A letter written by **Thomas Jefferson**, the third US president, offering advice on how the newly created country could prosper, has been put up for sale by a private collector. The handwritten document from 1787, written in Paris where Jefferson was the fledgling government’s minister to France, was addressed to David Rittenhouse, a friend and fellow member of the American Philosophical Society. The note discusses the priorities and principles Jefferson believed future presidents should follow. Previously on display at Texas A&M University, the letter and a book described as "a major European scientific work," an accompanying gift from Jefferson to Rittenhouse, have a guide price of $285,000 through the Raab Collection, a Pennsylvania-based dealer in historical artifacts and documents. Jefferson wrote, "Peace should be our plan, and the payment of our debts, improvement of our constitutions and extension of agriculture our principal objects," sharing his thoughts about that year’s landmark federal convention in Philadelphia, later known as the constitutional convention, which debated and signed the US constitution. The letter covers more ground than only his thoughts on the nation’s future direction. He shares with Rittenhouse, a fellow scientist and avid astronomer who built precision telescopes and early models of the solar system, his love of "the west," and fear of another conflict with England four years after the end of the revolutionary war. Nathan Raab, president of the Raab Collection, said it was difficult not to draw parallels between Jefferson’s caution contained in a highly personal document drafted barely a decade after the dawn of the new nation, and the volatility of politics in 2026. He noted that the same issues the founding fathers were dealing with during the constitutional convention of the founding of the country are issues that still make headlines today. "Things change, yet things stay the same, and here we are confronting many of the same issues that were on the lips of our founding fathers, or the tip of their quills, back in 1787," Raab said. Jefferson’s letter discusses the importance of digging out of a hole of debt, funding not only the war debts but also the creation of this new country, which was something that was very much an issue at the time. Raab noted that Jefferson’s letter is a general warning, not a specific response to a particular situation. "He’s not saying, 'So and so said this, and therefore we must counter with this message,' but rather giving in one broad stroke what he feels should be the priorities of the convention and the country," Raab said. Raab’s company has handled numerous Jefferson documents previously, including the sale in 2024 of a letter written in 1802 revealing his precarious financial situation, and last year’s uncovering of a note he wrote to Virginia’s then governor Benjamin Harrison in 1783 expounding the rights of citizens to bear arms in revolutionary causes. However, Raab said he has never seen anything as impressive as the letter and book given to Rittenhouse. "This is at the very top," he said. "The breadth of knowledge that [Jefferson] brought to this letter, the many subjects in which he is completely conversant. He’s talking to a prominent scientist as well."