Full title: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Published by the Princeton University Press in several volumes.
Offered as a set.
These are all from the New-York Historical Society Library and have the standard library markings. They are in very good condition; the interior pages are in excellent condition.
These are part of an ongoing project at Princeton that, when finished, is expected to total 60 volumes. We have four volumes and they are fascinating to browse through as you see Jefferson interact with the notable individuals and also the unknowns (today) of his day. Each volume is 600 - 700 pp.
— Lee Wright | Founder
- Volume 4 (1 October 1780 to 24 February 1781)
Covers five critical months in Jefferson’s governorship. He dealt with a dangerous invasion threat by General Leslie in October-November and the actual and devastating incursion of General Benedict Arnold up the James in January. The fullest records of these events and of Jefferson’s plan to capture Arnold at Portsmouth were furnished by the Governor himself and are printed in this volume.
During these months Jefferson also drew up plans for an ambitious enterprise, under the command of Virginia’s great frontier captain George Rogers Clark, against the British post at Detroit. Other important letters and papers, some of them not printed before, bear on Virginia’s troubled relations with the Cherokees.
The pressure of these primary defense problems was tremendous, and to them were added the scarcely less important and closely related fiscal problems of so far-flung a dominion, including mounting inflation. Nevertheless Jefferson found time to begin the amassing of data on his native state that resulted eventually in his classic work Notes on the State of Virginia. The earliest correspondence relating to this project and to Jefferson’s fruitful association with the American Philosophical Society will also be found in this volume.
- Volume 7 (2 March 1784 to 25 February 1785)
Brings to a climax Jefferson’s legislative career and includes documents of the highest importance. An entire section is devoted to his famous Notes on Coinage, which resulted in the adoption of the dollar as the money unit. These documents show that in 1784 Jefferson thought of applying the decimal system to weights and measures, and perhaps to time.This volume includes his report on the establishment of a land office for disposing of lands in the national domain in order to discharge the national debt, his instructions for the American ministers abroad, his report on the national debt and circular appeal to the states. Jefferson also found time in these last busy days in Congress to write various letters about the habits of moose, to influence George Washington to force abandonment of the principle of hereditary membership in the Society of the Cincinnati, to discuss the potentialities of balloons, to advise a brilliant young Dutch traveler, van Hogendorp, about commerce, tobacco culture, finance, and other matters.
Before embarking for Europe as minister, Jefferson systematically studied American trade; the resultant documents, here assembled and printed in their entirety for the first time, not only represent an early use of the questionnaire as a means of accumulating facts, but also stand as a model of what the thoughtful diplomat should do to prepare himself as a representative of his country. As minister, Jefferson drafted a “General Form” or model for treaties of amity and commerce. The various stages of this text are presented, showing how he endeavored to reform the language as well as the principles of treaties and introduce humanitarian measures for prisoners of war and non-combatants.
Jefferson’s letters from abroad include his reports on French manners and customs, and his correspondence with Chastellux shows how his interest in that distinguished traveler’s comments on America caused them to be published. Among letters from his American friends one important communication from James Madison, never before correctly printed, proves that the Father of the Constitution altered his uncomplimentary references to Lafayette nearly half a century later.
- Volume 8 (25 February to 31 October 1785)
During this time Jefferson was appointed to replace Benjamin Franklin as American minister to France; Franklin returned to America; and John Adams went to London to take up his duties as minister to Great Britain. The efforts of the three commissioners to negotiate treaties of amity and commerce culminated, in September, in the completion and signing of a commercial treaty with Prussia.
This volume also includes the correspondence between Jefferson and Adams arranging for the mission of Thomas Barclay and John Lamb to negotiate treaties with the Barbary states and the official instructions and commissions presented to Barclay and Lamb.Jefferson’s personal letters in this volume include the first letters exchanged with Abigail Adams, which give evidence of the warm affection and understanding, often touched with humor, existing between them; letters concerning the education and welfare of Jefferson’s nephews in Virginia; reports on the selection of Jean Antoine Houdon to make a statue of George Washington for the State of Virginia and the arrangements for his journey to America to execute that commission; a few friendly letters between Jefferson and Chastellux in which Jefferson gives his “idea of the characters of the several states. In the North they are cool. In the South they are fiery,” etc. Also included in this volume is a letter from Martha Jefferson to Eliza House Trist giving an account of her journey to Europe with her father and her first impressions of her life in Paris.
The letters of this period provide an account of the public and private lives of the foreign representatives of a new and struggling country in the oldest and most sophisticated capitals of Europe.
- Volume 9 (1 November 1785 to 22 June 1786)
Covers the period of the negotiations for a treaty of amity and commerce with Portugal, in which Jefferson attempted to open up a market for American flour and to move toward his prophetic plan of organizing a system of collective security against the Barbary pirates.
With indefatigable assistance from Lafayette, he also continued to try to break the double monopoly in the tobacco trade. Much new information appears here on the role played in that struggle by Simon Bérard, one of France’s chief merchants. The abatement of duties on the importation of whale oil into France and the beginning of efforts to open up that market for South Carolina rice reveal Jefferson as a representative of all aspects of American trade, trying to bind the new nation with ties of interest and affection to France.
Jefferson’s only extended visit to England brought forth varied documents concerning a variety of interests: his presentation at Court and his humiliation by George III; his tour of English gardens; his inspection of steam-driven grist mills and his confidence in the use of steam power in America; his convivial interlude with the famous American punster Richard Peters, and with such American sympathizers as Sir John Sinclair, Dr. Richard Price, Benjamin Vaughan, and Brand Hollis.
The letters in this volume reveal Jefferson as American minister in many capacities, public and private: assisting Démeunier by rewriting the essay on the United States for the Encyclopédie Méthodique; promoting friendly notices in European papers about American affairs; shopping in Paris for Abigail Adams; arranging for 8-year-old Polly to join him and her sister Patsy in Paris; advising young Americans about travel and education in Europe, and looking after the rights of American sailors charged with smuggling tobacco into France; encouraging the magnetic John Ledyard to trek across Siberia to Northwest America; urging his compatriots to redeem American credit and strengthen the bonds of nationality; importing American seeds and shrubs for European friends.
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