“ meditations et des pensées dignes d’être offertes à un homme d’état. ce livre est moins interessant et moins agréable pour les autres classes de lecteurs que mes Essais historiques . . . Tout cela n’est qu’une preparation à l’histoire que je veux publier . . .”

Jefferson replied from Paris on February 20: “ I have been honoured with your letter & the books which accompanied it, for which I return you my hearty thanks. America cannot but be flattered with the choice of the subject on which you are at present employing your pen. the memory of the American revolution will be immortal, and will immortalize those who record it. the reward is encouraging, and will justify all those pains which a rigorous investigation of facts will render necessary. many important facts, which preceded the commencement of hostilities, took place in England. these may mostly be obtained from good publications in that country. some took place in this country. they will be probably hidden from the present age. but America is the feild [ sic.] where the greatest mass of important events were transacted, and where alone they can now be collected. I therefore much applaud your idea of going to that country for the verification of the facts you mean to record . . . if I can be of service to you in promoting your object there, I offer myself freely to your use . . . ”

Jefferson several times expressed his opinion of the histories of Hilliard D’Auberteuil. On December 7, 1786, in a letter to Jean Chas concerning his history of the Revolution, Jefferson wrote: “ . . . in general I would observe to you that where there is no other authority for a fact than the history of M. D’Auberteuil, & the Histoire impartielle, it will not be safe to hazard it. those authors have been led into an infinitude of errors, probably by trusting to the English papers, or to the European ones copied from them. it is impossible to resort to a more impure source. ”

On August 29 of the following year, 1787, he wrote to the Editor of the Journal de Paris: “ If the histoires of d’Auberteuil & of Longchamps, and the travels of the Abbé Robin can be published in the face of the world, can be read & believed by those who are contemporary with the events they pretend to relate, how may we expect that future ages shall be better informed? ”

Michel René Hilliard D’Auberteuil, 1751-1789, French publicist and historian. He did not live to complete his projected Histoire de la Revolution de l’Amérique Septentrionale , which, as he wrote to Jefferson on December 8, 1786, “remplira quatre volumes”, and which “je travaille toujours à achever”.

Bound for Jefferson in tree calf (cut into), marbled endpapers by John March. Initialled at sig. I and T by Jefferson and with his shelfmark pasted down on the first leaf of text in the absence of the title-leaf. With the Library of Congress 1815 bookplate.

Robert Calef, 1648-1719. This attack on Cotton Mather and witchcraft was published in London owing to Calef’s inability to find a Boston publisher. For reprints with notes of this work and of Mather’s Wonders of the Invisible World , see Samuel G. Drake, The Witchcraft, Delusion in New England. See also Thomas J. Holmes, Cotton Mather, a Bibliography.