John Sibley to Thomas Jefferson, 9 August 1805
From John Sibley
Natchitoches Augt. 9h. 1805.
Sir,
The day before yesterday I received the letter you did me the honour to write me dated the 27h. of May, together with the printed forms of Vocabularies; the whol Packet had been wet and considerably injured; I shall with great pleasure attend to your request; but as I have already receiv’d visits from Most of the tribes, some time will elapse before it will be in my Power to see them again, or Such of them as can furnish me with their vocabulary.
I shall punctually attend to General Dearborn’s Instructions relative to Indian Affairs; I believe I have a Just Idea of the importance of them
I hope some other communications I have made to General Dearborne besides my Short Account of the Indian Tribes will afford you Some Satisfaction: to be usefull to you and my Country affords me the greatest pleasure, and I Shall esteem you Sir as my benefactor in proportion as you Afford me (by commanding me) oppertunities of being so. A coppy of an old French manuscript I got possession of, will be immediately forwarded to the address of Mr. Maddison.
I Am Sr. with the greatest esteem & Respect, Your Obt. Hble Servt. &c
John Sibley
RC (DLC); at foot of text: “Thomas Jefferson Esqr. President of the United States”; endorsed by TJ as received 3 Oct. and so recorded in SJL.
other communications: see Notes on John Sibley’s Accounts of the Southwest, printed at 25 June.
Sibley alerted William C. C. Claiborne to his acquisition of a French manuscript, likely the journal of Jean Baptiste Bénard de La Harpe, who in 1720 was in charge of a French effort to fortify St. Bernard, or Matagorda, Bay. Recognizing the document’s significance to U.S. territorial claims in Texas, Claiborne asked Sibley to send him the manuscript and to make a copy to be sent to the administration in Washington. Sibley enclosed the copy, which he reported cost $85 to produce, in a letter of 10 Aug. to Madison. TJ took enough interest in the communication to have a transcript of Sibley’s letter to Madison made and subsequently retained possession of the original (Bénard de La Harpe, Journal historique de l’établissement des Français à la Louisiane [New Orleans, 1831]; , 3:87-8; , 9:431; 10:201-2; Sibley to Madison, 10 Aug., RC endorsed by Jacob Wagner and Tr in Isaac Coles’s hand and endorsed by TJ, both in DLC).