“ I sent of in a box by the Dilligence Yesterday the following Books, American Atlas, £2:12:6. Adams on the Constitutions 5 ^s/: 10 Notes on Virginia for yourself (not charged) & 34 at 5 ^s/4 each for the books ^r. you was so good as to recommend, they sell in London Retail at 7 ^s/. in b ^ds. when they are sold he will be so good as to pay the Money into your hands, I hope he will soon want more, it is well spoke off in London--but they much lament that you have not gone more at large into the work & brought it lower down;--

"I have order’d two Copies to be deliver’d in your Name to M ^r Tho ^s. Mann Randolph (gratis) . . .”

Jefferson replied from Paris on August 14: “ . . . I thank you for the dozen copies of the Notes on Virginia. the remaining 34 shall be sold so as to pay the 8 ^d. sterl. a vol. their transportation costs, the commission for selling & your 5/4. upon the whole they must be sold at about 7-15 ^s. unless you are very sure of your information of the printing the Notes on Virginia in America, I doubt it. I never sent but six copies to America, and they were in such hands as I am sure would not permit them to be published. I have letters from Philadelphia as late as the 6 ^th. of June, & certainly no such publication was then suspected by my friends. on the contrary m ( ^~ r) Hopkinson, one of those to whom I had given a copy, & who is concerned in compiling the Columbian magazine, tells me he hopes I will not object to his publishing a few extracts from it, particularly the passages in which M. de Buffon’s work is controverted. so that unless you are very certain on the point, I shall disbelieve it. ”

Just over a week later [ i.e., a week after the date of Jefferson’s most recent correspondence from Philadelphia-- Ed.], on June 15, a letter was written to Jefferson giving him this bad news. In sending him a copy of his Vision of Columbus , Joel Barlow wrote to Jefferson from Hartford, Connecticut, on that date: “. . . Your Notes on Virginia are getting into the Gazetts in different States, notwithstanding your request that they should not be published here. We are are [sic] flattered with the idea of seeing ourselves vindicated from those despicable aspersions which have long been thrown upon us & echoed from one ignorable scribbler to another in all the languages of Europe.”

This letter is endorsed by Jefferson: Barlow Joel (author of the Vision of Columbus) but without the date of its receipt.

On August 31 Stockdale answered Jefferson’s letter of August 14: “I duly re( ^~c)ed yours of the 14 ^th. Instant, & am exceedingly obliged to you for the trouble you have taken with the Bookseller for the Sale of the Notes on Virginia.

"I have seen M ^r. Dilly bookseller in the Poultry, who positively assures me that your Book is printed at Philadelphia, & that his authority, is, M ^r. Bury, Bookseller at New York. M ^r. Dilly believes what he has asserted; tho’ I must confess I agree with you, & doubt it. I have sent a small number to D ^r. Ramsay & M ^r. Laurens, at Charleston. M ^r. Dilly has sent a few copies to New York . . .”

Stockdale’s information concerning the pirated American edition was partially correct. The edition was not yet published but appeared in Philadelphia with Prichard & Hall’s imprint in the following year, 1788. It was advertised before December 15, 1787, on which day a letter to Jefferson from Alexander Donald, from Richmond, Virginia, enclosing a clipping from a Richmond newspaper, announcing this forthcoming publication, price to subscribers one dollar, to non-subscribers seven shillings and sixpence, Virginia currency, subscriptions taken at Mr. Davis’s Printing-office in Richmond. As early as April 1787 extracts had been printed in the Columbian Magazine , Philadelphia; see no. 4901.

Concerning this matter, Jefferson wrote from Paris to Stockdale on September 10, 1787: “ . . . on your informing me you should decline sending any copies of the ‘Notes on Virginia’ to America I sent 40. which remained of the original edition, to Richmond. I am morally sure it had not been printed in America so late as July & equally so that some copies would sell in Boston, N. York, Philadelphia & Baltimore. ”

A week later, on September 17, Jefferson sent more copies under cover to James Madison, to whom he wrote: “ My last to you were of Aug. 2. & 15. since that I have sent to Havre to be forwarded to you by the present packet 3. boxes marked I.M. G.W. and A.D. ”