To Thomas Jefferson from John Guillemard, 18 July 1796
From John Guillemard
York. in Pensylvania. July. 18. 1796
Sir
I thank you once more for the kindness with which you recieved me at your house. Wherever chance leads me I shall not very easily forget Mr. Jefferson. I beg to be remembered respectfully to your family Mr. and Mrs. Randolph and Miss Jefferson. I parted with the Duke de Liancourt at Winchester, but I hope to rejoin him at New York. I am an Englishman, not indeed by birth, by gratitude and privilege only, but such as only I should not be willing to part with. I know your prejudices only by hearsay. You have too good a heart as well as too formed an understanding to suffer me to see them. Your conduct is known in Europe. And that honorably as to your character. I confess I was desirous to be near a Man on whom so much vague Satire has been expended. You will excuse me for talking so much at random. I thank you for your hospitable entertainment. You shall hear no more of me. If, at any time, I can render you any1 Service, you will oblige me by employing me. Any Letter will find me directed to Ascot Place, near Windsor, Berks.—or to St. Johns College in Oxford. I am sir with grateful respect Yours
J Guillemard
If Mr. Volney returns to your house remember me to him, but I hope to see him in Philadelphia.
RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 8 Aug. 1796 and so recorded in SJL.
John Lewis Guillemard (1764–1844), born in England of a Huguenot family, met the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt in Philadelphia early in 1795 and subsequently accompanied him on his journeys in Canada and the United States. The recipient of B.A. and M.A. degrees from St. John’s College of Oxford University, Guillemard in July 1797 was elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society. In Philadelphia from 1797 to 1799 he served as the final member, chosen by lot, of the five-person mixed commission established under Article 6 of the Jay Treaty to arbitrate British creditors’ claims for payment of pre-Revolutionary debts. That commission failed to settle the claims, and in 1803 the British government appointed Guillemard and the two other British members of the group to act as a “domestic commission” to determine what claims would be paid under the Convention of 1802 between the United States and Great Britain. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1806 (Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, iii [1940–41], 95–6; Joseph J. Howard, ed., Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, n.s., 4 vols. [London, 1874–84], iii, 388; François Alexandre Frédéric, Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Journal de Voyage en Amérique et d’un Séjour a Philadelphie 1 Octobre 1794–18 Avril 1795, ed. Jean Marchand [Paris and Baltimore, 1940], 92n, 93, 107; , Proceedings, xxii, pt.3[1885], 261; 53, 117–19, 141; John Bassett Moore, ed., International Adjudications, Modern Series, Volume III: Arbitration of Claims for Compensation for Losses and Damages Resulting from Lawful Impediments to the Recovery of Pre-War Debts [New York, 1931], 22, 359; Kenneth and Anna M. Roberts, trans. and eds., Moreau de St. Mery’s American Journey, 1793–1798 [Garden City, N.Y., 1947], 181, 254–5).
1. Guillemard here interlined, and then canceled, “proper.”