Vicomte de Pastey to Thomas Jefferson, 6 August 1804
From Vicomte de Pastey
[6 Aug. 1804]
Sir,
I have for three years past been a witness of the infinite good the American People have happily enjoyed. Fortunate, and unoidable result of a wise and impartial Administration!
I most humbly beg leave to dedicate to your Excellency the triffling production of an hour’s leisure: it is a feeble, but sincere hommage I pay, with the most profound respect, to those distinguished vertues, which an admiring World venerates in silence.
Deign to accept of the assurances of the highest Esteem of your most humbe. & obt Servant
Le vicomte de Pastey L. D.
RC (ViW: Tucker-Coleman Collection); undated; written at head of printed poem, “Chanson d’un Emigrè Francais rèléguè aux Etats Unis d’Amérique,” with dateline Wilmington, 6 Aug.; at head of text: “To his Excellency Thomas Jefferson President of the United States of América”; endorsed by TJ as received 14 Aug. and so recorded in SJL.
Pastey’s production was a three-stanza poem in French, the translated title of which was “Song of a French Emigrant Transported to the United States.” The work, signed by “L.D.D.” and also printed in the Baltimore Telegraphe and Daily Advertiser on 23 Aug., blasted Pastey’s native country as the empire of tyrants and praised the new hemisphere, where “L’age d’or est de retour,” the golden age has returned. The “sagesse profonde,” or profound wisdom, of the American republic would make it a birthplace of the arts and of peace.