To Thomas Jefferson from Champagne, 15 August 1786
From Champagne
Chalons, 15 Aug. 1786. Transmits a statement of the Chevalier de Borre, dated 16 Mch. 1786, that a man named Champagne had left him in Charleston in 1778; that the said Champagne presumably went to Savannah where he kept a shop; that the shop was looted and the owner wounded by the British; that he is said to be dead. The present “Champagne” asks “Monsieur j’iemesomme” to look into this matter since it refers to family business and the right of succession and settlement.
RC (DLC: TJ Papers, 24:4071); in French; 1 p.; at foot of text in TJ’s hand: “Aug. 25. 1786. wrote to del. of Georgia. s.c.”; endorsed by TJ: “Gaspard.” Not recorded in SJL. The letter from TJ to the Georgia delegates in Congress, 25 Aug. 1786, has not been found; but there is a record entry in SJL under that date reading: “Delegates of Georgia s[ee] c[opy]. (Champagne’s case).”
The Chevalier De Borre was in the “regiment de Champagne” (Lasseray, Les Français sous les Treize Etoiles, i, 367). He served in America from 1776 until Sep. 1777, and sailed from Charleston in Jan. 1779. The Champagne who left the Chevalier de Borre in Charleston was probably a servant; Gaspard, the name which TJ endorsed on Champagne’s appeal, was a servant employed by TJ in the Hôtel d’Orleans, where TJ had stayed during Sep. 1784, before moving to the Cul-de-Sac Taitbout. Champagne, therefore, may have been a friend or relative of TJ’s Gaspard.