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Jefferson's collection of manuscript materials relating to the history of the colony and state grew as steadily and intelligently as his printed collections. From his young manhood he was on the alert for unpublished materials. So well was he known by 1816 as an authority on Virginia manuscripts that it was to him that the American Philosophical Society appealed for information when it wanted to identify the author of an unpublished "History of the Dividing Line between Virginia and North Carolina" it had recently discovered among its papers. And Jefferson did not fail the Society. He reported promptly that it was probably "Dr. Byrd's" and suggested members of the Westover family who should be consulted. In doing so he gave evidence that he knew of a considerable number of Virginia private papers still at large.[22]

Jefferson's own Virginia manuscripts came to him in a variety of ways, but all these ways are indicative of his awareness of the need of

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preserving records of the state's history. They consist of twenty-one items, some comprised of several bound volumes each, seventeen or eighteen of which went to the Library of Congress in 1815 and the remainder in 1829. Of the total number, only three are not legal or legislative or judicial or miscellaneous records of the colony. That he considered these official relics of time worth considerable care is indicated in a letter to his old law teacher, George Wythe, who wished to borrow the manuscript as well as the printed laws in Jefferson's library. Jefferson declined to send the manuscripts on the excuse that they were not pertinent to the study Wythe was making and that they were too fragile anyway. Some, said Jefferson, fall to powder at the touch:

These I preserve by wrapping and sewing them in oil cloth, so that neither air nor moisture can have access to them. Very early in my researches into the laws of Virginia, I observed that many of them were already lost, and many more at the point of being lost, as existing only in single copies in the hands of careful or curious individuals, on whose death they would probably be used for waste paper. I set myself therefore to work, to collect all which were then existing, in order that when the day should come when the public should advert to the magnitude of their loss in these precious monuments of their property, and our history, a part of their regret might be spared by information that a portion had been saved from the wreck, which is worthy of their attention and preservation. In searching after these remains, I spared neither time, trouble, nor expense; and am of opinion that scarcely a law escaped me, which was in being as late as the year 1790 in the middle or southern parts of the State. In the northern parts, perhaps something might be found. . . . But recurring to what we actually possess, the question is, what means will be most effectual for preserving these remains from future loss? (January 16, 1796, L&B, IX, 319-320).

His answer is that everything should be printed and distributed. "How many of the precious works of antiquity were lost while they were preserved only in manuscript!"

He demonstrated his belief in publication in what he did with the most valuable of the non-official manuscripts which came into his hands. In 1803 Rufus King sent for his perusal an account of Bacon's Rebellion which he had picked up abroad and which differed from the published accounts.[23] In 1804 Jefferson wrote a letter to King returning the manuscript and saying that he had taken the liberty of making a copy of it. The copy was being placed in the hands of a person who was

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writing a history of Virginia. He promised King that he would try to trace the author, who in 1705 had signed only the initials "T. M.", "among the antient MSS. I possess at Monticello." The copy seems to have gone to George Wythe, who turned it over to the editor of the Richmond Enquirer for publication. It was printed in that paper on September 1, 5, 8, 1804. The Enquirer states that the printed account is an exact copy of the original sent by the President of the United States for the express purpose of publication.

The copy now in the Jefferson papers in the Library of Congress seems to be that returned by Jefferson to King. It is clearly of c. 1705, but if it is the original it has lost its covers and other marks of identification. It appears in the 1815 printed Catalogue but not in Jefferson's rough-copy manuscript catalogue. How and why it stayed in or came back to the Jefferson library is puzzling. This work, T[homas] M[athew]'s "The Beginning Progress and Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia in the years 1675 & 1676," is of course one of the major documents of this era in colonial history.

The other non-official papers are not nearly so valuable. One, Sir John Randolph's manuscript commonplace-[legal]book bound with A Brief Method of the Law (1680) and written partly by Benjamin Harrison and partly by Randolph, has been noted above. Another commonplace-book of legal materials precedes it (Sowerby, II, 225). The other non-official manuscript is bound with the non-Virginia manuscript of Paul Alliot's Reflections historiques et politiques sur la Louysiane (c. 1803) and is called "Extracts from a letter written by a Gentleman who had explored Kentucky to his Friend in the lower part of Virginia relative to that country—Bedford in Virginia." Covering only two leaves, it was labelled laconically by Jefferson "Western country."

Of the official or semi-official items, the six containing records from 1606 to the dissolution of the Virginia Company are described in detail in Susan Myra Kingsbury, Records of the Virginia Company of London (4 vols., Washington, D.C., 1906, 1933, 1935; I, 41-52). She points out that they came to the Library of Congress in two different groups, in 1815 (with the library) and in 1829 (when they were bought at the auction). Those which came in 1815 are themselves in four groups: 1) "Laws and Orders concluded on by the General Assembly March the 5th. 1623";[24] 2) "Journal of the Council and Assembly 1616-

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1634";[25] 3) "Miscellaneous Records, 1606-1692"; 4) "Miscellaneous Papers, 1606-1683, Instructions . . . [etc.]."[26] The 1829 acquisitions were: 1) the "Records of the Virginia Company" in two volumes folio, and 2) the "Old Records of Virginia," in four volumes folio (1829 catalogue item 122).

All of those acquired in 1829 are unique copies or contemporary transcripts of incalculable value. The "Miscellaneous Papers, 1606-1683" is a seventeenth-century transcript. The "Laws" of 1623 and the "Miscellaneous Records, 1606-1683" are transcripts of the earlier eighteenth century attested by R. Hickman, Clerk of the General Court in 1722. Jefferson himself gives the best account of the provenance of the 1829 volumes in a letter to Hugh P. Taylor, October 4, 1823, in which he states that the first two volumes are accounted for in the preface to Stith's History of Virginia, that they are the records of the Company copied under the eye of the Earl of Southampton, bought at the sale of the Earl's library by William Byrd, who lent them to Richard Bland, in whose library they reposed when Jefferson bought it.[27] The other four volumes, Jefferson goes on to say, he supposes were original office records borrowed by Sir John Randolph for a projected history of Virginia and never returned. They remained in the library Jefferson bought from Peyton Randolph's executors. Though Kingsbury and Sowerby do not agree with this in certain details, they do in general.

Of the items from the 1815 Catalogue listed in Kingsbury, the three volumes containing transcripts of the Virginia records are unique. The "Laws and Orders" of 1623 bears an endorsement in Jefferson's hand to the effect that it was found among the manuscript papers of Sir John Randolph and given by his son Peyton to Jefferson. It is an early eighteenth-century transcript attested by Hickman. The "Miscellaneous Records, 1606-1692" is a seventeenth-century copy bought from the Bland library. The "Miscellaneous Papers" is another eighteenth-century copy attested by Hickman and once belonging to Bland (Sowerby, II, 244). As noted above, the "Journal of the Council and Assembly, 1616-1634" as listed by Kingsbury (I, 42n) is probably the

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rediscovered "Commissions and Proclamations, 1616-1634."[28] If so, it came from the library of Peyton Randolph.

Most of the other official manuscript gatherings, ignored by Kingsbury because they did not affect the story of the Virginia Company of London, came to Jefferson, as those already discussed did, from various other libraries. A manuscript copy of John Mercer's "Abridgement of the Public Acts" and "An Abridgement of the Common Law" have no known provenance beyond Jefferson's library. The first is an eighteenth-century, the second a seventeenth-century manuscript. Sir John Randolph's "Opinions of Learned Counsel" (the second half in his autograph) is in seventeenth and eighteenth-century hands. It bears Sir John's and Peyton Randolph's names on the flyleaf and certainly came from the two Randolphs' library (Sowerby, II, 224). The "Journal of Council and Assembly, 1642-1662," the "Edmund Randolph copy," was on loan from Jefferson to Edmund for many years, lost, recovered, and finally sent by Hening to the Library of Congress (Sowerby, II, 240). It also had once belonged to Sir John and Peyton Randolph. "Legislative Records, 1652-1660," in Jefferson's own autograph, was copied from the Mercer manuscript used by Hening (Sowerby, II, 242). The "Laws, 1662-1702" Jefferson stated he found ready to be used for waste paper in Lorton's tavern in Charles City county. The Clerk of the Court, Debnam, gave it and "Laws. 1705" to Jefferson without hesitation (Sowerby, II, 242-243). "Laws. 1662-1697" came from the Randolphs' library (Sowerby, II, 242). The "Acts of Assembly. 1705-1711" was given to Jefferson by his old friend John Page. It had belonged to the latter's grandfather, Matthew Page, who had in 1705 been one of the commissioners for a revisal of the laws. An edition of Purvis' A Complete Collection of All the Laws (c. 1684) contains a manuscript continuation of some interest. Jefferson says the volume was given to his father-in-law, Mr. Wayles, by the late Colonel William Byrd [III] (Sowerby, II, 245). "The Virginia Court Book, 1622-1629" has been taken apart and rebound so that its provenance is difficult to determine (Sowerby, II, 352). In the 1828 sales list (no. 565) appears one more manuscript, a copy of the "Revised Code, 1779."

That Jefferson acquired any of the manuscripts listed in 1829 after 1814 is improbable. Though it seems unlikely that he consciously held back anything when he sent his library to Washington (he complained in 1815 to Hening that he had never intended selling his Virginia law items to Congress but had been obliged under the terms to do so),

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we do know that he did not include a very few things and that some things "missing" or on loan but represented in the Catalogue never got to Washington. Whatever the cause, the Library of Congress did add in 1829 these companion volumes to its collection.