From Thomas Jefferson to Montmorin, 30 July 1788
To Montmorin
Paris July 30. 1788.
Sir
I have the pleasure to inform your Excellency that the new Constitution proposed for the United states is finally established by the vote of nine states. New Hampshire acceded to it certainly on the 24th. of June, and I have great reason to conclude that Virginia had done it some days before, in which case the vote of New-Hampshire would be the tenth.
I have the honour to be with sentiments of the most perfect esteem & respect your Excellency’s most obedient & most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson
RC (Arch. Aff. Etr., Paris, Corr. Pol., E.-U., Vol. xxxiii); docketed: “M. de R[ayneval].” PrC (DLC); lacks signature, which may have been clipped away during TJ’s lifetime, for, on the same line with the final part of complimentary close and evidently written after the page was clipped, TJ put at foot of text (not in RC): “Count de Monmorin.”
If the conjectural conclusion advanced in the note to Dumas to TJ, 24 July 1788, is valid, this notification to Montmorin takes on additional meaning, and so, perhaps, does the news in the following letter to Dumas about the prohibition of the distribution of the Gazette de Leide in Paris.