1898.] HAYS — DRAUGHT OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 95 



A careful study of the Lee manuscript copy in the possession of 

 this Society clearly shows it to be the wording of the draught as 

 reported by the Committee of five to the Congress. There is 

 nothing to indicate whether it was a copy made by Jefferson 

 at the same time that he made the fair copy to be reported to the 

 Congress or later but prior to the writing of his letter of trans- 

 mittal to Lee on July 8. Nor is there anything to prove whether 

 the underscoring of the parts stricken out by the Congress was 

 done by Jefferson or by some other hand at a later date, although 

 Jefferson seems to have underscored these parts in all the fair copies 

 he subsequently made of which we have knowledge. 



Under the circumstances it was natural that Jefferson should 

 send to Lee a copy of the Declaration so soon as it was agreed 

 upon, and it seems therefore probable that when writing a fair copy 

 to report to the Congress, and not anticipating any material altera- 

 tion of it, he should, also, so as to lose no time, make another copy 

 to send to Lee. As the Congress was sitting in secret session the 

 necessity of maintaining all the safeguards of secrecy as to its pend- 

 ing deliberations prevented his forwarding this copy until after the 

 adoption and promulgation of the Declaration. Then on the 8th 

 of July, when he could, with propriety, send it, he found it neces- 

 sary, because of the unexpected changes made by the Congress, to 

 enclose also a copy of the text as finally adopted.^ 



Richard Henry Lee, Jr., in The Life and Correspondence of his 

 grandfather, says (p. 175), that Jefferson in his letter of July 8, 1776, 

 enclosed a copy of the Declaration as ''drawn in the Committee 

 and also a copy of the Declaration as adopted by Congress." This 

 statement, taken in connection with the fact that the marginal 

 notes of the changes by the Congress in this Society's copy were 

 not made by Jefferson, but are in the handwriting of Arthur Lee, 

 who was not in this country at any time during the year 1776, is in 

 entire accord with that made by Jefferson in his letter of transmit- 

 tal, in which he says, ''I enclose a copy of the Declaration of Inde- 



II have been unable to ascertain whether the copy of the text as adopted by 

 the Congress was among the Lee papers presented to the University of Virginia, 

 and if so, whether it was saved from the fire which destroyed its Library build- 

 ing in October, 1895. '^'^^ ^^^ papers were contained in a trunk which, at the 

 time of the fire, was thrown out of an upper window and broken by the fall. 

 The papers were gathered up into a bundle and it is hoped none were lost, but 

 until the new Library building is completed they cannot be examined. 



