To James Madison from Thomas Jefferson, 14 February 1783 (first)
From Thomas Jefferson
RC (LC: Madison Papers). Undocketed and cover missing, but undoubtedly written to JM.
Baltimore Feb. 14. 1783
Dear Sir
Patsy putting the inclosed into my hands, obliges me to make a separate letter of it, that while I give it the protection of your address I may yet pay it’s postage.1 I suspect by the superscription (which I saw before Majr Franks amended it) and by what I know of Patsy’s hierogliphical writing that miss Polly2 must get an interpreter from Egypt. be so good as to remind the ladies & gentlemen of the house of my affection for them. I am particularly obliged to Mr. Carrol for an introduction to his relation near this,3 with whom I have been able to pass agreeably some of my heavy hours. I shall write to E. Randolph on the subject of his going into the legislature and use my interest to promote it. I hope you will be there too when you can no longer be in any more important place.4 I am with sincere esteem Dr. Sir Your friend & servt
Th: Jefferson
1. For Jefferson’s daughter, Martha (Patsy), see JM to Jefferson, 11 Feb. 1783, and n. 16. Her letter obviously could not be franked.
2. “Polly” was the nickname of Catherine Floyd’s older sister, Maria (1764–1805). Jefferson’s eldest daughter, Maria, also was known as “Polly” (Benjamin F. Thompson, History of Long Island from Its Discovery and Settlement to the Present Time [3d ed.; 3 vols.; New York, 1918], III, 363, 367). For David Salisbury Franks, Jefferson’s secretary, see , IV, 450, n. 14; Jefferson to JM, 31 Jan., and n. 6; 14 Feb. 1783 (2d letter).
3. Most probably Daniel Carroll’s cousin Charles Carroll (1723–1783) of “Mount Clare,” near Baltimore.
4. In his letter of 15 February to Randolph, Jefferson urged him to qualify “for a seat in the legislature” and expressed the hope that he would be joined there “e’er long” by JM (, VI, 247). See JM to Jefferson, 11 Feb. 1783.