The first of the foregoing inquiries (p. 12 ante), Does the draught in the State Department upon its face appear to be an author's draught, a rough draught with his corrections, erasures, interlineations and alterations, or does it appear to be an engrossed copy made by him of another paper, has been answered decisively by Mr. Gaillard Hunt in his edition of the Writings of Madison:
"The penmanship of all three papers (the draught and the letter to the Secretary of State and a previous letter to the Secretary December 8, 1818) is contemporaneous, and the letter of December 30 and the draught were written with the same pen and ink. This may possibly admit of a difference of opinion because the draught is in a somewhat larger chirography than the letter, having been, as befitted its importance, written more carefully. But the letter and the draught are written upon the same paper, and this paper was not made when the Convention sat in 1787. There are several sheets of the draught and one of the letter, and all bear the same watermark, 'Russell and Co. 1798.'" Vol. III, p. 16.
The draught, as before shown, contains a few verbal corrections, one or two trivial erasures, two or three obviously necessary interlineations but no alteration. That is to say it contains no alteration of substance--nothing which indicates on the part of the writer an intent to change or add to the substance of what he has written--there is no additional provision interlined, no obscure expression amplified, no omitted thought supplied--the corrections are one and all clerical. The document, therefore upon its face does not appear to be a "rough draught."
When the Secretary of State had written to Pinckney "I now take the liberty of addressing you, to inquire _if you have a copy of the Draught_ proposed by you, and if you can without inconvenience furnish me at an early day, _with a copy of it_" and Pinckney replied that among his notes and papers he had "found several rough draughts of the Constitution" and that "I send you the one I believe was it," and with the letter sent a document which obviously was not a rough draught, the fair and reasonable interpretation of his language (apart from an intent to defraud) is that he was sending what the Secretary of State had asked for, viz., "a copy" of the "copy of the draught proposed by you" to the Convention; and that what he meant to say was, "I send you 'a fair copy made by myself of the one I believe was it.'"