To this Jefferson replied on March 15: ““ . . . the Marquis de la Fayette is at this time gone to Auvergne. when he returns I will try to hint D ^r. Gordon’s matter to him. I should have written to the Doctor before now, but for an excess of business; & that I wished also to peruse his history before I wrote. I received the six copies in good condition, and have occasionnally consulted it, and whenever I have it has given me great satisfaction. in fact it is full of good, new, & authentic matter. ”

He wrote to Gordon three days later, on March 18: “ I received in due time your favor of Dec. 9. and also the six copies of your history. I put off acknoleging the receipt in hopes I might find time previously to read them. but that time is not yet come, and I am unwilling longer to delay my thanks for your attention in sending them. I have had occasion to consult your history in various parts, & have always done it with satisfaction. in truth I find it replete with good matter, new, and exact as far as I can judge. others may, and doubtless will undertake to treat the subject longer or shorter according to their views, but they will do it with your materials, as I do not suppose any European writer will take the same trouble to procure matter. the translation into this language is an enterprize of some hazard. our taste & theirs are very different. what pleases in England or America will not always please here . . . besides, there are few here who care so much about our history as to read more than it’s summary. if I could have got a bookseller to buy and translate it I should have been glad. but that has been impracticable . . . ”

Jefferson’s six copies are entered on the list of subscribers, which occupies the whole of the second sheet in vol. I, 14 pages; the last two contain the American subscribers, headed by George Washington, 2 copies.

In addition to the long description of the Tarleton and Cornwallis campaign, quoted directly from Jefferson’s letter, various other mentions of the battle occur in the text. In vol. IV a letter from General Greene, to gov. Jefferson, written on March 10, 1781, is quoted, in which the General explains that he knows the people have been in anxious suspense, waiting the event of a general action; but be the consequence of censure what it may, nothing shall hurry me into a measure, that is not suggested by prudence . . .

In this book Jefferson has not marked his authorship of the address of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, though it is beside the quotation from Gordon’s History that he has written Drawn by T. Jefferson in Marshall’s Life of Washington , q.v. no. 496.

One of the “ various parts” consulted by Jefferson concerned John Paul Jones, to whom Jefferson wrote from Paris, March 23, 1789: “ Gordon’s history furnished me a good relation of your engagement, tho’ the author has permitted himself an impertinence or two relative to you. ”

The book is listed without price in Jefferson’s undated manuscript catalogue.

William Gordon, 1728-1807, an Englishman by birth, came to America in 1770 due to his sympathy with the colonial cause. He returned to England in 1786, for the publication of his book, but found it gave offence to both countries. He therefore revised it and omitted some original material. The book is written in the form of letters to the author from various correspondents, and the former explains in the preface that the form of letters, instead of chapters, is not altogether imaginary, as the author, from his arrival in America in 1770, maintained a correspondence with gentlemen in London, Rotterdam and Paris, answering in general to the prefixed dates.