From Thomas Jefferson to John Vaughan, 2 May 1805
To John Vaughan
Washington May 2. 05.
Dear Sir
In your letter of Nov. 16. you express a desire to obtain for the Philosophical society an early edition of my Notes on Virginia. I found, when lately at Monticello, a single copy remaining of the original edition printed at Paris, the only one almost perfectly correct, & which never was sold, a few copies only having been printed & given to my friends. I have put this into a box addressed to mr Peale, and gone round by sea, by Capt Hand, for the use of the society.
Accept my thanks for yourself & brother for the copy of Woodward’s very interesting relation. I inclose you the only interesting communication made to Congress on the subject of Louisiana now in my possession. there is an Appendix containing the laws of that province, which I do not at present find among my papers. but it would be uninteresting to the Society. I shall recollect them in future when we publish the reports of messrs. Dunbar & Hunter lately recieved, & any future ones. Accept my friendly salutations & assurances of great esteem & respect
Th: Jefferson
RC (PPAmP); at foot of text: “J. Vaughan esq.” PoC (DLC); endorsed by TJ. Enclosure: probably An Account of Louisiana, Being an Abstract of Documents, in the Offices of the Department of State, and of the Treasury, published versions of which appeared in 1803 (see Vol. 41:721n).
original edition: likely one of the 200 copies of Notes on the State of Virginia that TJ had printed by Philippe Denis Pierres in 1785 (Dorothy Medlin, “Thomas Jefferson, André Morellet, and the French Version of Notes on the State of Virginia,” , 3d ser., 35 [1978], 86; Douglas L. Wilson, “The Evolution of Jefferson’s ‘Notes on the State of Virginia,’ ” , 112 [2004], 103-4, 108).
Woodward’s very interesting relation: for David Woodard’s narrative, see Vaughan to TJ, 16 Nov. 1804.