Permit me to present you a copy of my Memoir of Mr. Jefferson,1 not so much for any intrinsic merit it possesses, as for the gratification it affords me to render any tribute of respect, however slight, to yourself, and as an evidence of my thankfulness for the information so promptly furnished me.

I have often thought of the information you long since communicated to me, that you possessed large notes of the debates of the old Congress, and still fuller of those of the General Convention, in the hope that you would give them to the public with the sanction of your name. May I respectfully suggest, that no period could, perhaps, be more propitious to their appearance than the present, when there prevails a temper, not only in this, but also in another quarter of the globe, to weigh dispassionately topics, whose discussion has heretofore ordinarily enlisted passions very unfriendly to truth. With my best respects to Mrs. Madison, I am with the most cordial consideration Yo. obt. st.