“

"J. C. would be very glad to be introduced to some suitable correspondent in Paris to whom he might send some of the same kind.”

Jefferson, in Philadelphia at the time, acknowledged the gift on the following day, November 24: “ Th: Jefferson presents his compliments to m( ^~ r) Churchman & his thanks for the pamphlet and chart he has been so good as to send him. he incloses him a letter to Mr. Leroy, who will recieve and distribute such of these pamphlets & charts as m ( ^~ r) Churchman may send to him. it will be proper to take care that no expence fall on him for either postage or transportation.”

A letterpress copy of Jefferson’s letter to Monsieur LeRoy enclosed with the above to Churchman, is in the Jefferson Papers in the Library of Congress.

With regard to the three articles mentioned by Churchman in his presentation letter, 1 ^st. the name Thomas Jefferson, Esq., Secretary of State, late Minister Plenipotentiary of the Court of France, is included in the list of Subscribers; 2 ^nd. a quotation from the Notes on Virginia occurs on page 45; 3 ^rd. the two letters quoted are noted below, and were part of the correspondence between Jefferson and Churchman during the preparation of this work. Letterpress copies are in the Jefferson Papers in the Library of Congress, and the extracts below are taken from these, not from the printed book.

The first one was written by Jefferson to Churchman from Paris on August 8, 1787: “ I have duly received your favor of June 6. and immediately communicated it’s contents to a member of the Academy. he told me they had received the other copy of your memorial which you mention to have sent thro’ another channel, that your ideas were not conveyed so explicitly as to enable them to decide finally on their merit, but that they had made an entry in their journals to preserve to you the claim to the original idea . . . I make no doubt but you have provided against the doubts entertained here, and I shall be happy that our country may have the honour of furnishing the old world what it has so long sought in vain . . . ”

To this Churchman replied from Philadelphia almost two years later, on the 5 mo. 15, 1789: “Thy favour of the 8th of August 1787 came safe to hand, in which I am informed that the Royal Academy of Sciences had received my memorial concerning the magnetic variation, & that they had made an entry on their Journals to preserve my claim to the original idea; I shall take it as a particular favour if I could obtain by the first opportunity a Copy of the Minute on this Business properly authenticated . . . I now take the Liberty of enclosing two Copies of a printed Address to the Members of the different learned Societies &c. one of which I hope will be accepted, the other I shall be glad if it is thought worthy of a reading before the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris . . .”

Jefferson’s answer from Paris, September 18, 1789, is the second letter quoted in the Appendix of the book: “ I have duly received your favour of the 15 ^th. of May. I had before received & answered the first letter you wrote me; but the 2 ^d. which you mention to have written, never came to hand. I have sent to the Secretary of the Academy of Sciences the printed paper inclosed in your last. I asked at the same time the authenticated copy which you desired of the entry on their journals relative to your former communications to them. this I now inclose to you as I received it from the Marquis de Condorcet their Secretary . . . ”

In 1802 Churchman was again in correspondence with Jefferson relative to the third edition of his book. On May 7, he wrote from Boston: “I take the Liberty to send herewith a copy of an improved Variation Chart, hoping it will be received as a token of Respect, together with a Sheet of Letter Press as published in the third Edition of the Magnetic Atlas . . .”

In this letter Churchman requests Jefferson to obtain for him some information from “that eminent Astronomer Andrew Ellicott Esq.” to whom he himself had applied in vain, and mentions that he is now about to set out on a voyage to St. Petersburg in Russia.

John Churchman, 1753-1805, a member of the Society of Friends, was born in Maryland. He died in 1805 at sea on his return from the visit to Russia mentioned in the above letter. While in St. Petersburg he had become a member of the Imperial Academy of Russia.