James Madison answered Jefferson’s letter of May 11 on October 3: “. . . Your favour of the 11 May by Mons ^r. Doradour inclosing your cypher arrived in Virg ^a. after I left it, and was sent after me to this place. Your Notes which accompanied it, remained behind, and consequently I can only now say on that subject, that I shall obey your request on my return, which my call to Richmond will give me an early opportunity of doing . . .”

On November 15, having received his copy of the Notes he wrote from Richmond: “I acknowledged from Philad ^a. your favor of the 11 of May. On my return to Orange I found the copy of your Notes brought along with it by M ^r. Doradour. I have looked them over carefully myself & consulted several judicious friends in confidence. We are all sensible that the freedom of your strictures on some particular measures and opinions will displease their respective abettors. But we equally concur in thinking that this consideration ought not to be weighed against the utility of your plan. We think both the facts and remarks which you have assembled too valuable not to be made known, at least to those for whom you destine them, and speak of them to one another in terms which I must not repeat to you.

"M ^r. Wythe suggested that it might be better to put the number you may allot to the University into the library, rather than to distribute them among the students. In the latter case the Stock will be immediately exhausted. In the former the discretion of the professors will make it serve the Students as they successively come in. Perhaps too an indiscriminate gift might offend some narrow minded parents . . .” [The phrases printed in italics were in code in the original letter.]

Two months later, on January 22, 1786, Madison wrote once more concerning the copies Jefferson thought of sending to the students at William and Mary: “My last dated Nov ^r 15 from this place answered yours of May 11 ^th. on the subject of your printed notes. I have since had opportunities of consulting other friends on the plan you propose, who concur in the result of the consultations which I transmitted you. M ^r. Wythe’s idea seems to be generally approved, that the copies destined for the University should be dealt out by the discretion of the Professors, rather than indiscriminately and at once put into the hands of the students, which, other objections apart, would at once exhaust the stock . . .”

John Adams acknowledged the receipt of his copy in a letter dated from Montreuil sur Mer, May 22, 1785: “. . . I thank you kindly for your Book, it is our Meditation all the Day long.--I cannot now say much about it, but I think it will do its Author and his Country great Honour. The Passages upon slavery, are worth Diamonds. They will have more effect than Volumes written by mere Philosophers. The Ladies say you should have mentioned West and Copeley at least among your American genius’s, because they think them the greatest Painters of the Age. Madam [illegible] I have not expressed her sentiment politely enough, it should run thus The Ladies desire that in the next Edition you would insert West and Copeley &c . . .”

On July 5, 1785, Giovanni Fabbroni wrote from Florence to acknowledge a letter written to him by Jefferson from Paris on May 23, accompanying a copy of the Notes on Virginia: “Non fù minore della sorpresa il piacere ch’io provai al ricevemento della vostra cortesiss ^a: lettera scrittami da Parigi . . . La Vostra nuova Repubblìca non poteva trovar miglior soggetto di voi per trattare i suoi affari con una delle più illuminate corti dell’ Europa: Posso dir questo senza timore di esser sospettato di adulazione, perche da troppe bande sentii quali fossero i vostri talenti, e quale il vostro cuore. Così sono anticipatamente persuaso che l’America non poteva aver un Istorico migliore di quello che ha ritrovato in voi. La modesta apologìa che fate al vostro lavoro non fa che accrescere il merito del medesimo; ed io ne desidero ardentemente l’arrivo per gustarne la lettura, e presentarlo in seguito al mio sovrano. Voi sapete ”