From Thomas Jefferson to Cyrus Griffin, 19 June 1779
To Cyrus Griffin
Wmsburg June 19. 79
Sir
The within resolution will inform you of the honourable appointment to which you are elected by the voice of your Country, which I do myself the pleasure to notify to you. The present urgencies of the public business, require as early an attendance as you can possibly bestow, and will I hope be my excuse when I urge you to give us your most speedy aid. I am Sir Yr. very hble Servt,
Th: Jefferson
RC (TxU). In a clerk’s hand; signed by TJ. Enclosure missing.
At foot of text the addressee’s name, in the clerk’s hand and apparently removed from the cover and mounted here, is given as Samuel Griffin; this is an error for Cyrus Griffin, who was elected to Congress on 18 June to serve for one year from Nov. 1779 (, May 1779, 1827 edn., p. 55; Samuel Griffin was appointed a member of the Board of War the same day). A virtually identical signed letter of the same date to one of the other persons elected at this time is owned by Gilman School, Baltimore; TJ presumably wrote identical letters to all of the others elected on 18 June: Gabriel Jones, Edmund Randolph, James Mercer, William Fitzhugh, Patrick Henry, and Meriwether Smith.