Extract from Partial Draft of Thomas Jefferson to James Maury

I trouble you now with a piece of business. on the destruction of the library of Congress, I thought it a duty to offer them mine. I had been 50. years collecting it, with good opportunities, and it’s selection, more than it’s number of volumes had peculiarly adapted it to their uses. I must now buy again, for books are the best medecine for the ennui of age.

Dft (DLC: TJ Papers, 204:36315); incomplete, consisting of concluding two pages; undated; endorsed by TJ: “Maury James June 15. 15. not sent.” Published in PTJRS, 8:538–9.
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June 15, 1815
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