Bound for Jefferson in tree calf, gilt back, leather labels on the backs, marbled endpapers, silk bookmarks, by March or Milligan. Initialled by Jefferson at sig. I and T in both volumes. With the Library of Congress 1815 bookplate.

Sent by the author to Jefferson from Paris immediately after publication. The covering letter is undated, but was received by Jefferson on November 3, 1803: “Daignez recevoir l’hommage que je vous fais de mon Traité d’Economie politique, comme une marque de la haute considération que j’ai pour vos qualités personnelles et pour les principes que vous professez. Puissiez-vous y reconnaître quelques traces de cet amour celairé de l’humanité et de la liberté qui vous rend si recommandable aux yeux des hommes qui pensent bien . . .”

Jefferson replied from Washington on February 1, 1804: “ I have to acknolege the reciept of your obliging letter, and with it of two very interesting volumes on Political economy. these found me engaged in giving the leisure moments I rarely find to the perusal of Malthus’s work on population, a work of sound logic, in which some of the opinions of Adam Smith, as well as of the economists, are ably examined. I was pleased, on turning to some chapters where you treat the same questions, to find his opinions corroborated by yours. I shall proceed to the reading of your work with great pleasure . . . ”

In his correspondence Jefferson referred to Say on more than one occasion as “ the author of the best work on political economy” and “ the author of the ablest work which has ever been written on Political Economy.”

On April 4, 1813, he wrote to William Duane: “ . . . I have never seen the work on Political economy of which you speak. Say, and Tracy contain the sum of that science, as far as it has been soundly traced in my judgment. and it is a pity that Say’s work should not, as well as Tracy’s be made known to our country men by a good translation. it would supplant Smith’s book altogether, because shorter, clearer, and sounder . . . ”

Jefferson lent his copy to various people, and on January 31, 1814, wrote to Joseph C. Cabell: “ Your favor of the 23 ^d is recieved. Say had come to hand safely. but I regretted having asked the return of him, for I did not find in him one new idea on the subject I had been contemplating; nothing more than a succinct, judicious digest of the tedious pages of Smith . . . ”

It was Cabell who contemplated a translation of Say’s work and Jefferson wrote to him on February 28, 1816: “ You enquire whether Say has ever been translated into English? I am certain he never has in America, nor do I believe he has in England. I have never seen his work named in their catalogues or advertisements nor do I believe it has been noticed by the Edinburgh reviewers. nor have they noticed the Review of Montesquieu, altho Duane sent them a copy. you will render this country a great service in translating it; for there is no branch of science of which our countrymen seem so ignorant as Political economy. the bulk & prolixity of Smith forbid venturing on him. I salute you always with affection. ”

In 1814 Say sent Jefferson a copy of the second edition published under the sauve garde of the Emperor of Russia. This copy was sold at the auction of 1829 and is now in the University of Virginia.

Jean Baptiste Say, 1767-1832, French economist, was for a time secretary to Clavière, who first drew his attention to Smith’s Wealth of Nations . He was one of the hun-