305
Not in the Manuscript Catalogue.
1815 Catalogue, page 82. no. 153, Hall’s American Law Journal, 8vo, No. 1.
HALL,
John Elihu.
The American Law Journal and Miscellaneous Repertory.
Containing adjudged cases in the Supreme
Court of the United States, adjudged
cases in the District and State Courts of the
United States, opinions of
eminent counsellors, notices of new
publications, essays on legal questions,
biographical memoirs, Congressional and
Parliamentary debates, on momentous
questions, Legal information respecting the
most important laws of the
different States. By John E. Hall, Esq. of
Baltimore. Vol. I . . .
Published by
William P. Farrand and Co.
Philadelphia, and
Farrand, Mallory and Co.
Boston.
Fry and Kammerer, printers,
1808.
Law
8vo. 4 quarterly parts bound in 1 vol.; continuous signatures and pagination, separate title-pages.
Contains several matters of Jeffersonian interest. On page 175 is an account of a suit brought by one print dealer against
another who had failed in a contract to exchange prints of Washington for prints of Jefferson on the ground that “whatever
the artist might have intended, the “
Jeffersons” were never considered matches for “
Washingtons,” by any persons of the least taste or judgment: that although a few of the “
Jeffersons” were put off, at the subscription price, soon after publication, and had a tolerable brisk sale, yet that the moment they
were submitted to the test of criticism, and were compared with the “
Washingtons,” they were condemned by the unbiassed
[
sic
--
Ed.
] judgment of the public, and fell, as he was able to prove by a deposition, which he held in his hand (but which being
ex parte, he was not permitted to read) to twelve and thirteen cents a-piece, by wholesale, and at that price
were a dull article; and that to him it appeared monstrous that when the plaintiff had found a ready sale, and received a full price for the
twenty-five “
Washingtons,” exceeding the value of all the “
Jeffersons,” that were ever turned from his plate, he should at this time come forward, and demand the same price for his “
Jeffersons,” which began to depreciate before they were dry from the press, and were now
of less value than waste paper.”
On page 374 begins an article
The Honest Politician, with several references to Jefferson. This article contains comments on the Leopard-Chesapeake affair.
Pages 433 to 439 contain a letter from Caesar Rodney to the President of the United States, July 15, 1808.
Pages 497 to 504 contain the Message from the President of the United States, to both Houses of Congress at the commencement
of the second Session of the tenth Congress, November 8, 1808.
The original draft of this Message, in Jefferson’s handwriting, is in the Jefferson Papers in the Library of Congress.
Jefferson’s own account of the Batture case was published by Hall in a later number of
The American Law Journal.
John Elihu Hall, 1783-1829, of Baltimore, Maryland, lawyer, editor, and author. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society, and in politics he was a Federalist.
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