“

"In this application I have proceeded upon the belief that there is no copy right already possessed by any other Bookseller, and if I am in error on this head, I trust to your excuse--

"I have also to depend much upon your goodness in pardoning the freedom which I have used in addressing you on this occasion--”

Jefferson replied on October 7: “ I have duly recieved your favor of Sep. 29. proposing to publish a new edition of the Notes on Virginia, and asking for such additions as I might wish to make. I have long intended to prepare an enlarged edition of that work, with such additions & corrections as information & experience might enable me to make: and I have been laying by materials from time to time, as they occurred, for that purpose. but it will be long yet before other occupations will permit me to digest them; & observations & enquiries are still to be made, which will be more correct in proportion to the length of time they are continued; and this may probably be through my life. It is most likely therefore that it may be left to be posthumously published. in the mean time I should not be willing to propose any partial execution of the design.

" Such of the American editions as I have seen have been very incorrect, & some of them so much so as to be really libels on the understanding of the author. the private edition printed at Paris under my own inspection is the most correct. there were I think but one or two typographical errors in it. but this edition was never sold. there were but 200. copies printed, which I gave as presents to my friends. the London edition printed by Stockdale in 1787. is tolerably correct. should you execute your purpose of reprinting the work I have two copies of the Paris edition remaining of which I will send you one, supposing you might not be able otherwise to procure either a copy of that or of the London edition, which is also correct enough . . . ”

To this, Riley replied on October 16: “I was duly honoured with your polite favour of the 7 ^th. Instant respecting the Notes on Virginia--

"It is a source of regret that a work so much sought for as the Notes on Virginia, and so much valued for its accurate and various information, should have been so often given to the public in an imperfect state of typographical execution.--It is my wish to have it published in a superior style, and with the most perfect correctness. But I fear that without any thing of new matter introduced, it would not command an immediate sale, so as to reimburse me shortly for its expences. As it is one of the standing Stock Books among Booksellers, it would not fail to meet orders, but the mere copy of the Volume as it now stands, would not sell in Quantities so as to make its republication an object with any one printer--

"A few pages of illustrative, additional and corrective matter, would secure the run of an edition, and would by no means interfere with the larger and more perfect Edition contemplated to be published hereafter.--

"If therefore it can be at all consistent with your studies and affairs to give me these little additions, noted on blank leaves in the Paris copy, I trust the work would then, more than vindicate all that the reputation of the author has suffered from the garbled copies already extant.--Excuse sir my importunity, the public I concieve would be benefitted by such an Edition of the Notes on Virginia, and it would be my pride to publish the first correct and perfect Copy of the work in the United States.”

On January 22, 1810, Samuel Knox wrote to Jefferson from Baltimore a long letter concerning certain anti-Jefferson pamphlets, and mentioned: “. . . After your Election, a M ^r. Pechin, Editor of the Baltimore American , whether with or without your Approbation I know not, published an Edition of your Notes on Virginia, and annexed to it, entirely without my knowledge or concurrence, the pamphlet alluded to--Indeed it was impossible He could consult me, as I have every reason to Beleive he knew not the writer at y ^t. time.

"But as the Author was known to M ^r. Mason and a few friends where I resided,--And, consequently, might possibly have been mentioned to you, I felt much concern lest you should have ”