RC (DLC); addressed: “Thomas Jefferson Esq Monticello”; endorsed by TJ as received 24 Nov. 1814 and so recorded in SJL. Enclosures: (1) Melish, The Sine Qua Non: A Map of the United States, shewing the boundary line proposed by the British commissioners at Ghent, with the documents relative to the negotiations (Philadelphia, 1814), including Secretary of State James Monroe’s instructions of 15 Apr. 1813 to the American treaty commissioners (pp. 3–21) and Melish’s 8 Nov. 1814 “Remarks on the extent of the British pretensions, and the Effect they would produce if acceded to,” which concluded that the British were demanding American territory totaling “Above 165 millions of acres,” worth “Nearly 125 millions of dollars,” and peopled by “128 thousand inhabitants” (pp. 57–63, quotations on p. 63). (2) Melish’s “Prospectus of an American General Atlas,” criticizing previously published atlases; hailing “the improved state of geographical science in the United States”; listing the work’s projected thirty-six maps (two in two sheets and one in four sheets), to consist of the earth as a whole, the five most heavily populated continents, Canada, Mexico, the West Indies, the United States, and all twenty-three of its states and territories; vowing that the maps will be detailed and accurate; announcing his business arrangement with three noted engravers, George Murray, Henry Schenck Tanner, and John Vallance; stating that the publication will consist of forty-one 22-by-20-inch sheets, on “paper of the best quality” and “handsomely coloured,” and be published in ten numbers at two-month intervals at a total cost of fifty dollars; and offering a free copy to those who obtain seven subscriptions and collect the money (DLC: TJ Papers, 201:36041–2; printed text with handwritten correction by Melish of his Philadelphia address from 209 Chesnut Street to 330 Market Street; undated). (3) Circular letter by Melish, Philadelphia, 18 July 1814, declaring his intention to publish henceforth “maps, charts, and geographical works generally”; explaining that under his new arrangement, he will be in charge of the “geographical department,” Tanner and Vallance will oversee the engraving of the maps, and Murray will be in charge of “vignette and ornamental engraving”; remarking that his earlier publications have been received favorably; hoping that he will secure “public patronage”; advertising the American General Atlas and indicating that “specimens of the work so far as executed, are to be seen at the Map Store” at 330 Market Street; commenting on the difficulty and high cost of producing state and local “maps from actual survey,” but promising to execute works of that nature “free of such expence, and with a degree of celerity hitherto unknown”; with an annexed “List of Works Lately Published,” consisting of fifteen numbered items, including Melish’s “Travels in the United States,” a “Description of Florida,” a “Plan of Quebec,” documents relating to the British takeover of Canada in 1759–60, a “Statistical Account of the United States,” the New Juvenile Atlas described below, and maps of “the Seat of War in North America,” the United States, the coastline from Norfolk, Virginia, to Newport, Rhode Island, the Chesapeake and Delaware bays, New York Harbor, Long Island Sound, the Detroit River, Ohio, “the Seat of War in Europe,” and Wayne and Pike counties in Pennsylvania; and also announcing that Melish, “A Description of the Roads in the United States,” and Miguel Ramos Arizpe, “Memorial on the Natural, Political, and Civil State of the Provinces of Cohauila [Coahuila], Texas, &c. in the Kingdom of Mexico,” are both “In the press and will speedily be published” (DLC: TJ Papers, 201:36043; printed text with handwritten correction by Melish of his address as in preceding enclosure; with “List of Works” on verso).