To Thomas Jefferson from Thomas Barclay, 14 January 1786
From Thomas Barclay
S:Germain 14th. Jany. 1786
Dear Sir
With this you will find the Duplicate of a letter with some papers for the Governor of Virginia, the original will go by the next packet from l’Orient, and therefore you will have the goodness to send this by some other Conveyance. I am with great Sincerity Dear Sir Your Most Obed. & Most Huml Serv:,
Thos Barclay
The Bearer will deliver to you the two Belts and Cartridge Box, which I Brought here by Mistake, and you will please to lend them to Mr. De Presolle who will return them to you.
RC (DLC). Not recorded in SJL. The enclosed duplicate of a letter with some papers for the Governor of Virginia was Barclay’s to Patrick Henry, Paris, 16 Jan. 1786, transmitting the following papers concerning the matter of obtaining arms and accoutrements contracted for in France by Barclay for Virginia: (1) Receipt of Ferdinand Grand for 166,666 livres 13s. 4d., “being the amount of M. Morris’s Bill on Le Couteulx, subject to the Draughts of M. Jefferson or myself, to carry an Interest at … four ⅌ cen ⅌ annum untill it is drawn. …” (2) Contract “with Mr. St. Victour, Superintendant at the Royal Manufactory of Arms at Tulle … for the delivery of 3400 stand of arms there, in about Eight Months, on the same terms the arms for the use of the Kings Troops are furnish’d at; to go through all the Formalities of Proof, Trials, &ca. with the Kings arms, which alone will be a work of three months.” (3) “The Marquis de la Fayette’s approbation of what has been done in the Article of Fusils.” (4) Contract with “M. De Presolle for 3400 cartridge Boxes, 3400 Belts for Cartridge Boxes and Bayonets, and 3400 Belts or Slings for Fusils, to be delivered in Paris, in Eight Months.” (5) Estimate of cost of these articles “amounting to 157580 Livres, which … will leave and that Sum M. Jefferson will have occasion to apply to the use of the State of Virginia, for purposes, the nature of which, he will advise you.” Barclay added: “I shall pass to Bordeaux, in a few days; and have written to engage a person to meet me there, with whom I expect to contract for the Gun Powder and the paper and Flints shall be provided. The original of the papers abovemention’d, are in the hands of Mr. Jefferson, the Sample of the Cartouche Boxes and Belts, which are sealed by M. De Presolle and myself, shall also be left with him” (Barclay to Henry, 16 Jan. 1786, together with Tr of enclosures mentioned, Vi; underneath the copy of the second enclosure is a copy of Lafayette’s comment: “I have read the above, and seen the Model; and … I very readily give [my opinion] in favour of what has been done.”).