January 7

[On January 7, 1786, while serving as the American Minister to France, I wrote to Archibald Cary, a prominent Virginia politician and close longtime associate who shared my keen interest in agricultural improvement and natural philosophy. This correspondence took place during the early years of my diplomatic mission in Paris, a period when European intellectuals, led by the renowned naturalist Count de Buffon, frequently argued that American nature was degenerate and that its native wildlife was smaller and weaker than European species. Driven by a deep sense of national pride, I sought to scientifically dismantle these European misconceptions by providing empirical physical evidence from the American continent. I planned to import live populations of European hares, rabbits, pheasants, and partridges to colonize the Virginia landscape, though my first attempted shipment of these useful animals tragically starved to death before even leaving port. While I initially asked Cary to procure a whole buck to present to Buffon, my relentless obsession with winning this scientific debate ultimately drove me to commission the hunting and shipping of a massive, seven-foot-tall American moose skeleton and skin to Paris the following year.]

The very few of my countrymen, who happen to be punctual, will find their punctuality a misfortune to them. Of this, I shall give you a proof by the present application, which I should not make to you if I did not know you to be superior to the torpidity of our climate. In my conversations with the Count de Buffon on the subjects of natural history, I find him absolutely unacquainted with our elk and our deer. He has hitherto believed that our deer never had horns more than a foot long; and has, therefore, classed them with the roe buck, which I am sure you know them to be different from. I have examined some of the red deer of this country at the distance of about sixty yards, and I find no other difference between them and ours than a shade or two in the color. Will you take the trouble to procure for me the largest pair of buck's horns you can, and a large skin of each color, that is to say, a red and a blue? If it were possible to take these from a buck just killed, to leave all the bones of the head in the skin, with the horns on, to leave the bones of the legs in the skin also, and the hoofs to it, so that, having only made an incision all along the belly and neck, to take the animal out at, we could, by sewing up that incision, and stuffing the skin, present the true size and form of the animal, it would be a most precious present.

Our deer have been often sent to England and Scotland. Do you know (with certainty) whether they have ever bred with the red deer of those countries? With respect to the elk, I despair of your being able to get for me anything but the horns of it. David Ross, I know, has a pair; perhaps he would give them to us. It is useless to ask for the skin and skeleton, because I think it not in your power to get them, otherwise, they would be most desirable. A gentleman, fellow passenger with me from Boston to England, promised to send to you, in my name, some hares, rabbits, pheasants, and partridges, by the return of the ship, which was to go to Virginia, and the captain promised to take great care of them. My friend procured the animals, and the ship changing her destination, he kept them in hopes of finding some other conveyance, till they all perished. I do not despair, however, of finding some opportunity still of sending a colony of useful animals. I am making a collection of vines for wine and for the table; also of some trees, such as the cork oak, &c., &c.