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SCI LIBRARY

The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson

By Subject


LAND / LAND SALES TO RETIRE GOVERNMENT DEBT



I am much pleased with your land ordinance, and think it improved from the first, in the most material circumstances. I had mistaken the object of the division of the lands among the States. I am sanguine in my expectations of lessening our debts by this fund, and have expressed my expectations to the minister and others here. I see by the public papers, you have adopted the dollar as your money unit. In the arrangement of coins I proposed, I ought to have inserted a gold coin of five dollars, which, being within two shillings of the value of a guinea, would be very convenient.

to James Monroe, 28 August 1785