y instituted with you, for
the encouragement of the study of Natural History. I am afraid it
will never be in my power to contribute any thing to the object of the
institution. Circumstances have thrown me into a very different line of
life; and not choice, as I am happy to find in your case. In the year
1781, while confined to my room by a fall from my horse, I wrote some
Notes, in answer to the inquiries of M. de Marbois, as to the natural
and political state of Virginia. They were hasty and undigested: yet as
some of these touch slightly on some objects of its natural history, I
will take the liberty of asking the society to accept a copy of them.
For the same reason, and because too, they touch on the political
condition of our country, I will beg leave to present you with a copy,
and ask the favor of you to find a conveyance for them, from London to
Edinburgh. They are printed by Stockdale, bookseller, Piccadilly, and
will be ready in three or four weeks from this time. I will direct him
to deliver two copies to your order. Repeating, constantly, the
proffer of my services, I shall only add assurances of the esteem and
attachment, with which I am, Dear Sir, your friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER LXVIII.--TO STEPHEN CATHALAN, JUNIOR, July 21,1787

TO STEPHEN CATHALAN, JUNIOR.

Paris, July 21,1787.

Sir,

I received your favor of May the 9th, just as I was stepping into the
barge on my departure from Cette; which prevented my answering it from
that place. On my arrival here, I thought I would avail myself of the
opportunity of paying your balance, to make a little acquaintance with
Sir John Lambert. One or two unsuccessful attempts to find him at home,
with the intermediate procrastinations well known to men of business,
prevented my seeing him till yesterday, and have led me on to this
moment, through a perpetual remorse of conscience for not writing
to you, and in the constant belief that it would be to morrow and to
morrow. At length, I have seen him, paid him the eighty-five livres
which you have been so kind as to advance for me, and am actually at my
writing table, returning you thanks for this kindness, and to yourself
and the family for the thousand others I received at their hands,
at Marseilles. My journey, after leaving you, wanted nothing but
the company of Madame Cathalan and yourself, to render it perfectly
agreeable. I felt the want of it peculiarly on the _canal de Languedoc_,