“ to mention, if sent on, I can have put into hand immediately; there is no difficulty in obtaining good translators here at present, and I will accept it with great satisfaction, and send you the proofs as you propose . . .”

A month later, on September 16, Jefferson sent the manuscript to Duane: “ . . . the French work will accompany this letter. since writing to you I have gone over the whole and can assure you it is the most valuable political work of the present age. in some details we all may differ from him or from one another, but the great mass of the work is highly sound. it’s title would be ‘a Commentary _^ on Montesquieu’s Spirit of laws.’ perhaps the words ‘and Review’ might be inserted at the _^ .

" Helvetius’s letter on the same work should be annexed if it can possibly be procured. it was contained in a late edition of the works of Helvetius as published by the Abbé de la Roche. probably that edition might be found . . .

" You say in your letter that you will send me the proofs of the commentary on Montesquieu for revisal. it is only the translation I should wish to revise. I feel myself answerable to the Author for a correct publication of his ideas. the translated sheets may come by post as they are finished off. they shall be promptly returned, the originals coming with them . . . ”

On October 25, Jefferson sent to Duane his revisal of the first part of the translated sheets: “ I now return the translated sheets. you will find in them some pencilled words, chiefly corrections of errors in the copyist. in one part they are something more. having retained a copy of the part I translated and forwarded to you in my first letter, I was enabled to collate that with the corresponding part now inclosed and I found, in a few instances, changes in the structure of the sentence &c. which tho’ equivalent to the author’s own, yet were not exactly in the form he had chosen. knowing his precision of idea, and his attention to the choice of words for expressing them, I apprehended he would be better satisfied with our adherence to his forms of expression as far as the genius of the two languages would admit. I made the notes therefore merely with a view of recommending this generally. I will furnish you in due time with a very short epistle of the author to the reader to be prefaced to the work . . . ”

This was acknowledged by Duane on October 29: “I have just received the returned parcel of Manuscript[.] my motive for sending you the translation in the first instance was that you might judge and if you had leisure correct to your mind--my intention is to send you on the Manuscript as as [sic] fast as translated and I can transcribe it; I am not perfectly satisfied myself with the manner of the translation; it is very difficult unless to a person equally conversant in both languages; there are some passages very difficult--I fear that on this account it will be to you more troublesome than I could wish it to be; the translation is generally too dry and frigid for the original; and the whys & wherefores and moreovers are too frequent for the English idiom. The work the more I peruse the more I am gratified and impressed with its importance, and feel a solicitude to see it before the public . . .”

On November 13, Jefferson sent to Duane the corrected second part: “ Your 3 ^d. packet is recieved before the 2 ^d. had been returned. it is now inclosed, and the other shall go by the next post. I find as before nothing to correct but those errors of the copyist which you would have corrected yourself before committed to the press. if it were practicable to send me the original sheets with the translated, perhaps my equal familiarity with both languages might enable me sometimes to be of some advantage: but I presume that might be difficult and of little use, scarcely perhaps of any . . . ”

With Jefferson’s next letter, January 18, 1811, he sent to Duane his draft for the preface: “ I promised you, in a former letter, a short Proem to be prefaced to our book, which I now inclose. it’s object is the concealment of the author, to whom that is a circumstance of first importance. I observe that the three last packets of about 130. or 140. pages, (two of which were returned by the last post, & the 3 ^d. by this) bear marks of much hastier translation than those pre- ”