To Thomas Jefferson from John Davis, 1 April 1805
From John Davis
April 1, 1805
Sir,
I take the liberty to send you my second pamphlet. I shall be enabled the middle of this Month to send you Captain Smith & the princess Pocahontas. My Notice of it is so popular in Virginia that, even from Williamsburgh, there have been sent me the names of 50 Subscribers.
I believe I shall be favoured by the “Philosophical Society” of this City with the transcript of a Manuscript intituled “The Genealogy of Pocahontas”: This together with Captain Smith’s Letters to Queen Anne (confirming my Story) will form a good appendix, and be
Confirmations strong as proofs of holy Writ.
I am, Sir, With profound respect, Your extremely obliged, & most obedient Servant,
John Davis.
RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 17 Apr. and so recorded in SJL, where TJ recorded it as received from Philadelphia. Enclosure: the “second book” of The Philadelphia Pursuits of Literature; A Satirical Poem by Juvenal Junius, published in Philadelphia in 1805 (see Aurora, 27 Mch., and Davis to TJ, 1 Mch.).
popular in Virginia: Davis listed the names of more than 30 subscribers from Williamsburg in the back matter of Captain Smith and Princess Pocahontas. An appendix also included a letter of support from Williamsburg professor Louis H. Girardin (Captain Smith and Princess Pocahontas: An Indian Tale [Philadelphia, 1805], 147-8, 159-73).
In an appendix, Davis recounted his unsuccessful attempt to view a manuscript from the American Philosophical Society on the Genealogy of Pocahontas that purportedly established that TJ’s son-in-law Thomas Mann Randolph was descended from Pocahontas (same, 134-5; see also undated manuscript by Thomas Mann Randolph, “Notes on the Genealogy of Pocahontas,” in DLC: TJ Papers, Series 6, Randolph Family Manuscripts).
Davis also included a June 1616 letter of petition that John Smith claimed to have written to Queen Anne on behalf of Pocahontas (Captain Smith and Princess Pocahontas, 125-30).