94 HAYS — DRAUGHT OF DECLARATIOX OF IXDEPENDEXCK. [Ap. 1, 



distant friends who were anxious to know what was passing. But 

 how many, and to whom, I do not recollect. One sent to Mazzei 

 was given by him to the Countess De Tessie (aunt of Madame de 

 Lafayette) as the original, and is probably now in the hands of her 

 family. Whether the paper sent to R. H. Lee was one of these, or 

 whether, after the passage of the instrument, I made a copy for him, 

 with the amendments of Congress, may, I think, be known from 

 the face of the paper. The documents Mr. Lee has given you must 

 be of great value and until all these private hoards are made public, 

 the real history of the revolution will not be known." 



On April 24, 1840, in response to Mr. Vaughan's request Richard 

 Henry Lee sent him the following statement : 



''The Draught of the Declaration of Independence in the Athe- 

 naeum [American Philosophical Society]^ in Philadelphia, in the 

 handwriting of Mr. Jefferson, came into my possession, together 

 with the MSS. of Richard Plenry Lee from Francis L. Lee, one of 

 the sons of R. H. Lee ; and was presented by me to the Athenaeum 

 [American Philosophical Society] in Pha. 



''The history of this Document, given to me by my father and 

 his brother, as given them by their Father, R. H. Lee derived from 

 Mr. Jefferson, is this, that after alterations had been made in the 

 Committee of the first draught drawn by Mr. Jefferson, he drew two 

 Draughts^ one to be reported to Congress ; and the other for Richard 

 H. Lee, which he sent to him enclosed in a letter dated (I think) 

 on the 8th July 1774 \sic\. This letter and the draught were care- 

 fully kept by R. H. Lee and after his death were as carefully pre- 

 served by his sons. Copies of the letter were taken ; but the orig- 

 inal had been lost, before the MSS. of R. H. Lee came into my 

 hands. The copy which I presented to the Athenaeum [American 

 Philosophical Society] with the Draught, was declared to me by the 

 sons of R. H. Lee, to be an exact copy. The Draught being 

 drawn by Mr. Jefferson himself, before the report had been made 

 to Congress, is as much an Original, as any other in existence. 

 The interlineations on the Draught were written by Arthur Lee. 



"Richard Henry Lee, 



"A.D. 1840. Grandson and Biographer of R. H. Lee." 



^ Mr. Lee seems to have confused the American Philosophical Society with the 

 Athenaeum, which was a tenant in the building of the former at the time of Mr. 

 Lee's visit to Philadelphia. 



