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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO FRANCIS HOPKINSON - Thomas Jefferson, The Works, vol. 5 (Correspondence 1786-1789) [1905]

Edition used:

The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5). Vol. 5.

Part of: The Works of Thomas Jefferson, 12 vols.

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO FRANCIS HOPKINSON

j. mss.

Paris, Aug. 14, 1786.

Dear Sir,

* * * After the present then I shall still be a letter in your debt. One would think that this balance did not justify a scold. The manner of curing the Essence d’Orient is, as you are apprised, kept secret here. There is no getting at it therefore openly. A friend has undertaken to try whether it can be obtained either by proposing the partnership you mention, or by finding out the process. You shall have the result of these endeavors. I think I sent you in January the 5th & 6th volumes of the Bibliotheque physico-eccononique, which are the last published. I have for yourself and Dr. Franklin the 17th & 18th livraisons of the Encyclopedie, & expect the 19th will come out very soon. These will form a respectable package & shall then be forwarded.

I will send as you propose, copies of my Notes to the Philosophical society and the City library as soon as I shall have received a map which I have constructed for them, & which is now engraving. This will be a map of the Country from Albemarle sound to Lake Erie, as exact as the materials hitherto published would enable me to make it, & brought into a single sheet. I have with great impatience hoped to receive from some of my friends a particular description of the Southern & Western limits of Pennsylvania. Perhaps it might still come in time, if you could send it to me in the moment almost of your receiving this. Indeed it would be very desirable if you could only write me an answer to these two queries, viz. How far Westward of F. Pitt does the Western line of Pennsylvania pass? At what point of the river Ohio does that line strike it? Should this arrive even after they shall have begun to strike off the map, I can have the plate altered so as that the latter copies shall give that line right. Mr. Rittenhouse will have the goodness to furnish you answers to these queries. Could you prevail on him to answer this also. When will the Lunarium be done?—I envy your Wednesday evenings entertainments with him & Dr. Franklin. They would be more valued by me than the whole week at Paris.—Will you be so good as to send me a copy of a Botanical book1 published by some person in the Country not far from Philadelphia, whose name I have not heard? It is a description of the plants of Pennsylvania. I have nothing new to Communicate to you either in the Arts or sciences. Our countryman Trumbul is here, a young painter of the most promising talents. He brought with him his Battle of Bunker’s hill & Death of Montgomery to have them engraved here, & we may add, to have them sold; for like Dr. Ramsey’s history, they are too true to suit the English palate. He returned last night from examining the king’s collection of paintings at Versailles, and acknoleges it surpassed not only every thing he had seen, but every idea he had ever formed of this art. I persuade him to fix himself here awhile, & then proceed to Rome. My daughter is well and joins me in respects to her & your common mother, to your lady & family also, as well as to our friends of the other house, meaning Mr. Rittenhouse’s. Be assured yourself of the perfect esteem with which I am, Dear Sir, your friend and servant.

[1 ]Humphrey Marshall’s Arbustrum Americanum, Philadelphia, 1785.