“ strong for the times & to become the act of the convention, but was printed by subscription of the members with a short preface written by one of them. if it had any merit it was that of first taking our true ground, & that which was afterwards assigned & maintained . . . ”

A month later, on October 1, 1809, Jefferson sent to Campbell this volume of pamphlets containing The Summary View, and mentioned the annotations: “ I recieved last night your favor of Sep. 19. and being about commencing a journey which will keep me from home some time, I answer it immediately. I think you have done well to restrict your intentions to the Summary view,

" Reports as Secretary of state, &

" Messages to Congress.

" as I do not know that a copy of the Summary view can now be found any where else, I send you a volume of the pamphlets of that day (1774) containing it. I had written it hastily at home, & hazarded some things not certain, because I expected to ascertain them on arriving at the convention. but as I was stopped on the way & the piece was published by others before I knew of it, it went forth with it’s errors uncorrected. on recieving the copy in this volume I made the M.S. corrections which you will see in it, & which, in the republication, should be made in the text. . . ”

Referring in the same letter to this volume and a volume containing his Reports as Secretary of State, Jefferson commented: “ . . . these two volumes making part of the collection of value & constant recurrence to myself, I need not recommend them to your particular care, & to be returned as soon as you can make the necessary use of them. I never before suffered them to go out of my own hands . . . ”

Jefferson’s first account of his writing the Summary View seems to be a contemporary one. In a document in his autograph, headed: On the instructions given to the 1 ^st .delegation of Virginia to Congress in August 1774 , and beginning: The legislature of Virginia happened to be in session in Williamsburg when news was recieved of the passage, by the British parliament, of the Boston port bill. this was to take effect on the 1 ^st. day of June then ensuing . . . , his account is as follows:

At the election, the people re-elected every man of the former assembly as a proof of their approbation of what they had done. before I left home to attend the Convention, I prepared what I thought might be given in instruction to the Delegates who should be appointed to attend the General Congress proposed. they were drawn in haste with a number of blanks, with some uncertainties & inaccuracies of of [ sic -- Ed. ] historical facts, which I neglected at the moment, knowing they could be readily corrected at the meeting, I set out on my journey, but was taken sick on the road, and unable to proceed. I therefore sent on by express two copies, one under cover to Patrick Henry, the other to Peyton Randolph, who I knew would be in the chair of the Convention. of the former no more was ever heard or known. m ( ^~ r) Henry probably thought it too bold as a first measure, as the majority of the members did. on the other copy being laid on the table of the convention by Peyton Randolph, as the proposition of a member who was prevented from attendance by sickness on the road, tamer sentiments were preferred, and I believe, wisely preferred; the leap I proposed being too long as yet for the mass of our citizens. the distance between these, and the instructions actually adopted is of some curiosity however, as it shews the inequality of pace with which we moved, and the prudence required to keep front and rear together. my creed had been formed on unsheathing the sword at Lexington. they printed the paper however, and gave it the title of ‘a Summary view of the rights of British America’. in this form it got to London, where the opposition took it up, shaped it to Opposition views, and in that form it ran rapidly thro’ several editions . . .

In a letter to William Plumer, sometime Governor of New Hampshire, dated from Monticello, January 31, 1815, Jefferson wrote: “ . . . In aid of your general work I possess no materials whatever, or they should be entirely at your service: and I am sorry that I have not a single copy of the pamphlet you ask, entitled ‘a Summary view of the rights of British America’. it was the draught of an Instruction which I had meant to propose for our Delegates to the first Congress. being prevented by sickness from attending our Convention, I sent it to them, and they printed without adopting it, in the hope that conciliation was not yet desperate. it’s only merit ”