With several manuscript notes by Jefferson, who has written on the title-page: by Thomas Jefferson.

On page 8 the footnote of 12 lines has been crossed out in ink, and Jefferson has written in the lower margin of this and the next page a replacing note: *in 1621. Nova Scotia was granted by James I. to S ^r. W ^m. Alexander. in 1632. Maryland was granted by Charles I. to Lord Baltimore. in 1664. New York was granted by Charles II. to the D. of York: so also was New Jersey, which the D. of York conveied again to L ^d Berkeley & S ^r. Geo. Carteret. so also were the Delaware counties which the same Duke conveied again to W ^m. Penn. in 1665. the country including North & South Carolina, Georgia & the Floridas was granted by Charles II. to the E. of Clarendon, D. of Albemarle, E. of Craven, L ^d. Berkeley, L ^d Ashley, S ^r. George Carteret, S ^r. John Coleton, & S ^r. W ^m. Berkeley. in 1681. Pennsylvania was granted by Charles II. to W ^m. Penn.

On Page 13 the word New England has been completely erased in ink, and replaced by Massachusets written by Jefferson in the margin.

On page 14 a reference to the hope of a few worthless ministerial dependents to obtain a British knighthood has been annotated by Jefferson in a footnote: *alluding to the knighting of Francis Barnard. [For Francis Bernard see no. 3074.]

On page 17 Jefferson has made two corrections. He has changed his original African corsairs to British corsairs in a marginal correction, and has erased his majesty’s from the phrase his majesty’s governor of the colony of Virginia, and substituted the definite article to read: the governor of the colony of Virginia.

On page 18 Jefferson has added a footnote in black ink (the other annotations are in brown ink) probably at a later date. Concerning the power of the King to dissolve parliament, he has written in the lower margin: *since this period the king has several times dissolved the parliament a few weeks before it’s expiration, merely as an assertion of the right.

On the second paragraph of the same page an alteration has been made. The original text read: Since the establishment, however, of the British constitution, at the glorious revolution . . . This has been changed with ink to read: Since the reign of the Second William however, under whom the British constitution was settled . . . This note, and the word British, unlike the other annotations, are written in broken script.

On page 19 Jefferson has written (in brown ink) the footnote: *insert ‘and the frame of government thus dissolved, should the people take upon them to lay the throne of your majesty prostrate, or to discontinue their connection with the British empire, none will be so bold as to decide against the right or the efficacy of such avulsion.’

On page 20, in the passage Our ancestors . . . were farmers, not lawyers, Jefferson has changed farmers to laborers.

[For a complete list of Jefferson’s manuscript corrections, see the Introduction to Thomas Perkins Abernethy’s facsimile reprint taken from the copy in the John Carter Brown Library.]

Jefferson mentioned these annotations in a letter to John W. Campbell of Petersburg, Virginia, who was proposing to publish a collected edition of Jefferson’s works.

Jefferson’s first letter to Campbell on this subject was dated from Monticello September 3, 1809: “ Your letter of July 29 came to hand sometime since, but I have not sooner been able to acknoledge it. In answer to your proposition for publishing a compleat edition of my different writings, I must observe that no writings of mine, other than those merely official have been published, except the Notes on Virginia, & a small pamphlet under the title a Summary view of the rights of British America . . .

" The Summary view was not written for publication. it was a draught I had prepared of a petition to the king, which I meant to propose in my place as a member of the Convention of 1774. being stopped on the road by sickness, I sent it on to the Speaker, who laid it on the table for the perusal of the members. it was thought too ”