après huit ans de Silence je recois donc enfin de Tes nouvelles Chere Jefferson tu ne Sauras jamais Le plaisir que j’ai Eprouvée En recevant La Lettre de Bruny qui Me parloit de toi, Et je ne sais trop même si je devrois te L’avouer Car Ces 8 années de silence Me pésent toujours sur Le Cœur....

Depuis Ma premiere Lettre partie Ma Chere j’ai rencontré Mr Skipwith ton parent qui m’a promis de faire passer Mes Lettres Et surtout de Me faire passer tes reponces. tu n’auras donc plus d’Excuse Ma Chere ainsi j’espere que j’aurai une réponce de toi avant peu—Lorsque je sus que Mr Skipwith non...

I love to see honest men & honorable men at the helm, men who will not bend their politics to their purses, nor pursue measures by which they may profit, & then profit by their measures.

Bishop Grégoire ... wrote to me also on the doubts I had expressed five or six & twenty years ago, in the Notes on Virginia, as to the grade of understanding of the negroes, & he sent me his book on the literature of the negroes. his credulity has made him gather up every story he could...

I am happy to be able to inform you that we have now in the United States a negro, the son of a black man born in Africa, and of a black woman born in the United States, who is a very respectable Mathematician. I procured him to be employed under one of our chief directors in laying out the new...

your account of Clarkson’s conduct gives me great pleasure. my first wish is that the labourers may be well treated, the second that they may enable me to have that treatment continued by making as much as will admit it. the man who can effect both objects is rarely to be found. I wish you would...

The skill & activity of Clarkson are sufficiently manifested allready to make us hope that your affairs in Albemarle will be better conducted than they have ever been. I know it will give you real pleasure to hear that he has a valuable art of governing the slaves which sets aside the...

but I think I have observed that your countrymen who have been obliged to work out their own fortunes here, have succeeded best with a small farm. labour indeed is dear here, but rents are low, and on the whole a reasonable profit & comfortable subsistance results. it is at the same time the...

I now employ a dozen little boys from 10. to 16. years of age, overlooking all the details of their business myself and drawing from it a profit on which I can get along till I can put my farms into a course of yeilding profit. my new trade of nail-making is to me in this country what an...

I receive with pleasure this recognition & renewal of our former acquaintance, and shall be happy to continue it by an exchange of epistolary communications. your’s to me will be always welcome; your first gives me information in the line of Natural history, & the second (not yet recieved...