Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/85

DOCUMENTS I. Letters of Jefferson to Marhois, lySi, i/8^ These two letters were found in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris (Fonds Frangais, 12768, folios 245, 247) by Professor James Westfall Thompson of the University of Chicago. The first has an interesting bearing on the genesis of the Notes on Virginia. Mr. Paul Ford's statement (IVritiiigs of Thomas Jefferson, III. 68) may be quoted : In 1781 the French ministry directed their American agent to gather certain information concerning the several States then forming the American union, for the use of the home government. The secre- tary of the French legation, Marbois, in pursuance of this instruction, drew up a series of questions, which were sent to leading men in the different States, who were presumed to be best competent to supply the needed answers. These questions produced from several of the States replies more or less adequate, a number of which have been since printed. On the recommendation of Joseph Jones, then a member of the continental congress, a set of queries was sent to Jefferson, then still governor of Virginia. Jefferson, in his autobiography (Writings, I. 85) says that it had been his practice, when he came upon useful pieces of informa- tion respecting Virginia, to note them on loose papers. " I thought this a good occasion to embody their substance, which I did in the order of Mr. Marbois' queries . . . and to arrange them for my own use." Mr. Ford prints (III. 68) a letter dated ]Iarch 4, 1781, in which Jefiferson promises IMarbois his aid. The original of this letter, Mr. Thompson tells us, is in the Bibliotheque Xationale (Fonds Frangais, 12768, folio 243) ; Mr. Ford no doubt printed from the copy preserved among the Jefferson manuscripts. But the two letters which follow are not in that collection, and have not been printed. It will be remembered that Frangois de Barbe-Marbois, afterward the negotiator of the Louisiana treaty of 1803, was from 1779 to 1785 secretary of the French legation to the United States, under Luzerne as minister. The second letter relates to Jefferson's daugh- ter Martha. Her mother had died in 1782. In July, 1784, Jeffer- son and the daughter started for Paris, where he put her to school in a convent. 75