1. Jefferson had given these letters to GW on 23 Feb. (JPP, description begins Dorothy Twohig, ed. The Journal of the Proceedings of the President, 1793–1797. Charlottesville, Va., 1981. description ends 64). The two letters from William Short, the U.S. minister at The Hague, to Jefferson were dated 9 Nov. and 18 Dec. 1792. In this correspondence Short reported on French military affairs and informed the secretary of state of his plans to travel to Spain through France. Both letters are printed in Jefferson Papers, description begins Julian P. Boyd et al., eds. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. 41 vols. to date. Princeton, N.J., 1950–. description ends 24:601–3, 752–55. Elias Vanderhorst, the U.S. consul at Bristol, England, had written to Jefferson on 24 and 31 Dec. 1792 (ibid., 780, 807). In these letters Vanderhorst listed the current prices of American commodities on the British market and predicted that Great Britain and Spain would form an alliance against France.

2. For Jean-Baptiste Ternant’s letter to Jefferson of 17 Feb. and Jefferson’s reply of 23 Feb., see ibid., 25:218–19, 254–55. The subject of both letters was the declaration of the French republic.