“ dont je me deferai volontiers si j’en trouve dix louis ou même moins si l’on juge qu’elle vaille moins. elle peut faire plaisir à quelqu’un . . .”

On January 1, 1788, Jefferson wrote from Paris to Stockdale: “ . . . I must press the immediate sending the plate of my map, as the bookseller here had not struck off his whole quantity, and apprehends he shall suffer if he is not supplied soon. as a matter of curiosity I am desirous of hearing how the Notes of Virginia have sold with you. having not received any Reviews from you since those of August, I am uninformed how they have treated it . . . ”

Stockdale recplied on the 22nd of February: “I duly re( ^~c)ed your three Letters, but owing to the alterations I have been making in my house, by enlarging my Shop &c, has prevented me for this two Months past of paying that respect to you, & attention to my business that it required. but I have now got the Shop in excellent order & my business in a proper train, tho’ I am a little discomposed by having been complained of by the House of Commons for having published what they deem a Lible, they have order’d me to be prosecuted. I have sent your Copper Plate this day & next week I hope to send you all the Books order’d, I am with great respect Sir your much obliged & very humble Servt.”

Four months later, at the end of a letter to John Trumbull, dated from Paris, June 29, 1788, Jefferson announced: “ . . . no news from Stockdale. I am done with him irrevocably. Adieu.”

On March 3, the Abbé Morellet wrote to Jefferson: “le commissionnaire qui m’apporte la planche s’en va sur le champ sans que je lui parle at sans que je puisse vous addresser ma reponse et mes remercimens. je vous en dois beaucoup pour les soins et les peines que vous aves prises. sans la complaisance que vous aves je me serois trouvé avec 300 exemplaires de votre ouvrage sans cartes et par consequent non vendables. avec la planche revenüe je les completerai et je viendrai à bout de retirer mes frais car avec la juiverie de nos libraires c’est tout ce que je pourrai faire quoique l’ouvrage se soit bien vendu. vous venes de faire encore une depense pour le retour de cette planche que je dois vous rembourser si vous aves la complaisance de me donner la note des frais. je suis toujours si sendentaire et si occuppé que je suis forcément privé du plaisir que j’aurois à aller m’entretenir avec vous. quand le tems sera devenu un peu plus supportable je me dedommagerai . . .”

On July 16, in a letter to Stockdale, Jefferson wrote: “ . . . I have lately received from you two packages of books, & will now beg the favor of you to send me an exact state of my account, charging me with the copies of the Notes on Virginia you sent to be sold here, & for which I will account to you immediately tho but a small part of them are sold. In fact they are prohibited . . . ”

On the following day, July 17, Jefferson again wrote to Stockdale: “ I had written the preceding letter yesterday, but it had yet gone out of my hands when I received yours of the 11 ^th. inst . . . all I wished as to the maps was to avoid loss, which I shall not do, charging you 10 ^d. a piece instead of 1/ a peice which had been at first understood to be the price. I wish you had sent your whole impression to Charlestown, Richmond, Philadelphia & Boston, as I believe it would have been sold immediately. as the work could not be bought there, the periodical papers retailed it out to the public by piecemeal, till at length (as I am informed) a bad edition is printed, either without a map or with a slight sketch of one . . . ”

Stockdale replied on the 15th of August, 1788:“ I have this Instant re( ^~c)ed your two Letters by the hands of my good friend M ^r. Trumbold & the ballence of your Acc ^t. up to the present time, as P ^r. acc ^t. annexed Viz £13.13.6. for which I return you my sincere thanks as well as for your kind remittance of the French Books. From Letters which I have re( ^~c)ed from different Gent ⁿ. in America I am convinced that the whole of the Impression of your Book would have been sold immediately had they been sent them, but I ”