To Thomas Jefferson from John Beckley, 15 March 1798
From John Beckley
Thursday evening
15th: March 1798
J: Beckley, returns enclosed Mr: Jefferson’s parliamentary Notes.—On the first part he has pencilled a few remarks.—On the Second part ‘respecting priviledged questions’ want of time now to consider it, induces a wish, that at the close of the Session Mr: Jefferson would permit him to take a Copy of these, and any other Notes which Mr: J—— may add on the law of parliament generally, when an attentive revisal of the whole subject will be endeavored to be made by JB—— before the succeeding Session. A Copy of the notes on Conferences will be handed to Mr: Jefferson tomorrow.
RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ. Not recorded in SJL. For enclosure, see note below.
The parliamentary notes returned by Beckley were probably from TJ’s “Parliamentary Pocket-Book,” which included paragraphs on priviledged questions and conferences (see , 15–16). For a description of the one-page document entitled “Extracts from Book of Minutes on parliamentary proceeding,” which Beckley sent to TJ, perhaps at this time, see same. The extracts are printed as an enclosure to the letter above in Gerard W. Gawalt, ed., Justifying Jefferson: The Political Writings of John James Beckley (Washington, D.C., 1995), 141–2.