which will of themselves take time and cannot be made but at home. I...
5From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 31 January 1783 (Jefferson Papers)
A gentleman returning from this place to Philadelphia gives me an opportunity of sending you a line. We reached Newport the evening of the day on which we left you. There we were misled by an assurance that the lower ferry could not be crossed. We therefore directed our course for the Bald friar’s: and thence to another ferry 6 miles above. Between these two we lost two days, in the most...
6From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 7 February 1783 (Jefferson Papers)
I write by this post to the Minister of foreign affairs, but will repeat to you the facts mentioned to him and some others improper for a public letter, and some reflections on them which can only be hazarded to the ear of friendship. The cold weather having set in the evening of the 30th. Ult. (being the same in which I arrived here) the Chevalr. de Ville-brun was obliged to fall down with...
7From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 14 February 1783 (Jefferson Papers)
Patsy putting the inclosed into my hands obliges me to make a separate letter of it, that while I give it the protection of your address I may yet pay it’s postage. I suspect by the superscription (which I saw before Majr. Franks amended it) and by what I know of Patsy’s hierogliphical writing that Miss Polly must get an interpreter from Egypt. Be so good as to remind the ladies and gentlemen...
8From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 14 February 1783 (Jefferson Papers)
Yours of the 11th. came to hand last night. From what you mention in your letter I suppose the newspapers must be wrong when they say that Mr. Adams, had taken up his abode with Dr. Franklin. I am nearly at a loss to judge how he will act in the negotiation. He hates Franklin, he hates Jay, he hates the French, he hates the English. To whom will he adhere? His vanity is a lineament in his...
9From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 14 April 1783 (Jefferson Papers)
Meeting at our quarters with a Mr. Levi going to Philadelphia and having no other employment, I write by him just to say that all is well, and that having made our stages regularly and in time we hope to make better way than Mr. Nash did. The Carolina letter bearer is here also. We pass one another two or three times a day. I never saw Mr. Ingles to speak to him about my books. Will you be so...
10From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 7 May 1783 (Jefferson Papers)
I received your favor of Apr. 22. and am not a little concerned at the alterations which took place in the Report on the impost &c. after I left you. The article which bound the whole together I fear was essential to get the whole passed; as that which proposed the conversion of state into federal debts was one palatable ingredient at least in the pill we were to swallow. This proposition...
11From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1 June 1783 (Jefferson Papers)
The receipt of your letter of May 6. remains unacknoleged. I am also told that Colo. Monroe has letters for me by post tho’ I have not yet received them. I hear but little from our assembly. Mr. Henry has declared in favour of the impost. This will ensure it. How he is as to the other questions of importance I do not learn. On opening my papers when I came home I found among them the inclosed...
12From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 17 June 1783 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favours of the 13th. and 20th. Ult. came to hand about a week ago. I am informed the assembly determined against the capacity of reelection in those gentlemen of the delegation who could not serve a complete year. I do not know on what this decision could be founded. My hopes of the success of the Congressional propositions here have lessened exceedingly. Mr. Henry had declared in favor...
13From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 31 August 1783 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of July 17. which came to hand long ago remains still unacknoleged, as from the time of it’s receipt I had constant hope that you would be on the road for Virginia before an answer could reach you. That of the 11th. inst. I received yesterday, and leaves the time of your visit as unfixed as ever, and excites some fear that I shall miss of you. I propose to set out for Congress about...
14From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 11 December 1783 (Jefferson Papers)
Your determination to avail yourself of the fine weather proved I fear a very unfortunate one. I pitied your probable situation in the tempestuous season which immediately succeeded your departure. It is now above a fortnight since we should have met, and six states only appear. We have some hopes of Rhodeisland coming in to-day, but when two more will be added seems as insusceptible of...
15From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1 January 1784 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favour of the 10th. Dec. came to hand about a fortnight after it’s date. It has occasioned me to reflect a little more attentively on Buffon’s central heat than I did in the moment of our conversation and to form an opinion different from what I then expressed. The term ‘central heat’ does of itself give us a false idea of Buffon’s hypothesis. If it meant a heat lodged in the center of...
16From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 20 February 1784 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favour of the 11th. inst. came to hand this day. I had prepared a multitude of memorandums of subjects whereon to write you, but I will first answer those arising from your letter. By the time my order got to Philadelphia every copy of Smith’s history of New York was sold. I shall take care to get Blair’s lectures for you as soon as published, and will attend to your presumed wishes...
17From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 16 March 1784 (Jefferson Papers)
I received yesterday by Mr. Maury your favor of Feb. 17. That which you mention to have written by post a few days before is not yet come to hand. I am induced to this quick reply to the former by an alarming paragraph in it, which is that Mazzei is coming to Annapolis. I tremble at the idea. I know he will be worse to me than a return of my double quotidian head-ach. There is a resolution...
18From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 25 April 1784 (Jefferson Papers)
My last to you was of the 16th. of March, as was the latest I have received from you. By the proposition to bound our country to the Westward I meant no more than passing an act declaring that that should be our boundary from the moment the people of the Western country and Congress should agree to it. The act of Congress now inclosed to you will shew you that they have agreed to it, because...
19From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 7 May 1784 (Jefferson Papers)
The inclosed resolutions on the subject of commerce are the only things of consequence passed since my last. You will be surprised to receive another pair of spectacles. The paper with them will explain the error. If you can dispose of the supernumerary pair do so, and I will remit the money to Dudley; if you cannot, return them by the next post and I will return them to him. Congress is now...
20From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 8 May 1784 (Jefferson Papers)
I will now take up the several enquiries contained in your letter of Apr. 25. which came to hand yesterday. ‘Will it not be good policy to suspend further treaties of commerce till measures shall have taken place in America, which may correct the idea in Europe of impotency in the federal government in matters of commerce?’ Congress think such measures requisite, and have accordingly...
21From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 25 May 1784 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favors of the 8th. and 15th. came to hand yesterday. I have this morning revised your former letters to see what commissions it would be best for me to execute here for you. In that of Feb. 17. you desire a recommendation of a fit bookseller in Paris and London. This certainly I can better do from the spot. In the mean time address yourself to me as your bookseller for either place,...
22[From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, ca. 1 June 1784] (Jefferson Papers)
[ New York, ca. 1 June 1784 . Entry in SJL under “June” reads: “Jas. Madison. Inclosed Deane’s letters.” Neither letter nor enclosure has been found, but TJ must have written about 1 June from New York where he arrived on 30 May and from which he departed on 5 June 1784 (Dumbauld, Jefferson, American Tourist , 58). He had endeavored without success to obtain a copy of “Deane’s letters” in...
23From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1 July 1784 (Jefferson Papers)
After visiting the principal towns through Connecticut, Rhode-island, this state and N. Hampshire in order to acquire what knowlege I could of their commerce and other circumstances I am returned to this place and shall sail the day after tomorrow in the Ceres bound for London: but my purpose is to get on shore in some boat on the coast of France and proceed directly to Paris. My servant being...
24From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 11 November 1784 (Jefferson Papers)
Your letters of Aug. 20. Sep. 7. and 15. I received by the last packet. That by Mr. Short is not yet arrived. His delay is unaccountable. I was pleased to find by the public papers (for as yet I have no other information of it) that the assembly had restrained their foreign trade to four places. I should have been more pleased had it been to one. However I trust that York and Hobbs’ hole will...
25From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 8 December 1784 (Jefferson Papers)
In mine of Nov. 11. I acknoleged the receipt of yours of Aug. 20. Sep. 7. and 15. Since that, the one of Oct. 11. by the packet has come to hand as also that of July 3. by Mr. Short who came in the packet, was actually in N. York when you passed through it and had waited there several days in hopes of seeing you. I thank you very much for the relation of the proceedings of assembly. It is the...
26From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 18 March 1785 (Jefferson Papers)
My last to you was dated Dec. 8. Since that yours of Feb. 1 . has come to hand; and I am in hopes I shall shortly receive from you the history of the last session of our assembly. I will pray you always to send your letters by the French packet which sails from N. York the 15th. of every month. I had made Neill Jamieson my postmaster general there, who will always take care of my letters and...
27From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 11 May 1785 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of Jan. 9. came to my hands on the 13th. of April. The very full and satisfactory detail of the proceedings of assembly which it contained, gave me the highest pleasure. The value of these communications cannot be calculated at a shorter distance than the breadth of the Atlantic. Having lately made a cypher on a more convenient plan than the one we have used, I now transmit it to...
28[From Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Hardy, James Madison, and James Monroe, 4 July 1785] (Jefferson Papers)
[ Paris, 4 July 1785 . Entry in SJL reads: “Madison, Monroe & Hardy. Letters of recommendation for W. T. Franklin.” None of these letters has been found; but see TJ to Monroe, 5 July 1785 .]
29From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, with a List of Books, 1 September 1785 (Jefferson Papers)
My last to you was dated May 11. by Monsr. de Doradour. Since that I have received yours of Jan. 22. with 6. copies of the revisal, and that of Apr. 27. by Mr. Mazzei. All is quiet here. The Emperor and Dutch are certainly agreed tho’ they have not published their agreement. Most of his schemes in Germany must be postponed, if they are not prevented, by the confederacy of many of the Germanic...
30From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, with Account Enclosed, 20 September 1785 (Jefferson Papers)
By Mr. Fitzhugh you will receive my letter of the 1’st inst. He is still here, and gives me an opportunity of again addressing you much sooner than I should have done but for the discovery of a great peice of inattention. In that letter I send you a detail of the cost of your books, and desire you to keep the amount in your hands, as if I had forgot that a part of it was in fact your own, as...