1Enclosure: Thomas Jefferson to William Carmichael and William Short to be in cypher, 23 March 1793 (Washington Papers)
It is intimated to us, in such a way as to attract our attention, that France means to send a strong force early this spring to offer independance to the Spanish American colonies, beginning with those on the Missisipi: & that she will not object to the receiving those on the East side into our confederation, interesting considerations require that we should keep ourselves free to act in this...
2[From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 27 November 1783] (Jefferson Papers)
[ Annapolis, 27 Nov. 1783 . Entry in SJL reads: “W. Short. Foreign arrangement—Skelton’s affairs—Martin—Western cession—importance of establishing interest in Congress-residence of Congress-instructions on that head—Patsy’s situation.” Not found.]
3[From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 19 December 1783] (Jefferson Papers)
[ Annapolis, 19 Dec. 1783 . Entry in SJL reads: “W. Short. 1st. hope desperate—2d doubtful—to dispose of P. C. [Peter Carr]—call on Key for money and conveiance.” Not found.]
4[From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 29 December 1783] (Jefferson Papers)
[ Annapolis, 29 Dec. 1783 . Entry in SJL under this date, immediately following entry for preceding letter to Bernard Moore, reads: “W. Short. do. for the Nottoways.” Not found.]
5[From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 18 January 1784] (Jefferson Papers)
[ Annapolis, 18 Jan. 1784 . Entry in SJL reads: “Short. P. C. [Peter Carr] disapproving Wmsbg—approving Jmscy [James City] but query as to healthfulness—refer to him—subject in cypher—Nicholas—health better.” Not found. TJ evidently enclosed in this letter a cipher based on the word “Nicholas,” a cipher he used in subsequent letters to Short. In an undated extract of his letter of 30 Apr....
6From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1 March 1784 (Jefferson Papers)
I am sorry my letter found you so much indisposed, and still more so that it should have added to your sufferings. But you must learn to bear these things by always calculating on the possibility of a cross as well as pyle and having a plan of reserve to turn to by way of comfort. I can yet add nothing more on the subject. Nine states appeared on the floor to-day. But eight of them are...
7[From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 9 March 1784] (Jefferson Papers)
[ Annapolis, 9 Mch. 1784 . Entry in SJL reads: “Wm. Short. European news—Philada. station.” Not found.]
8[From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 18 March 1784] (Jefferson Papers)
[ Annapolis, 18 Mch. 1784 . Entry in SJL reads: “W. Short. Affair with Gilliam.” Not found, but see Short to TJ, ca. 10 Mch. 1784 .]
9[From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 16 April 1784] (Jefferson Papers)
[ Annapolis, 16 Apr. 1784. Entry in SJL reads: “Wrote answer W. Short to be num[quam] non par[atus]—Morris’s bills fate unknown—try to get remittance by last this month—Luz[er]ne taking [leave].” Not found.]
10From Thomas Jefferson to William Short (Extract), [30 April 1784] (Jefferson Papers)
Whether Congress will keep ministers abroad is still undecided. A disposition however seems to prevail to add to the present commission for negociating foreign treaties of amity and commerce. One of our own delegates and one other gentleman have proposed the mission to
11[From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 7 May 1784] (Jefferson Papers)
[ Annapolis, 7 May 1784 . Entry in SJL reads: “Short. In cypher.” Not found.]
12From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 7 May 1784 (Jefferson Papers)
Since the departure of the post an event has taken place which obliges me to send this by express in hopes of overtaking him at Marlborough. Congress have to day added me to the commission for negotiating treaties of commerce with the European powers. This was hastened by the receipt of a letter by this day’s post from Dr. Franklin which gives reason to beleive that Mr. Jay is on his passage...
13From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 2 April 1785 (Jefferson Papers)
I inclose you a letter from l’Orient. When are we to see you? Your letters leave us in doubt whether you mean to protract this odious term of the 4th. of April, or to return to your quarters then and be content to go on with your French at leisure. I am in hopes this will be your choice. You lost much by not attending the Te-deum at Notre dame yesterday. It bids defiance to description. I will...
14From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 30 April 1785 (Jefferson Papers)
Another packet is arrived which sailed from N. York the 22d. of March. As yet we have only a few letters which come through the post office. We have reason to expect there is a passenger from New York and that he may have letters for us. We know that Mr. Adams is appointed minister to the court of London, and a Colo. Smith his Secretary of legation. The newspapers tell us that Rhode island has...
15From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 2 May 1785 (Jefferson Papers)
By your servant I inclose you a bill of the Caisse d’escomte for two hundred livres. We have received this day some public letters from America. These contain a permission to Doctr. Franklin to return, and a substitution of myself in his place. There is no appointment of a Secretary of legation, but I suppose it out of doubt that Colo. H. will be annexed to this legation. Smith is fixed in...
16From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 28 June 1785 (Jefferson Papers)
I must beg a thousand pardons for not having sooner answered your kind enquiries after Patsy’s health . I was yesterday out the whole day, therefore scribble a line just as I am setting out to Versailles this morning. Her indisposition was slight, occasioned by a cold. The cold still remains, but the headach, and slight fever have left her. If we make an appointment to meet you at all it will...
17From Thomas Jefferson to C. W. F. Dumas and William Short, 1 September 1785 (Jefferson Papers)
I have been duly honoured with the receipt of your separate letters of Aug. 23. and should sooner have returned an answer, but that as you had written also to Mr. Adams I thought it possible I might receive his sentiments on the subject in time for the post. Not thinking it proper to lose the occasion of the post, I have concluded to communicate to you my separate sentiments, which you will of...
18From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 14 September 1785 (Jefferson Papers)
Your letter of the 9th. came to hand yesterday. I wrote to you on the first instant, by the post which was to leave Paris the next day and should have arrived at the Hague on Tuesday the 6th. That you did not receive it then can have proceeded from no other cause than the infidelity of the post office in opening letters and detaining or suppressing them altogether. I receive very few which do...
19From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 24 September 1785 (Jefferson Papers)
Finding the assistance of a private Secretary necessary in my office I would wish you to accept of the appointment. In this case it will be necessary for you to abandon your plan of continuing at St. Germain’s. I need not detail to you the ordinary business in which you will be engaged. That will open itself on you of course. But it is necessary for me particularly to authorize and instruct...
20From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 28 March 1786 (Jefferson Papers)
I have duly received your favor (of no date, but I suppose by the company it was in that it was about the 17th.) and thank you for the intelligence it contains, and particularly that of my daughter’s health. Colo. Humphrey’s letter came to hand at the same time. Ere this I hope he has received mine inclosing one to Mr. Jay which I sent by the first post after my arrival here. We had a cold...
21From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 3 April 1786 (Jefferson Papers)
Since my last, which gave you reason to expect I should leave this place tomorrow, I find I shall not be able to get away so soon. Nor can I indeed fix a day; tho’ my expectations are that it will not be many before I shall leave it. Your’s on the subject of the prisoners came safely to hand. I shall be obliged to you if you will write, as of your own motion, to enquire what will be the amount...
22From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 15 March 1787 (Jefferson Papers)
So far all is well. No complaints; except against the weathermaker, who has pelted me with rain, hail, and snow, almost from the moment of my departure to my arrival here. Now and then a few gleamings of sunshine to chear me by the way. Such is this life: and such too will be the next, if there be another, and we may judge of the future by the past. My road led me about 60 miles through...
23From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 27 March 1787 (Jefferson Papers)
I wrote to you on the 15th. from Lyons, and on my arrival here had the pleasure to find your favors of the 12th. and 14th. with the letters accompanying them. In the hurry of my departure from Paris I omitted to explain myself to you on the subject of the map. The kind of paper on which they are struck is not very material. I had intended 50 on such paper as the proof was, and 200 on a thinner...
24From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 29 March 1787 (Jefferson Papers)
Mine of the 27th. acknowleged the receipt of your favors of the 12th. and 14th. to which I must now add that of the 22d. which came to hand yesterday. Be so good as to give M. de Crevecoeur two maps and a copy of my book which I promised him. I am not certain whether I left the new leaves so that you can find them. If I did, I wish them to accompany the book. I think the engraver’s charges...
25From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 7 April 1787 (Jefferson Papers)
I received yesterday at Marseilles your favor of Mar. 26. I was just then setting out for this place, and therefore deferred answering you till my arrival here. I now inclose you a letter for the Count de Montmorin, which, with that to the King, be pleased to deliver to M. de Montmorin. Is the letter to the king sealed with the seal of Congress? If it is, nothing is necessary to be said on the...
26From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 12 April 1787 (Jefferson Papers)
At Marseilles they told me I should encounter the ricefeilds of Piedmont soon after crossing the Alps. Here they tell me there are none nearer than Vercelli and Novarra, which is carrying me almost to Milan. I fear that this circumstance will occasion me a greater delay than I had calculated on. However I am embarked in the project and shall go through with it. Tomorrow I set out on my passage...
27From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1 May 1787 (Jefferson Papers)
I arrived here this evening, and set out tomorrow morning at day break for Marseilles. From thence I must write to Mr. Jay, and I cannot write till I receive some information at Marseilles. The letter will get to Paris the 8th. or perhaps not till the 9th. and as the packet should sail the 10th. the object of this letter is to pray you to have a trusty Courier ready to start for Havre the...
28From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 4 May 1787 (Jefferson Papers)
I received last night at Aix your favors of April 4. 6. and 24. by which I perceive that M. de Crevecoeur goes by the present packet and leaves Paris the 7th. I must therefore beg the favor of you to dispatch the inclosed letter to Mr. Jay by a courier in the instant of receiving this to M. de Crevecoeur if he shall have left Paris. The courier must go day and night rather than run any risk of...
29From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 5 May 1787 (Jefferson Papers)
I wrote you a short letter of the 1st. from Nice, and another of the 4th. from this place. I have now a little more time to go thro’ the articles of your several favors of the 4th. 6th. and 24th. With respect to the maps to be struck on bank paper, if there be any difficulty they may be omitted, because I can have them done at London where that operation is familiar.—Nothing can have been more...
30From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 21 May 1787 (Jefferson Papers)
The only incalculable part of my journey now drawing to a close, I am able to give you a state of my future motions from which there will probably be no considerable variation, unless any considerable accident happen. I expect to arrive on the days following at the several places named. May 23. Bourdeaux 31. Nantes June 4. Lorient 7. Rennes 8. Nantes 11. Tours 13. Orleans 15. Paris As there is...
31From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1 June 1787 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of May 8. which had arrived at Aix after I had passed that place, followed me here where I have received it, as also that of May 21. The one by Colo. Smith I received at Bourdeaux . He had left that place a week before I reached it. I wrote to him to the care of Mr. Carmichael. I left Mr. Barclay at Bourdeaux. He waited only the post of the day before yesterday to set out for Paris....
32From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 10 March 1788 (Jefferson Papers)
After two days of prosperous journey I had a good gleam of hope of reaching this place in the night of the third day. In fact however I got on the third day only to within 8 hours land journeying and the passage of the Moerdyke. Yet this remnant employed me three days and nothing less than the omnipotence of god could have shortened this time of torture. I saw the Saturday passing over, and,...
33From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 13 March 1788 (Jefferson Papers)
I received yesterday your favor of the 6th. with the agreeable information of the convalescence of my daughter, for which I thank you. I expect we shall be able to leave this place on the 19th. What route I shall take will depend on information not yet received relative to the roads, and partly too on the weather’s becoming milder than it now is. So that at present I can only ascertain the...
34From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 29 March 1788 (Jefferson Papers)
I have received from you three letters of Mar. 9. 14. and 17. and written you two of the 10th. and 13th. In the last I mentioned to you that I should leave this place the 19th. but I have been drawn on from day to day by the hope of seeing the business on which I came settled on the basis of positive engagement: and the great object of the month of June appeared so sure that we were about...
35From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 9 April 1788 (Jefferson Papers)
I arrived here on the 6th. inst. having been overtaken at Cleves by the commencement of a storm of rain hail and snow which lasted to this place, with intermissions now and then. The roads however continued good to Bonne, where beginning to be clayey and to be penetrated with the wet they became worse than imagination can paint for about 100 miles which brought me to the neighborhood of this...
36[From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 19 April 1788] (Jefferson Papers)
[ 19 Apr. 1788 . Recorded in SJL Index. Not found; the letter may have concerned the matter of the conference with Lambert that Vernes had discussed in his letter to TJ of 10 Apr. 1788, which TJ received at Strasbourg on 16 Apr.]
37From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 20 September 1788 (Jefferson Papers)
The evening of your departure came a letter by the way of London and N. York, addressed to you, and probably from Virginia. I think you wished your American letters to remain here; I shall therefore keep it. The passport now inclosed came the day after your departure; so also did a mass of American letters for me, as low down as August 10. I shall give you their substance.—The Convention of...
38From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 24 September 1788 (Jefferson Papers)
I entirely forgot when you were here that I could get you a good letter for Geneva from M. Tronchin. I now inclose you one. The Garde des sceaux M. de Lamoignon, is replaced by Monsr. Barentin. The stocks continue low. The Britany deputies are released; so are M. d’Epremesnil and the Abbé Sabatier. It is expected the parliament will be recalled to it’s functions, unconditionally, this week....
39From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 21 November 1788 (Jefferson Papers)
Your several favors of Sep. 24. Oct. 2. 3. 11. 18. were unacknoleged because, at the time of writing them, you could not tell me how I should direct to you. That of Oct. 28. desired me to write to Rome; but from the time of receiving it till yesterday, I have been in one of those squalls of work with which you are acquainted. That over, and my dispatches for America clear of the house, I had...
40From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 8 December 1788 (Jefferson Papers)
My last to you was of the 21st. of Nov. addressed to Milan poste restante according to the desire expressed through Mrs. Paradise. I have lately received yours of the 19. of Nov. and sincerely felicitate you on your recovery. I wish you may have suffered this to be sufficiently established before you sat out on your journey. The present letter will probably reach you amidst the classical...
41From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 22 January 1789 (Jefferson Papers)
My last to you was of the 8th December, since which I have received your favors of Nov. 29. and Dec. 23. I have not received a single article of news from America since my last, except a letter from Dr. Franklin which makes known to me his health. I presume he is now retired from all public business as his term of 3. years for the presidency is expired. The affairs of this kingdom go on well....
42From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 9 February 1789 (Jefferson Papers)
I wrote you last on the 22d. of Jan. on which day I received yours of Dec. 31. and since that the other of Jan. 14. We have now received news from America down to the middle of December. They had then had no cold weather. All things relative to our new constitution were going on well. Federal Senators are N. Hampshire Presidt. Langdon and Bartlett, Massach. Strong and Dalton, Connect. Dr....
43From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 28 February 1789 (Jefferson Papers)
I wrote you last on the 9th. instant. Yours of the 11th. came to hand yesterday evening. Some of it’s enquiries will have been already answered to you. We have now information from America down to the middle of January. Things were going on so well that our letters afford nothing interesting scarcely. The opposition to the new constitution grows feebler. Every where the elections are federal....
44From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 16 March 1789 (Jefferson Papers)
That you may see whether any of my letters to you or of yours to me have miscarried, I will here state them. Mine have been Sep. 20. 24. Nov. 21. Dec. 8. Jan. 22. Feb. 9. 28. Yours which have been received are Sep. 24. Oct. 2. 3. 11. 18. 28. Nov. 19. 29. Dec. 23. 31. Jan. 14. Feb. 11. 17. 25. We have no news from America since my last. This country is entirely occupied in electioneering, which...
45From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 24 March 1789 (Jefferson Papers)
I wrote you last on the 16th. inst. and since that have received yours of the 2d. inst. from Rome. By this I find you would leave Rome the 4th. and I am much afraid you will have left Florence before a letter will get there which I wrote Feb. 28. inclosing my commission for Genoa. I think I sent this letter to Florence under cover to your bankers: yet I am not sure that I did not send it to...
46From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 13 April 1789 (Jefferson Papers)
Your’s of Mar. 26. and Apr. 3. are both received: so is Mr. Rutledge’s of the latter date. My Congé is not yet received, and indeed I do not expect it till the last of the month. If you will give me a state of what will be your route I shall be able to give you notice when I receive it in time for you to push to Paris before my departure. This will enable you to go on at your leisure. But be...
47From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 3 May 1789 (Jefferson Papers)
Yours of Apr. 28. from Bordeaux came to hand yesterday as did Mr. Rutledge’s of the 27th. (for I must still have the privilege of acknoleging both together). The incertainty you express whether you come by Nantes, and of course whether this letter (a copy of which goes there) may not get into other hands will very much shorten it. Madame de Tessé, whose constancy to you is above reproach, has...
48From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 4 October 1789 (Jefferson Papers)
We arrived here on Monday morning 28th. Sep. having had no accident on the road, but an axle tree broken on the Phaeton and the bad tire which Rocounier had put on the chariot wheels broke in two places. We have been detained here ever since by the most tempestuous weather ever seen. A ship and a brig, put in in distress, have been driven aground. To-day the wind has lulled, and tho’ as yet...
49From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 7 October 1789 (Jefferson Papers)
The day after my arrivel here the equinoctial gales commenced and have prevailed now for nine days with a fury almost unexampled. Three days ago there appeared a small abatement, we got our baggage aboard a packet and tried to get out of the harbor but it was impossible. For my comfort the weatherwise tell me these winds will continue till the change of the moon, that is near a fortnight...
50From Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 17 October 1789 (Jefferson Papers)
Our ship has arrived here this evening, and if the wind permits we shall sail tomorrow. We have now lost exactly three weeks by contrary winds: so that in spite of my efforts to be in readiness for a passage between the equinox and winter, we shall surely be thrown late into December and perhaps into January, for our captain tells us we cannot expect less than a nine weeks passage. The ship is...