From Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Newton, 6 December 1804
To Thomas Newton
Washington Dec. 6. 04.
Dear Sir
I pray that the subject of this Letter may be entirely confidential between you and myself. the office of Collector for Norfolk will very shortly be vacant. if you would accept of it, your long & faithful services to the public would place you beyond all competitors, & justify me in duty as well as feeling in appointing you. altho the emoluments would be no object to you, and the duties what you might not chuse to undertake; yet you could place both of these in whatever hands you pleased. vicarious merit or demerit not being supported by the general opinion, should you decline this proposition, the weight of your personal merit can scarcely enter into the claims of other competitors, each standing on his own ground. I will ask the favor of an answer from you as soon as you can give it. Accept my friendly salutations & assurances of great esteem & respect.
Th: Jefferson
PoC (DLC); at foot of text: “Colo. Thomas Newton.” Enclosed in TJ to Wilson Cary Nicholas, 6 Dec. (see below).
Wilson Cary Nicholas did not deliver this letter but returned it to TJ in March, noting that in the interim Newton had become president of the Bank of Virginia in Norfolk (Nicholas to TJ, 14 Dec. 1804, 10 Mch. 1805). In changes recorded on the PoC, TJ altered the dateline of the letter printed above to “Monticello Mar. 25. 05.”; added a postscript at the foot of the text: “P.S. I should consider your office of President of the bank so far from being incompatible with that now proposed, that it is the practice in almost every place where there is a bank & a collectorship to make the Collector one of the Directors”; and enclosed the revised version in TJ to Nicholas, 26 Mch.