To Thomas Jefferson from William Branch Giles, 4 January 179[5]
From William Branch Giles
Philadelphia Jany 4th 1794 [i.e. 1795]
Dear Sir
I Received your favors of the 17th Ultimo two days ago and thank you for their contents. I waited on Mr. Shippen last evening and mentioned your business to him. After remarking that he thought the estate of Mr. Banister’s father should in strictness pay the debt, as he was travelling under his father’s direction at the time it was contracted, Mr. Shippen promised to pay it himself, but not immediately. He wished to see the statement of it, which I had not with me at the time but am now about incloseing it to him. He is in extreme ill health, and I beleive beyond the possibility of recovering. I shall wait on him again after he shall have received the statement and will take pleasure in giveing you further information as to his determination.
Inclosed I send you two papers and think they will afford you some amusement. The debates are very incorrectly1 taken, but they furnish the outline view of the proceedings. So much cunning and precaution were never before in such a dilemma. The post leaves town this moment. Accept my most affectionate regards &c.
Wm. B. Giles
RC (DLC); at foot of text: “Mr. Jefferson”; endorsed by TJ as a 1795 letter received 21 Jan. 1795 and so recorded in SJL.
SJL records letters from Thomas Lee Shippen to TJ of 8 Jan. 1795, received from Philadelphia on 20 Jan. 1795, and from TJ to Shippen of 21 Jan. 1795, neither of which has been found.
I send you two papers: probably the Philadelphia Gazette of 2 and 3 Jan. 1795, which carried a summary of the debates held in the House of Representatives on 1 and 2 Jan. on Giles’s proposed amendment to the naturalization bill. See also James Madison to TJ, 11 Jan. 1794 [i.e. 1795], and note.
1. Giles here canceled “and roughly.”