Holmes acknowledged this letter on January 30, 1805, from Cambridge (received by Jefferson on February 11): “I feel greatly obliged by the attention you were pleased to bestow on the subject, on which I used the freedom to address you. In the republic of Letters mere hints of information or advice are often of inestimable value. All the books, mentioned in your Letter, I have access to, excepting Memoires de l’Amerique, and The American and British Chronicle. For the former of these I have made much inquiry, but do not hear of a copy on this side of Philadelphia. I gratefully acknowledge your kindness in offering me the loan of the other from your library. Should I not meet with that work previously to my coming, in the progress of my American Annals, down to the times of the Revolutionary War, I may then be greatly obliged by the loan of it . . .”

On March 9, 1806, Jefferson acknowledged the receipt of the first volume and again offered the loan of source material: “ I recieved a few days ago the 1 ^st. vol. of your American annals, for which I pray you to accept my thanks. it will be a valuable repertory of our history, & especially to those whose occupations give them occasion for works which condense much fact in the smallest space possible. I percieve from your plan that the Memoires de l’Amerique in 4. vols 4 ^to. would be of primary importance. no work extant is so complete as to French materials of American history. I think m ( ^~r ) Adams, our late President must have the work . . . should he not possess it, & no easier access to it be within your reach, I will on my first visit to Monticello, send my copy from thence to Richmond, from whence I believe vessels sometimes go to Boston, to be used during your convenience. when you come to the period (May 10. 1773.) at which the ‘American & British Chronicle’ begins I will send you my copy by post. I do not propose it now because it is a manual to which I am constantly turning. wishing you a success in your undertaking equal to it’s merit . . . ”

Holmes replied from Cambridge on May 20, 1806: “I acknowledge, with grateful respect, your favour of 9 March, and the renewal of your very obliging offer of the loan of books, in aid of the completion of American Annals. In the hope of procuring a copy of the Memoires de l’Amerique without putting you to the trouble of sending your’s to so remote a distance, I have been making diligent search for that work since the receipt of your letter, but without success . . . I am constrained therefore, Sir, to avail myself of your kindness, and to ask the favour of the loan of those volumes, or of such part of them as you shall perceive to be of use to me, for the space of a few months. In the printing of the second volume of the Annals, I have already come to the Peace of Paris in 1763 . . . The American and British Chronicle also, on your recommendation, I am solicitous to possess for the same purpose.”

Jefferson sent the American and British Chronicle on June 20, 1806, with a letter written from Washington: “ Your favor of May 20. found me at Monticello . . . on my departure I packed the Memoires de l’Amerique with some other books to be forwarded here, & on it’s arrival I will send it to you by the first vessel for Boston. I now inclose you the American & British chronicle, the size of which admits it’s going by post. I have found it’s dates not always accurate to a day . . .

" P.S. making use of this volume as a common Manual, I shall be glad to recieve it as soon as you are done with it; but desire it may not be until you have fully availed yourself of it. ”

Holmes returned the American and British Chronicle on December 15: “I now return to you by mail the American and British Chronicle, which you were so obliging as to lend me; and beg you to accept my very grateful acknowledgments for the loan of it . . . The Memoires de l’Amerique, which you generously offered to loan me, I hope, Sir, have not been forwarded. I have received no account of them. They would probably have come too late for my purpose, by any proper conveyance, after the time when you obligingly offered them; and they are too rare and valuable ”