To Thomas Jefferson from the Abbé Morellet, [11? January 1787?]
From the Abbé Morellet
jeudy [11? Jan. 1787?]
Monsieur
Mr. de Crevecoeur m’a dit hier que dans la lecture plus suivie que vous avez faite de notre traduction vous aves eté mécontent de quelques articles où je vous ai mal entendu et de l’insertion que j’ai faite dans votre texte des notes de Mr. Thomson et peut etre de quelques autres points. Je vous prie de m’envoyer les corrections que vous croires necessaires. Je ferai faire des cartons. Quant aux notes si j’ai mal fait de les placer dans le texte c’est un mal aujourd’hui irremediable mais je vous en avois demandé la permission et vous me l’avies accordée. S’il y a quelque autre faute de ma part à laquelle on puisse apporter remede vous n’aves qu’à ordonner. J’oubliois de vous dire que les notes de Mr. Thomson etant toujours distinguées de votre texte par des crochets qui les enferment il me semble que le lieu qu’elles occuppent dans l’ouvrage est bien indifferent. Faites moi savoir vos intentions je m’y conformerai avec le zele que j’aurai toujours à vous montrer mon respectueux devouement. J’ai l’honneur d’etre avec respect Monsieur Votre très humble et très obéissant Serviteur,
L’abbé Morellet
RC (DLC); endorsed: “Morellet Abbé”; undated and not recorded in SJL, but evidently sent to TJ before he dispatched to Morellet the 7-page list of “Errors in the Abbé Morellet’s translation of the Notes on Virginia the correction of which is indispensable” (PrC in DLC: TJ Papers, 27: 4717–23); this list, with an excellent commentary, has been published by Joseph M. Carrière in “The Manuscript of Jefferson’s Unpublished Errata List for Abbé Morellet’s Translation of the Notes on Virginia,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society University of Virginia, i (1948–9), 1–24. It bears at the head of the text the date “January 19. 1787.” which Carrière accepts without question and which may indeed be correct, but the following facts may be noted: (1) this date is in a different ink from that of the press copy; (2) it is in a different form from that usually employed by TJ (on this date he wrote several letters, all of which were dated “Jan. 19. 1787,” which was his customary form); (3) it was presumably added later, perhaps on the basis of an entry in SJL; and (4) it does not appear to be in TJ’s hand. Nevertheless, the Editors incline to the opinion that the date inscribed on this errata list is the correct one. If this is so, Morellet’s letter must have been written several days earlier, for if it had been written on the “jeudy” immediately preceding 19 Jan. 1787, TJ would have had only twenty-four hours, more or less, in which to compile the seventy errors that he listed so carefully in parallel columns. For this reason, the “jeudy” of the week preceding has been conjectured as the probable date of Morellet’s letter.
The list of errata and les cartons made in Morellet’s edition will be discussed in the Second Series, where a critical edition of Notes on Virginia will appear.