102 HAYS — DRAUGHT OF DECLARATI0:N^ OF INDEPENDENCE. [Ap.l, 



6. A fragment of a copy in the possession of Mrs. Washburn, of 

 Boston. 



In addition to these five copies and a fragment of a sixth, Jeffer- 

 son made, according to Ford,^ between the 4th and loth of July, 

 other copies, which he sent to George Wythe,^ John Page, Edmund 

 Pendleton and Philip Mazzei, who gave his copy, so Jefferson states 

 in his letter to Vaughan, to the Countess de Tesse, of France, but 

 it is not known if these copies are still in existence. 



The copy of the draught of the Declaration presented, as its re- 

 port, by the Committee of five of which Jefferson was Chairman, to 

 the Congress cannot be found and is believed not to have been pre- 

 served. ^ It was probably read in the Congress and passed into the 

 hands of the Secretary, who used it in writing in the amendments 

 as they were adopted during consideration of the document in the 

 Committee of the Whole and, upon its adoption by the House, at 

 once sent it to the printer as copy and it was subsequently de- 

 stroyed. 



If these conclusions and the statement previously referred to of 

 R. H. Lee, the elder, to his son, be correct, the historic value 

 of the draught possessed by this Society lies in the fact, apart from 

 its being an autographic copy by Jefferson, that it is one of the two 

 fair copies made at the same time by Jefferson, one to report to the 

 Congress, the other to send to Lee. As the copy presented to the 

 Congress has been lost, the copy sent to Lee, and now belonging to 

 this Society, must be regarded as the authoritative text of the Dec- 

 laration of Independence as drawn by the Committee of five and 

 reported to the Congress. 



^ Writings of Jefferson, ii, p. 42, Note. 



2 This copy was delivered to Mr. Thomas Ritchie, editor of the Richmond 

 Enquirer, by Major Duval, the executor of Mr. Wythe's estate, and its text was 

 printed in Niles's Weekly Register, ]\x\y 3, 1813 (Vol. iv, Xo. 13). Notwith- 

 standing inquiiy among Mr. Ritchie's descendants I have not been able to learn 

 whether it is still in existence. 



3 In the " Rough Journal " of Congress kept by the Secretary, Charles Thonv 

 son, appears the entry under July j\, " The Declaration being again read was 

 agreed to as follows." Here the printed Declaration, a broadside with the im- 

 print : " Philadelphia : Printed by John Dunlap," is attached by wafers. In the 

 fair copy of the " Rough Journal " the Declaration is written out at length in 

 the same handwriting as the rest of the Journal. See Chamberlain, " The Sign- 

 ing of the Declaration," Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society, 2d 

 Series, Vol. 1, p. 286. 



