[Presidential] [Jefferson, Thomas] (Washington, Henry A.) Manuscript Copy of an Autograph LetterManuscript Copy Of Thomas Jefferson's First Letter To Diplomat William Carmichael Using A New Code CipherParis, Sep(tember) 25, 1787. Five sheets, 9 3/4 x 8 1/2 in. (248 x 210 mm). Manuscript copy of a partially encoded letter by Thomas Jefferson as United States Ambassador to France, to William Carmichael (1739-1795), United States Ambassador to Spain, likely copied by professor Henry A. Washington, ca. 1850s, during his preparation for the publication of his The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1854). The letter includes coded lines deciphered interlineally. Scattered stains affecting text; pages professionally conserved.The original letter is the first known use of a code cipher between Thomas Jefferson and William Carmichael. First penned one week after the conclusion of the Consituttional Convention, Thomas Jefferson discusses the recently enacted Northwest Ordinance, relations with the Empire of Spain, the accumulation of national debts, American prisoners in Algiers, his book Notes on Virginia, preludes to war in Holland and Russia, a new treaty with Morrocco, the Turkish question in Europe, and more. Jefferson's original letter has not been traced, and this is one of only two known copies of it. Founders Online identifies a press copy made by Jefferson, located in the Library of Congress (with the encoded text deciphered on another sheet), and this copy, made ca. 1850s, describing it as "in H. A. Washington’s hand, with coded passages decoded interlineally, but with several omissions." Henry Augustine Washington (1820-58) was a professor of history at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, and a descendant of George Washington. In the early 1850s he was hired by the State Department to sort and index Jefferson's papers, and in 1854, under his editor, the government began publication of the nine-volume, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private,piled from those original papers. This copy was presumably made from Jefferson's press copy while in Washington's care.In the following transcription of this letter, words in bold appear in code and are deciphered interlineally."The copy of your letter of July 9. and that of Aug. 22. came to hand together. The original of the former I never received. My last to you was dated June 14. I heard indirectly that Mr. Grand had refused to pay a bill of yours, but he never said a word to me on the subject, nor mentioned any letter of yours in consequence of it. I have stated the matter to the board of treasury. I also wrote to Mr. Adams a state of the same fact. There are at Amsterdam 100,000 florins at his disposal. Colo. Smith will endeavor to get for you an order to draw on that fund. The subject of Smith’s mission to Portugal appeared to me so causeless as given out that I imagined it w