Robert Kinnan had succeeded to Richard Hanson’s position as agent for Farell & Jones, the English firm to which TJ was indebted as part of his share of the Wayles estate. From January 1804 to March 1807, Kinnan, who was based in Petersburg, sent TJ nine letters, none of which has been found. TJ’s surviving responses suggest that Kinnan was dissatisfied with TJ’s efforts to close out the debt, but ultimately he did return to the president the final bond (RS description begins J. Jefferson Looney and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Princeton, 2004- , 15 vols. description ends , 2:141-2; Vol. 42:625; TJ to James Lyle, 16 Nov. 1804; TJ to Kinnan, 19 Nov. 1806; George Jefferson to TJ, 24 Mch. 1807).

William Bentley was the administrator of the estate of William Ronald, to whom TJ had sold his land in Cumberland County in 1790. Under the terms of the sale, TJ was issued two bonds worth £538 sterling each, the first to be paid by the beginning of 1796 and the second by the beginning of 1797. As collateral for the first bond, Ronald mortgaged a 600-acre plot of land across the James River in Goochland County, and for the second bond Ronald mortgaged the land that TJ was conveying to him. Although TJ arranged to have Richard Hanson collect payment on the bonds and apply them toward his debt to Farell & Jones, Ronald’s death in 1793 and the failure of Bentley to pay off the bonds embroiled TJ and Hanson in difficulties. Given the reference to Carter Henry Harrison, who claimed a portion of the Cumberland property, Kinnan and TJ were evidently discussing payments on the second bond. TJ had believed that completing payment on the bond would close out his debt in September 1804, but apparently Ronald’s heirs or Bentley himself used the Harrison claim as rationale for not making a payment to Kinnan, thereby leaving TJ responsible for the remainder of the debt (MB description begins James A. Bear, Jr., and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767-1826, Princeton, 1997, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 1:767-8; 2:1051; Vol. 17:569-71; Vol. 20:326; Vol. 24:576; TJ to James Lyle, 16 Nov. 1804).

The first bond became subject to a chancery decree against Bentley in 1797, and it is possible that the second bond was similarly part of a decree, although none has been found. In a set of notes recording payments made to Hanson from the Ronald estate, TJ added some of his own calculations and referred to a “2d decree” equal in value to the first. In that set of calculations, TJ indicated that a sum of £80–19–3 remained “still due” as of 5 Apr. 1799. Most of the document, which is based on a statement of 1801, relates to payments on the first bond and is identical to a copy that TJ enclosed in a letter of 26 Jan. 1810 to James Pleasants at Bentley’s request (Tr in MHi, in a clerk’s hand, certified by Thomas Rector on 11 May 1801 as a statement “taken from Mr. Hansons,” with TJ’s calculations of payments on the first bond on verso and other calculations on separate sheet; RS description begins J. Jefferson Looney and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Princeton, 2004- , 15 vols. description ends , 2:184-6; Vol. 29:476-8).

formerly sent you: probably TJ to Kinnan, 17 Sep. 1804, recorded in SJL but not found.

Cr. paid by Taylor: possibly a reference to Thomas Augustus Taylor, who purchased TJ’s Elk Hill property, the sale of which also became part of TJ’s payment plan (Vol. 24:21-2).