Volume III : page 415

“ vous puissiez par votre sagesse, par vos grands talens, et par vos vertus qui sont aujourdhuy l’admiration de toute l’europe, donner a ce bon pays dont vous avez fait l’acquisition ce dont il a besoin pour devenir un jour ce qu’est lamire patrie que vous gouvernez si bien. / monsieur le president. / je vous envoye aussi un memoire de faits qui vous prouvera la persecution et les grands malheurs que ma femme, mes enfans et moi avons éprouvé a la nouvel Orleans . . .”
This letter contains a list of the maladies which Alliot could treat and cure, and a definition “ de la fièvre jaune.”
The Memoire referred to by Alliot, in his letter of April 14, is also in the Jefferson Papers in the Library of Congress. It is headed: “ Alliot, Médecin / Français,” and is on 8 printed pages, dated by Alliot “ Aux Prisons de Pontaniou, à Lorient, ce 26 Messidor an onze” [July 15, 1803]; the imprint at the foot of the last page: A Lorient, de l’Imprimerie de V. e Feutray .
Jefferson replied from Monticello on April 27: “ Recieved on a short visit to this place your letter of the 14 th. and the papers it covered, and have perused with satisfaction that containing your historical and political reflections on Louisiana. they are replete with views which are benevolent, and which appear to me to be just, altho’, for want of local knolege, I am unable to decide on them competently. in the present stage of government there, nothing can be attempted. but when the governor & legislature, provided for them by Congress, shall get into action, I shall certainly commit your reflections to the Governor, that they may produce the good of which they are susceptible, for the people for whose advantage they appear to have been written.

" With respect to your memoir, & application for leave to prosecute those at New Orleans who have violated the laws, or their engagements to your injury, I have to observe that the laws in force at the delivery of this country to us, were continued by proclamation, that our Governor, instead of deciding causes himself in the first instance, has established a court consisting of some of the most respectable American & French inhabitants of the place, before whom contracts & injuries, though [illegible] of the place, may be prosecuted by the injured party, without asking the permission of any person. from this court there is an appeal to the Governor [ when] the cause of action is beyond a certain amount. minuter [illegible] on this subject can only be had by enquiries on the spot, which your agent will of [illegible] make. Accept my respectful salutations.
Alliot wrote again from New York on May 7: “. . . je suis on ne peut plus sensible a ce que vous m’ecrivez touchant mon petit ouvrage sur la Louysiane. a la lecture de votre lettre, des larmes ont coulé de mes yeux heureux pour moi, mil fois heureux si le plan que je trace peut produire un bon effet. et si les habitans peuvent y vivre longtems et heureux . . .”
For a full account of Alliot’s Reflexions, with a translation, bibliographical, biographical and other notes, see James Alexander Robertson, Louisiana under the rule of Spain, France, and the United States 1785-1807, Volume I, 1911, where the French text with English translation is printed in full.
The volume contains also two other manuscript pieces:
1. Extracts from a letter written by a Gentleman who had explored Kentucky to his Friend in the lower part of Virginia relative to that country--Bedford in Virginia.
Written on both sides of 2 leaves, 43 lines to a full page.
On the back of the second leaf Jefferson has written: Western country.
2. Memoire.
8 leaves including 2 blanks at the end, written in French on both sides of the paper, 46 lines to a full page.
Begins: Sans entrer dans le détail des causes morales qui ont influé sur l’accroissements prodigieux . . .
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Volume III : page 415

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