To Thomas Jefferson from Robert Pollard, 22 February 1795
From Robert Pollard
Richmond February 22d. 1795
Sir
Mr. Ross has just offered me Twenty shares in the James River Company at Eighteen shillings ⅌ pound provided the money can be paid him by the first of April next or sooner. This is the only chance I know of to purchace any number of shares together, but the time of payment being shorter than you contemplated, I did not choose to make a positive agreement with him untill I heard from you.
If you approve of his offer please write me by return of post. I am Sir Your most Obd.
Robert Pollard
RC (DLC: William Short Papers); endorsed by TJ as received 25 Feb. 1795 and so recorded in SJL.
Robert Pollard (1755–1842), a Richmond merchant and brother-in-law of Edmund Pendleton, was a member of the mercantile firm of Pickett, Pollard & Johnston (, 1st ser., x [1902], 198, 202).
According to SJL, TJ wrote a missing reply to Pollard on 25 Feb. 1795, which evidently instructed him to acquire the twenty shares in the James River Company for William Short (see Pollard to TJ, 1 May 1795). Pollard’s 8 Mch. response, recorded in SJL as received 17 Mch. 1795, has also not been found. In addition, SJL lists earlier missing letters from TJ to Pollard of 9 Oct., 12, 17 Dec. 1794, 22 Jan., and 4 Feb. 1795, and from Pollard to TJ of 11, 20 Oct., 1 Nov., 23 Dec. 1794, and 25 Jan. 1795.