ABSTRACT
Problems of communicating secretly with Congress and American statesmen troubled American foreign ministers and the secretary for foreign affairs during the years of intense and crucial American diplomatic activity. Before the American Revolution broke out, Thomas Jefferson considered using a book code for his correspondence with his friend, John Page, a Virginia planter and legislator; later, revolutionary patriot. The nomenclators during the Revolutionary period served as better secret communication channels because they offered greater variety in relation to time spent for encoding and decoding as compared to the book codes. The book codes and repertories used by the American revolutionaries for the period after 1775 served to conceal the information transmitted through the postal service in Europe and America. American codes based upon book and column designations became rare after the 1780’s: Aaron Burr would use this design around 1800.
