receive the copy of the Notes on my country. As I can answer for the facts therein reported on my own observation and have admitted none on the report of others which were not supported by evidence sufficient to command my own assent, I am not afraid that you should make any extracts you please for the Journal de Physique which come within their plan of publication. The strictures on slavery and on the constitution of Virginia are not of that kind, and they are the parts which I do not wish to have made public, at least till I know whether their publication would do most harm or good. It is possible that in my own country these strictures might produce an irritation which would indispose the people towards the two great objects I have in view, that is the emancipation of their slaves & the settlement of their constitution on a firmer & more permanent basis. If I learn from thence, that they will not produce that effect, I have printed & reserved just copies enough to be able to give one to every young man at the College. It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not to the one now in power, for these great reformations. The other copy delivered at your hotel was for Mons de Buffon. I meant to ask the favour of you to have it sent to him, as I was ignorant how to do it. I have one also for Mons Daubenton; but being utterly unknown to him I cannot take the liberty of presenting it till I can do it through some common acquaintance."

He also wrote to Charles Thomson :

PARIS June 21, 1785.

**"In literature nothing new: For I do not consider as having added anything to that field by my own Notes of which I have had a few copies printed. I will send you a copy by the first safe conveyance. Having troubled Mr. Otto with one for Colo Monroe, I could not charge him with one for you. Pray ask the favor of Colo Monroe in page 5, line 17, to strike out the words 'above the mouth of the Appamattox,' which makes nonsense of the passage, and I forgot to correct it before I had enclosed & sent off the copy to him. I am desirous of preventing the reprinting this, should any book merchant think it worth it, till I hear from my friends whether the terms in which I have spoken of slavery and of the constitution of our State will not, by producing an irritation, retard that reformation which I wish instead of promoting it.” He further wrote to Francis Hopkinson :

PARIS JULY 6, 1786

Having slipped the opportunity of sending copies of my Notes for yourself, & Mr. Rittenhouse when Dr. Franklin's baggage went, I am doubtful whether he can take them with him. If he can you shall receive them by him. if not, then by the first good opportunity. I am obliged to pray that they may not be permitted to get into the hands of the public till I know whether they will promote or retard certain reformations in my own country. I have written to Mr. Madison to inform me on that head."

As soon as this publication was known, Jefferson was besieged for copies of the book. A type of these requests is shown in a letter of his old law teacher, George Wythe, who wrote him :

Jan 10, 1786

"Before i opened the pacquet, observing it to contain books, i hoped to see the copy of one, with a cursory reading of which i had then lately been delighted. You will know the book i mean when i tell you that he who indulged me with the reading of it informed me, that the author had not yet resolved to publish it."

In spite of these solicitations, Jefferson was chary of giving out copies till he should have the opinions of his Virginia friends concerning the parts likely to cause irritation. Madison wrote him :

RICHMOND Nov. 15th, 1785.

On my return to Orange, I found the copy of your notes brought along. . . by Mr. Doradour. I have looked them over carefully myself, and consulted several judicious friends in confidence. We are all sensible that the freedom of your strictures on some particular measures and opinions will displease their respective abettors. But we equally concur in thinking that this consideration ought not to be weighed against the utility of your plan. We think both the facts and remarks which you have assembled too valuable not to be made known, at least to those for whom you destine them, and speak of them to one another in terms which I must not repeat to you. Mr. Wythe suggested that it might be better to put the number you may allot to the University into the library, rather than to distribute them among the students. In the latter case, the stock will be immediately exhausted. In the former, the discretion of the professors will make it serve the students as they successively come in. Perhaps too, an indiscriminate gift might offend some narrowminded parents."

On the strength of this opinion, Jefferson began a more general distribution. He replied to Madison:

PARIS Feb. 8, 1786.

**“I thank you for your information as to my Notes. The copies I have remaining shall be sent over to be given to some of my friends and to select subjects in the college. I have been unfortunate here with this trifle. I gave out a few copies only, & to confidential persons writing in every copy a restraint against it's publication. Among others I gave a copy to a Mr. Williamos, he died. I immediately took every precaution I could to recover this copy. But by some means or other, a book seller got hold of it. He employed a hireling translator and was about publishing it in the most injurious form possible. An Abbé Morellet a man of letters here to whom I had given a copy, got notice of this. He had translated some passages for a particular purpose: and he compounded with the book seller to translate & give him the whole, on his declining the first publication. I found it necessary to confirm this, and it will be published in French, still mutillated however in it's freest parts. I am now at a loss what to do as to England. Everything good or bad, is thought worth publishing there and I apprehend a translation back from the French, and a

publication there. I rather believe it will be most eligible to let the original come out in that country: but am not yet decided."

To Hopkinson he wrote:

PARIS, Sept 25, 1785

"I have sometimes thought of sending a copy of my Notes to the Philosophical Society, as a tribute due to them; but this would seem as if I considered them as worth something, which I am conscious they are not. I will not ask you for your advice on this occasion, because it is one of those on which no man is authorized to ask a sincere opinion. I shall therefore refer it to further thoughts."

He also wrote to Wythe:

PARIS, August 13, 1786.

* "I availed myself of the first opportunity which occurred, by a gentleman going to England, of sending to Mr. Joddrel a copy of the Notes on our country, with a line informing him that it was you who had emboldened me to take that liberty. Madison, no doubt, informed you of the reason why I had sent only a single copy to Virginia. Being assured by him that they will not do the harm I had apprehended, but on the contrary may do some good, I propose to send thither the copies remaining on hand, which were fewer than I had intended. But of the numerous corrections they need, there are one or two so essential that I must have them made, by printing a few new leaves, & substituting them for the old. This will be done while they are engraving a map which I have constructed of the country from Albemarle sound to Lake Erie, & which will be inserted in the book. A bad French translation which is getting out here, will probably oblige me to publish the original more freely which it neither deserved nor was ever intended. Your wishes which are law to me, will justify my destining a copy for you, otherwise I should as soon have thought of sending you a horn-book; for there is no truth there that is not familiar to you, and its errors I should hardly have proposed to treat you with."

The threatened translation touched upon in the above letters to Madison and Wythe was treated more at large in a letter to C. W. F. Dumas:

PARIS, February 2, 1786

*** “I thank you for what you say of the notes on Virginia. It is much more than they deserve. Though the various matters they touch on would have been beyond the information of any one person whatever to have treated fully and infinitely beyond mine, yet had I at the time of writing them, had anything more in view than the satisfying a single individual, they should have been more attended to both in form and matter. Poor as they are, they have been thought worthy of a surreptitious translation here, with the appearance of which very soon I have been threatened. This has induced me to yield to a friendly proposition from the Abbé Morellet, to translate and publish them

himself, submitting the sheets previously to my inspection. As a translation by so able a hand will lessen the faults of the original, instead of their being multiplied by a hireling translator, I shall add to it a map and such other advantages as may prevent the mortification of my seeing it appear in the injurious form threatened. I shall with great pleasure send a copy of the original to you by the first opportunity, praying your acceptance of it."

To Dr. Edward Bancroft he also wrote:

***

PARIS Feb 26. 1786.

By the death of Mr. Williamos a copy of my Notes on Virginia got into the hands of a bookseller, who was about publishing a very abominable translation of them when the Abbé Morellet heard of it, & diverted him from it by undertaking to translate it for him. They will thus appear in French in spite of my precautions. The Abbé engaged me to make a map, which I wish to have engraved in London. It is on a single sheet 23 inches square, and very closely written. It comprehends from Albemarle sound to L. Erie, and from Philadelphia to the mouth of the great Kanhaway, containing Virginia & Pennsylvania, a great part of Maryland & a part of North Carolina. It is taken from Mitchell, Hutchins, & Fry, & Jefferson. I wish the favor of you to make two propositions for me & to inform me of the result. 1. To know from one of the best engravers how much he will ask for the plate & engraving, and in how short a time after he receives the original can he furnish the plate done in the best manner, for the time is material as the work is in the press. 2. To know of Faden or any other map merchant for how much he will undertake to furnish me 1800 copies, on my sending the map to him, & in what time can he furnish them. On this alternative I am to have nothing to do with the engraver or any person but the undertaker. I am of opinion he may furnish them to me for nothing; and fully indemnify himself by the sale of the maps. Tho' it is on a scale of only an inch to 20 miles it is as particular as the four sheet maps from which it is taken, and I answer for the exactness of the reduction. I have supplied some new places. Tho' the first object which induced me to undertake it was to make a map for my book, I soon extended my view to the making as good a map of those countries as my materials would admit; and I have no doubt but that in the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland & Virginia 600 copies can be sold for a dollar apiece. I shall finish it in about a fortnight, except the divisions in the counties of Virginia, which I cannot do at all till I can get Henry's map of Virginia. This I must trouble you to procure for me & send immediately by the Diligence, and also give me information on the premises as soon as possible. You will perceive that time will press. I hope the circumstances of this affair will plead my pardon for the trouble I am giving you. The expense of procuring & sending the map shall be replaced, and an infinitude of thanks attend you Sir your most obedt humble servt.

P. S. I do not propose that my name shall appear on the map, because it will belong to it's original authors, & because I do not wish to place myself at the bar of the public."