Jefferson, Thomas, as Minister Plenipotentiary to France

Autograph letter signed ("Th: Jefferson"), 1 page (7 3/8 x 4 5/8 in.; 188 x 117 mm) on a half-sheet bifolium, Paris, 13 May 1788, to Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville, autograph address on integral blank ("Monsieur de Warville | cher M. Claviere | hotel Delesserts"), large remnant of wax seal; some light marginal soiling. Half green morocco slipcase, chemise.

Not in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson and apparently unpublished.

Jefferson attempts to reschedule an appointment with Brissot de Warville and Lafayette, almost certainly for the purpose of discussing the former's impending tour of the United States. "I attended at the Marquis de la Fayette's yesterday according to our appointment. the porter told me you were gone but the moment before I arrived. I suppose the Marquis had forgot the appointment. I shall be ready to attend any moment and at any place, Tuesdays & Sundays alone excepted, which are diplomatic days. as Friday or Saturday seem to suit you best, I will propose one of those days to the Marquis de la Fayette, and inform you of his choice."

Brissot de Warville, a noted liberal pamphleteer, was greatly attracted to America and at one point had considered emigrating there. He sailed to Boston in the early summer of 1788, carrying letters of introduction from Jefferson to James Madison and Charles Thomson; Jefferson described him as "a person of great worth, politically and morally speaking" (Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 13:122). Brissot wrote of his travels through the United States—which took him to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, and Maryland—in Nouveau Voyage dans les États-Unis de l'Amérique septentrionale (1791; English translation 1792). In that work and elsewhere, Brissot de Warville promoted the adoption of American principles and policies to the French Revolution. His moderate views inevitably brought him under suspicion during the Terror and he was guillotined on 31 October 1793. (Étienne Clavière, to whose care Jefferson sent this letter, was arrested at the same time and committed suicide in prison.)