5 volumes, 8vo (Vols. I-IV 229 x 140 mm; Vol. V 216 x 133 mm). Several printed tables throughout, folding charts. (some minor soiling, a few pencil annotations.) Vols. I-IV bound in contemporary blue paper-covered boards (restored paper spine labels, rubbing); Vol. V bound in contemporary calf (rebacked). Provenance: Russell Jarvis (ownership inscriptions, Vols. I-IV), Waterloo High School Library (institutional stamp, Vol. V). Wagner-Camp 2D, 5A.
FIRST EDITIONS. This collection of documents had a difficult journey to publication, as many of them were available only in Washington, D.C., which had recently been taken by the British. As Thomas Wait wrote to Jefferson on 8 September 1814, "While prosecuting a journey to Washington...our progress was arrested by tidings of the destruction of that city...the mass of documents upon which our reliance was placed for perfecting the work, had been consumed by fire."