University of Virginia Library

TO JARED SPARKS.

Dear Sir—Your letter of July 16 was duly
recd. The acknowledgment of it has awaited your
return from your tour to Quebec, which I presume
has by this time taken place.

Inclosed is the exact copy you wish of the draught
of an address prepared for President Washington, at
his request in the year 1792, when he meditated
a retirement at the expiration of his first term.[118]
You will observe that (with a few verbal exceptions)
it differs from the extract enclosed in your letter only
in the provisional paragraphs, which had become
inapplicable to the period and plan of his communication
to Col. Hamilton.

The No of the N. American Review for Jany. last,
being I find, a duplicate, I return it. The pages to
which you refer throw a valuable light on a transaction
which was taking historical root, in a shape
unjust as well as erroneous. Did you ever notice
the "Life of Mr. Jay" in Delaplaine's biographical
works[119] ? The materials of it were evidently derived

from the papers, if not the pen of Mr. Jay, and are
marked by the misconceptions into which he had
fallen. It may be incidentally noted as one of the
confirmations of the fallibility of Hamilton's memory
in allotting the Nos in the "Federalist" to the respective
writers, that one of them, No 64, which
appears by Delaplaine, to have been written by Mr.
Jay, as it certainly was, is put on the list of Mr.
Hamilton, as was not less certainly the case with a
number of others, written by another hand.

Previous to the rect. of your letter I had recd.
on from Mr. Monroe, to whom I had mentioned the
liberty I had taken with Rayneval's memoir. I
inclose the part of his letter answering that part of
mine.