“ possession of m( ^~ r) Lyttleton Tazewell of Williamsburg among some neglected papers, and carried it into the Western country. on examining it there, for the first time, and observing an endorsement in my handwriting [ as described in your 1 ^st vol. pa. 121. ] he conjectured it might be mine, took care of it, and having occasion lately to come to Virginia, and to pass through this neighborhood, he left it for me with a friend, and I have received and returned it to the librarian of Congress . . . ”

Hening answered this letter on September 9, without being able to give any explanation: “I am just favored with your letter of the 3 ^rd. of this month.

"How the M.S. volume A. should have found its way to Williamsburg, is to me perfectly incomprehensible. I rejoice that it is regained . . .”

Hening’s description of the manuscript (I. 121) is not accurate. He quotes the inscription by Sir John Randolph and states that it is in the same hand writing with the acts themselves which is an error. His quotation of Jefferson’s inscription which follows, though in inverted commas, is edited with regard to spelling and punctuation.

William Waller Hening, 1767-1828, Virginian legal writer, had much correspondence with Jefferson relative to Jefferson’s manuscripts of the Virginia laws, which were borrwed by Hening for his Statutes at Large , see no. 1863.

In Jefferson’s statement of his volumes of the laws of Virginia sent to George Wythe on January 13, 1796, the manuscript is thus described: “ M.S. marked <43> purchased of the ex( ^~ r) s of the late Peyton Randolph, having been among the collections of S ^r. John Randolph. from the resemblance of the mark to some I have formerly seen in the Secretary’s office, I suspect this to be an original volume of records, probably borrowed by S ^r. J. R. It contains the laws from 1629. to 1633. ”

A footnote to the list reads: “ The above is an exact statement of my M.S. collection, as I left it when I went to Europe. during my absence the whole were borrowed from my library. after being balloted about by land & by sea, and lying some years under a pile of cordage in a warehouse at New York and supposed lost, they were returned to me at Philadelphia, without the volume marked <43> which therefore I suppose is lost. if so, the laws of the six sessions of 1629. 1630. 1. 2. 3. 3. are gone for ever, as they existed in no other book. ”

The manuscript was sent by Jefferson to Hening on June 7, 1808, and in the accompanying list is described as: “ a MS. marked <43> purchased with the library of Peyton Randolph from his executors containing the laws of 6. sessions from 1629. Oct. 16. to 1633. Aug. 21. ”

On April 8, 1815, Jefferson noted the receipt of its return to him by Hening in answer to his request for the return of all borrowed material in order that the complete library might be delivered to Congress.

The manuscript was for a long time thought to be missing from the Library of Congress. It is unchecked in the working copy of the 1815 catalogue, the entry omitted from the later catalogues, and it is included in the manuscript list of books missing from the Library of Congress.

The manuscript was recently found by Mrs. Eaton of the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress,