Jefferson’s copy was sent to him by the author, to whom the former wrote from Washington on July 10, 1803: “ I recieved through the hands of m( ^~r ) Lenox, on his return to the US. the valuable volume you were so good as to send me on the life & writings of Fletcher of Saltoun. the political principles of that patriot were worthy the purest periods of the British constitution. they are those which were in vigour at the epoch of the American emigration. our ancestors brought them here, and they needed little strengthening to make us what we are . . . I feel a pride in the justice which your lordship’s sentiments render to the character of my illustrious countryman Washington . . . ”

David Steuart Erskine, eleventh Earl of Buchan, 1742-1829. The Introduction to this work is chiefly political and contains mention of Buchanan, Hume, Montesquieu, Franklin and other writers. The work includes letters and poems by Robert Burns, William Collins and others. This work is the first mentioned in the list of authorities at the end of the article on Fletcher in the Dictionary of National Biography.

Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, 1653-1716, Scottish patriot.

James Thomson, 1700-1748, Scottish poet.

Copies of this book and the next entry, Warner’s History of the Irish Rebellion , were in the Shadwell Library, having been bought by Jefferson from T. Cadell, London, in 1769, bound in calf, price £ 1. 4. 0. each.

Ferdinando Warner, 1703-1768, English divine and miscellaneous writer, went to Dublin to obtain material for this book, but, failing to get any financial help from the Irish House of Commons, produced only one volume. He died of gout in 1768.