183511Editorial Note (Adams Papers)
At twenty-four Adams could ask, “But Quere, if Dissonance of Dispositions is a sufficient Reason for allowing a divorce ? This may be known, if sufficient Caution is taken beforehand.” Some twelve years later as counsel for Abigail Broadstreet in a divorce case involving domestic discord of the type dear to the readers of women’s magazines today, he may well have had cause to ponder this...
183512Editorial Note: Coinage and the Unit of Money (Jefferson Papers)
In late November Jefferson received newspapers from William Short that seemed to provide a means for opening up the subject of coinage with the Secretary of the Treasury, then engaged in preparing his report on the establishment of a mint. In the Gazette Nationale of 3 Aug. 1790 that Short had sent, he observed a report by Naurissat on billon which so impressed him that he made detailed notes...
183513From Benjamin Franklin to William Franklin, [27 September 1766] (Franklin Papers)
MS not found; extract reprinted from [Jared Sparks, ed.,] A Collection of the Familiar Letters and Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Franklin (Boston, 1833), pp. 277–9. I have mentioned the Ilinois affair to Lord Shelburne. His Lordship had read your plan for establishing a colony there, recommended by Sir William Johnson, and said it appeared to him a reasonable scheme, but he found it did not...
183514Memorandum: Preliminary Conference with the Indians, 26 September 1753 (Franklin Papers)
AD : American Philosophical Society Peters, Norris, and Franklin were commissioned on September 22 to meet the Indians at Carlisle and they proceeded to the westward immediately. They reached the house of Conrad Weiser, the province interpreter, on the Tulpehocken on September 24 and, setting out next morning and making all speed, they covered sixty miles and rode into Carlisle on the...
183515Editorial Note (Washington Papers)
The American dispositions on the east side of Brandywine Creek probably were complete by the evening of 10 Sept. (map 2). Maj. Gen. John Armstrong’s two brigades of Pennsylvania militia were stationed at Gibson’s or Pyle’s Ford, a short distance south of Chadds Ford. Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene’s division held the ground immediately east of Chadds Ford, straddling the road leading to...
183516Editorial Note: Jefferson, the Aurora, and Delamotte’s Letter from France (Jefferson Papers)
When the Philadelphia Aurora of 3 Apr. 1798 printed a translation of “a letter from a well informed merchant in France to his friend in this city,” the newspaper gave no hint that the “friend” was Jefferson, or that the “merchant” was the U. S. vice-consul at Le Havre, F. C. A. Delamotte. The date of the letter had also been altered, from 23 Jan. to 1 Feb. 1798. Jefferson himself did not...
183517Enclosure I: Rule Prescribed to Hostile Vessels, 20 June 1794 (Washington Papers)
When any vessel, whether of war or merchandize, public or private, belonging to any belligerent nation, shall depart from the United States, beyond the jurisdictional line of the United States, on the Ocean; and a vessel of war whether public or private, belonging to another of the belligerent nations, being adverse, shall at the time of the departure of the first mentioned vessel, be within...
183518Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
Using the French manuscript that he received from the author in 1809, Jefferson undertook to see into print an English edition of Destutt de Tracy’s commentary on Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois . He recruited Philadelphia printer and journalist William Duane for the task with the letter and sample translations printed below. Duane engaged his own translator, even for the portions Jefferson had...
183519Editorial Note: To the Senate: Interim Appointments, 6 January 1802 (Jefferson Papers)
Jefferson wrote his son-in-law, John Wayles Eppes, on 1 Jan. 1802 that although Republicans held an 18 to 14 majority in the Senate, through absences “hitherto we have been so nearly equal there, that I have not ventured to send in my nominations, lest they should be able to dismast the administration.” Meanwhile, the president was giving thought to the arrangement of the list of more than 120...
183520From Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 22 February 1766 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : Yale University Library I am excessively hurried, being every Hour that I am awake either abroad to speak with Members of Parliament or taken up with People coming to me at home, concerning our American Affairs, so that I am much behind-hand in answering my Friends Letters. But tho’ I cannot by this Opportunity write to others, I must not omit a Line to you who kindly write me so many. I...