Mr. Livingston, of Louisiana, said, "that as to the precise question which had been put to him by the senator from Delaware, he must say, that having taxed his recollection as far as it could go on so remote a transaction, he had no remembrance of it."
The sons of the late Mr. Bayard, not yet being satisfied as to the other paragraph, resolved on an investigation of the subject, and with this view one of them wrote the following letter. [2]
FROM RICHARD H. BAYARD.
Wilmington, March 8, 1830.
SIR,
In the fourth volume of Mr. Jefferson's Writings, lately published by his grandson, page 521, under the head of a note made April 15, 1806, occurs the following paragraph, after the detail of a conversation held with you about a month previously:—
"I did not commit these things to writing at the time, but I do now, because, in a suit between him and Cheetham, he has had a deposition of Mr. Bayard taken which seems to have no relation to the suit, nor to any other object than to calumniate me. Bayard pretends to have addressed to me, during the pending of the presidential election in February, 1801, through General Samuel Smith, certain conditions on which my election might be obtained; and that General Smith, after conversing with me, gave answers from me. This is absolutely false. No proposition of any kind was ever made to me on that occasion by General Smith, or any answer authorized by me. And this fact General Smith affirms at this moment."
Mr. Jefferson supposes this deposition to have been made in your suit against Cheetham. I have some reason to think he is mistaken as to the precise case in which it was made. However this may be, I am anxious to procure a copy of it, as returned with the commission under which it was taken.
If I may not be considered as trespassing too far on your time and attention, will you permit me to ask whether the deposition referred to by Mr. Jefferson is still in existence? In what case it was taken? And whether a copy of it can be procured?
I have the honour to be, respectfully,