Increased Anxiety about his youngest Daughter.—Her Aunt's Letter.—She arrives in England.—Mrs. Adams receives her.—Letter to Mrs. Eppes.—To Madame de Corny.—To J. Bannister.—To his Sister.—Letter to Mr. Jay.—To Madame de Brehan.—To Madame de Corny.—Weariness of Public Life.—Goes to Amsterdam.—Letter to Mr. Jay.—To Mr. Izard.—To Mrs. Marks.—To Mr. Marks.—To Randolph Jefferson.—To Mrs. Eppes.
While Mr. Jefferson was eagerly expecting the arrival of his little daughter from Virginia, the child herself was still clinging to the hope that her father might change his plans for her and agree to her remaining with her Aunt Eppes, from whom she obstinately refused to be separated. Towards the close of the month of March, 1787, we find this kind lady writing to Mr. Jefferson as follows: Mrs. Eppes to Jefferson. I never was more anxious to hear from you than at present, in hopes of your countermanding your orders with regard to dear Polly. We have made use of every stratagem to prevail on her to consent to visit you without effect. She is more averse to it than I could have supposed; either of my children would with pleasure take her place for the number of good things she is promised. However, Mr. Eppes has two or three different prospects of conveying her, to your satisfaction, I hope, if we do not bear from you.
On the eve of the child's departure her anxious aunt again writes: This will, I hope, be handed you by my dear Polly, who I most ardently wish may reach you in the health she is in at present. I shall be truly wretched till I hear of her being safely landed with you. The children will spend a day or two on board the ship with her, which I hope will reconcile her to it. For God's sake give us the earliest intelligence of her arrival.
As mentioned in the above extract, her young cousins went on board the ship with the little Mary, and were her playmates there until she had become somewhat at home and acquainted with those around her. Then, while the child was one day asleep, they were all taken away, and before she awoke the vessel had cut loose from her moorings, and was fairly launched on the tedious voyage before her. The bark bearing this precious little charge, and the object of so many hopes and prayers on both sides of the Atlantic, made a prosperous voyage, and landed the young child safely in England. There, at her father's request, she was received by Mrs. Adams, who treated her with the tenderness of a mother, until he could arrange to get her across the Channel. Some of his French friends, who were at the time in England, were to have taken her to Paris, but his impatience to see her could not brook the delay of their return, and he sent a servant—Petit, his steward—for her. In the mean time he announced her safe arrival to her friends in Virginia in the following letter: To Francis Eppes. Paris, July 2d, 1787. Dear Sir—The present is merely to inform you of the safe arrival of Polly in London, in good health. I have this moment dispatched a servant for her. Mr. Ammonit did not come, but she was in the best hands possible, those of Captain Ramsay. Mrs. Adams writes me she was so much attached to him that her separation from him was a terrible operation. She has now to go through the same with Mrs. Adams. I hope that in ten days she will join those from whom she is no more to be separated. As this is to pass through post-offices, I send it merely to relieve the anxieties which Mrs. Eppes and yourself are so good as to feel on her account, reserving myself to answer both your favors by the next packet. I am, with very sincere esteem, dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant, TH. JEFFERSON.
The loneliness of the little girl's situation on her arrival in a strange land, among strangers, her distress at having parted with her good aunt, Mrs. Eppes, her gratitude to Mrs. Adams for her kindness, her singular beauty, and the sweetness of her disposition, are touchingly and vividly described by Mrs. Adams in a letter to her sister. She writes: From Mrs. Adams. I have had with me for a fortnight a little daughter of Mr. Jefferson's, who arrived here, with a young negro girl, her servant, from Virginia. Mr. Jefferson wrote me some months ago that he expected them, and desired me to receive them. I did so, and was amply repaid for my trouble. A finer child of her age I never saw.[34] So mature an understanding, so womanly a behavior, and so much sensibility united, are rarely to be met with. I grew so fond of her, and she was so much attached to me, that, when Mr. Jefferson sent for her, they were obliged to force the little creature away. She is but eight years old. She would sit, sometimes, and describe to me the parting with her aunt, who brought her up, the obligation she was under to her, and the love she had for her little cousins, till the tears would stream down her cheeks; and how I had been her friend, and she loved me. Her papa would break her heart by making her go again. She clung round me so that I could not help shedding a tear at parting with her. She was the favorite of every one in the house. I regret that such fine spirits must be spent in the walls of a convent. She is a beautiful girl too.
The following letter written by Mr. Jefferson to Mrs. Eppes describes the arrival of his little one in Paris, and her visits to the convent. To Mrs. Eppes. Paris, July 28th, 1787. Dear Madam—Your favors of March 31st and May 7th have been duly received; the last by Polly, whose arrival has given us great joy. Her disposition to attach herself to those who are kind to her had occasioned successive distresses on parting with Captain Ramsay first, and afterwards with Mrs. Adams. She had a very fine passage, without a storm, and was perfectly taken care of by Captain Ramsay. He offered to come to Paris with her, but this was unnecessary. I sent a trusty servant to London to attend her here. A parent may be permitted to speak of his own child when it involves an act of justice to another. The attentions which your goodness has induced you to pay her prove themselves by the fruits of them. Her reading, her writing, her manners in general, show what everlasting obligations we are all under to you. As far as her affections can be a requital, she renders you the debt, for it is impossible for a child to prove a more sincere affection to an absent person than she does to you. She will surely not be the least happy among us when the day shall come in which we may be all reunited. She is now established in the convent, perfectly happy. Her sister came and staid a week with her, leading her from time to time to the convent, until she became familiarized to it. This soon took place, as she became a universal favorite with the young ladies and the mistresses. She writes you a long letter, giving an account of her voyage and journey here. She neither knew us, nor should we have known her had we met with her unexpectedly. Patsy enjoys good health, and will write to you. She has grown much the last year or two, and will be very tall. She retains all her anxiety to get back to her country and her friends, particularly yourself. Her dispositions give me perfect satisfaction, and her progress is well; she will need, however, your instruction to render her useful in her own country. Of domestic economy she can learn nothing here, yet she must learn it somewhere, as being of more solid value than any thing else. I answer Jack's[35] letter by this occasion. I wish he would give me often occasion to do it; though at this distance I can be of no use to him, yet I am willing to show my disposition to be useful to him, as I shall be forever bound to be to every one connected with yourself and Mr. Eppes, had no other connection rendered the obligation dear to my heart. I shall present my affections to Mr. and Mrs. Skipwith in a letter to the former. Kiss the children for me, and be assured of the unchangeable esteem and respect of, dear Madam, your affectionate friend and servant, TH. JEFFERSON.
When little Mary Jefferson first went to Paris, instead of "Polly," she was called by the French Mademoiselle Polie. In a short time, however, she was called Marie, and on her return to America, the Virginian pronunciation of that French name soon ran into Maria, by which name, strange to say, she was ever after called, even by her father and sister; and Maria, instead of Mary, is the name now inscribed on the marble slab which rests upon her grave. The following is a letter written a short while after his return to Paris, to one of his lady friends, then on a visit to England: To Madame de Corny. Paris, Jane 30th, 1787. On my return to Paris it was among my first attentions to go to the Rue ChaussÉe d'Antin, No. 17, and inquire after my friends whom I had left there. I was told they were in England. And how do you like England, Madam? I know your taste for the works of art gives you a little disposition to Anglomania. Their mechanics certainly exceed all others in some lines. But be just to your own nation. They have not patience, it is true, to sit rubbing a piece of steel from morning to night, as a lethargic Englishman will do, full-charged with porter. But do not their benevolence, their amiability, their cheerfulness, when compared with the growling temper and manners of the people among whom you are, compensate their want of patience? I am in hopes that when the splendor of their shops, which is all that is worth seeing in London, shall have lost the charm of novelty, you will turn a wishful eye to the good people of Paris, and find that you can not be so happy with any others. The Bois de Boulogne invites you earnestly to come and survey its beautiful verdure, to retire to its umbrage from the heats of the season. I was through it to-day, as I am every day. Every tree charged me with this invitation to you. Passing by La Muette, it wished for you as a mistress. You want a country-house. This is for sale; and in the Bois de Boulogne, which I have always insisted to be most worthy of your preference. Come, then, and buy it. If I had had confidence in your speedy return, I should have embarrassed you in earnest with my little daughter. But an impatience to have her with me, after her separation from her friends, added to a respect for your ease, has induced me to send a servant for her. I tell you no news, because you have correspondents infinitely more au fait of the details of Paris than I am. And I offer you no services, because I hope you will come as soon as the letter could which should command them. Be assured, however, that nobody is more disposed to render them, nor entertains for you a more sincere and respectful attachment, than him who, after charging you with his compliments to Monsieur de Corny, has the honor of offering you the homage of those sentiments of distinguished esteem and regard, with which he is, dear Madam, your most obedient and most humble servant, TH. JEFFERSON.
In a letter to J. Bannister, Jr., he thus speaks of the ill-fated traveller Ledyard, and of the pleasures of his own recent tour through the southern part of France: To J. Bannister. I had a letter from Ledyard lately, dated at St. Petersburg. He had but two shirts, and yet, more shirts than shillings. Still he was determined to obtain the palm of being the first circumambulator of the earth. He says that, having no money, they kick him from place to place, and thus he expects to be kicked around the globe. Are you become a great walker? You know I preach up that kind of exercise. Shall I send you a conte-pas? It will cost you a dozen louis, but be a great stimulus to walking, as it will record your steps. I finished my tour a week or ten days ago. I went as far as Turin, Milan, Genoa; and never passed three months and a half more delightfully. I returned through the Canal of Languedoc, by Bourdeaux, Nantes, L'Orient, and Rennes; then returned to Nantes and came up the Loire to OrlÉans. I was alone through the whole, and think one travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.
To Mrs. Bolling. Paris, July 23d, 1787. Dear Sister—I received with real pleasure your letter of May 3d, informing me of your health and of that of your family. Be assured it is, and ever has been, the most interesting thing to me. Letters of business claiming their rights before those of affection, we often write seldomest to those whom we love most. The distance to which I am removed has given a new value to all I valued before in my own country, and the day of my return to it will be the happiest I expect to see in this life. When it will come is not yet decided, as far as depends on myself. My dear Polly is safely arrived here, and in good health. She had got so attached to Captain Ramsay that they were obliged to decoy her from him. She staid three weeks in London with Mrs. Adams, and had got up such an attachment to her, that she refused to come with the person I sent for her. After some days she was prevailed on to come. She did not know either her sister or myself, but soon renewed her acquaintance and attachment. She is now in the same convent with her sister, and will come to see me once or twice a week. It is a house of education altogether, the best in France, and at which the best masters attend. There are in it as many Protestants as Catholics, and not a word is ever spoken to them on the subject of religion. Patsy enjoys good health, and longs much to return to her friends. We shall doubtless find much change when we do get back; many of our older friends withdrawn from the stage, and our younger ones grown out of our knowledge. I suppose you are now fixed for life at Chestnut Grove. I take a part of the misfortune to myself, as it will prevent my seeing you as often as would be practicable at Lickinghole. It is still a greater loss to my sister Carr. We must look to Jack for indemnification, as I think it was the plan that he should live at Lickinghole. I suppose he is now become the father of a family, and that we may hail you as grandmother. As we approach that term it becomes less fearful. You mention Mr. Bolling's being unwell, so as not to write to me. He has just been sick enough all his life to prevent his writing to any body. My prayer is, therefore, only that he may never be any worse; were he to be so, nobody would feel it more sensibly than myself, as nobody has a more sincere esteem for him than myself. I find as I grow older, that I love those most whom I loved first. Present me to him in the most friendly terms; to Jack also, and my other nephews and nieces of your fireside, and be assured of the sincere love with which I am, dear sister, your affectionate brother, TH. JEFFERSON.
In the autumn of this year (1787) the Count de Moustier was sent by the Court of St. Germains as minister plenipotentiary to the United States. In a letter to Mr. Jay, Jefferson recommends the Count and his sister-in-law, Madame de Brehan, to the kind attentions of Mr. Jay and his family in the following terms: To John Jay. The connection of your offices will necessarily connect you in acquaintance; but I beg leave to present him to you on account of his personal as well as his public character. You will find him open, communicative, candid, simple in his manners, and a declared enemy to ostentation and luxury. He goes with a resolution to add no aliment to it by his example, unless he finds that the dispositions of our countrymen require it indispensably. Permit me, at the same time, to solicit your friendly notice, and through you, that also of Mrs. Jay, to Madame la Marquise de Brehan, sister-in-law to Monsieur de Moustier. She accompanies him, in hopes that a change of climate may assist her feeble health, and also that she may procure a more valuable education for her son, and safer from seduction, in America than in France. I think it impossible to find a better woman, more amiable, more modest, more simple in her manners, dress, and way of thinking. She will deserve the friendship of Mrs. Jay, and the way to obtain hers is to receive her and treat her without the shadow of etiquette.
On the eve of her departure for America, Jefferson wrote the following graceful note of adieu: To Madame de Brehan. Paris, October 9th, 1787. Persuaded, Madam, that visits at this moment must be troublesome, I beg you to accept my adieus in this form. Be assured that no one mingles with them more regret at separating from you. I will ask your permission to inquire of you by letter sometimes how our country agrees with your health and your expectations, and will hope to hear it from yourself. The imitation of European manners, which you will find in our towns, will, I fear, be little pleasing. I beseech you to practice still your own, which will furnish them a model of what is perfect. Should you be singular, it will be by excellence, and after a while you will see the effect of your example. Heaven bless you, Madam, and guard you under all circumstances—give you smooth waters, gentle breezes, and clear skies, hushing all its elements into peace, and leading with its own hand the favored bark, till it shall have safely landed its precious charge on the shores of our new world. TH. JEFFERSON.
The following pleasant letter is to another of his lady friends: To Madame de Corny. Paris, October 18th, 1787. I now have the honor, Madam, to send you the Memoir of M. de Calonnes. Do not injure yourself by hurrying its perusal. Only when you shall have read it at your leisure, be so good as to send it back, that it may be returned to the Duke of Dorset. You will read it with pleasure. It has carried comfort to my heart, because it must do the same to the King and the nation. Though it does not prove M. de Calonnes to be more innocent than his predecessors, it shows him not to have been that exaggerated scoundrel which the calculations and the clamors of the public have supposed. It shows that the public treasures have not been so inconceivably squandered as the Parliaments of Grenoble, Toulouse, etc., had affirmed. In fine, it shows him less wicked, and France less badly governed, than I had feared. In examining my little collection of books, to see what it could furnish you on the subject of Poland, I find a small piece which may serve as a supplement to the history I had sent you. It contains a mixture of history and politics, which I think you will like. How do you do this morning? I have feared you exerted and exposed yourself too much yesterday. I ask you the question, though I shall not await its answer. The sky is clearing, and I shall away to my hermitage. God bless you, my dear Madam, now and always. Adieu. TH. JEFFERSON.
In a letter written to Mr. Donald in the year 1788, his weariness of public life shows itself in the following lines: To Mr. Donald. Your letter has kindled all the fond recollections of ancient times—recollections much dearer to me than any thing I have known since. There are minds which can be pleased with honors and preferments; but I see nothing in them but envy and enmity. It is only necessary to possess them to know how little they contribute to happiness, or rather how hostile they are to it. No attachments soothe the mind so much as those contracted in early life; nor do I recollect any societies which have given me more pleasure than those of which you have partaken with me. I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post that any human power can give. I shall be glad to hear from you often. Give me the small news as well as the great.
Early in March, Mr. Jefferson was called by business to meet Mr. Adams in Amsterdam. After an absence of some weeks he returned to Paris. About this time we find him very delicately writing to Mr. Jay on the subject of an outfit, which, it seems, Congress had not at that time allowed to its ministers abroad, and the want of which was painfully felt by them. To John Jay. It is the usage here (and I suppose at all courts), that a minister resident shall establish his house in the first instant. If this is to be done out of his salary, he will be a twelvemonth, at least, without a copper to live on. It is the universal practice, therefore, of all nations to allow the outfit as a separate article from the salary. I have inquired here into the usual amount of it. I find that sometimes the sovereign pays the actual cost. This is particularly the case of the Sardinian ambassador now coming here, who is to provide a service of plate and every article of furniture and other matters of first expense, to be paid for by his court. In other instances, they give a service of plate, and a fixed sum for all other articles, which fixed sum is in no case lower than a year's salary. I desire no service of plate, having no ambition for splendor. My furniture, carriage, and apparel are all plain; yet they have cost me more than a year's salary. I suppose that in every country and every condition of life, a year's expense would be found a moderate measure for the furniture of a man's house. It is not more certain to me that the sun will rise to-morrow, than that our Government must allow the outfit, on their future appointment of foreign ministers; and it would be hard on me so to stand between the discontinuance of a former rule and the institution of a future one as to have the benefit of neither.
In writing to Mr. Izard, who wrote to make some inquiries about a school for his son in France, he makes the following remarks about the education of boys: To Mr. Izard. I have never thought a boy should undertake abstruse or difficult sciences, such as mathematics in general, till fifteen years of age at soonest. Before that time they are best employed in learning the languages, which is merely a matter of memory. The languages are badly taught here. If you propose he should learn the Latin, perhaps you will prefer the having him taught it in America, and, of course, to retain him there two or three years more.
One of the most beautiful traits in Jefferson's character was the tenderness of his love for a sister—Ann Scott Jefferson—who was deficient in intellect, and who, on that account, was more particularly the object of his brotherly love and attentions. The two following letters addressed to her husband and herself on the event of their marriage, while handsome and graceful letters in themselves, are more interesting and greater proofs of the goodness of his heart and the sincere warmth of his affections, from the simple character and nature of those to whom they were addressed. To Mrs. Anna Scott Marks. Paris, July 12th, 1788. My dear Sister—My last letters from Virginia inform me of your marriage with Mr. Hastings Marks. I sincerely wish you joy and happiness in the new state into which you have entered. Though Mr. Marks was long my neighbor, eternal occupations in business prevented my having a particular acquaintance with him, as it prevented me from knowing more of my other neighbors, as I would have wished to have done. I saw enough, however, of Mr. Marks to form a very good opinion of him, and to believe that he will endeavor to render you happy. I am sure you will not be wanting on your part. You have seen enough of the different conditions of life to know that it is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquillity and occupation, which give happiness. This truth I can confirm to you from longer observation and a greater scope of experience. I should wish to know where Mr. Marks proposes to settle and what line of life he will follow. In every situation I should wish to render him and you every service in my power, as you may be assured I shall ever feel myself warmly interested in your happiness, and preserve for you that sincere love I have always borne you. My daughters remember you with equal affection, and will, one of these days, tender it to you in person. They join me in wishing you all earthly felicity, and a continuance of your love to them. Accept assurances of the sincere attachment with which I am, my dear sister, your affectionate brother, TH. JEFFERSON.
To Hastings Marks. Paris, July 12th, 1788. Dear Sir—My letters from Virginia informing me of your intermarriage with my sister, I take the earliest opportunity of presenting you my sincere congratulations on that occasion. Though the occupations in which I was engaged prevented my forming with you that particular acquaintance which our neighborhood might have admitted, it did not prevent my entertaining a due sense of your merit. I am particularly pleased that Mr. Lewis has taken the precise measures which I had intended to recommend to him in order to put you into immediate possession of my sister's fortune in my hands. I should be happy to know where you mean to settle and what occupation you propose to follow—whether any other than that of a farmer, as I shall ever feel myself interested in your success, and wish to promote it by any means in my power, should any fall in my way. The happiness of a sister whom I very tenderly love being committed to your hands, I can not but offer prayers to Heaven for your prosperity and mutual satisfaction. A thorough knowledge of her merit and good dispositions encourages me to hope you will both find your happiness in this union, and this hope is encouraged by my knowledge of yourself. I beg you to be assured of the sentiments of sincere esteem and regard with which I shall be on all occasions, dear Sir, your friend and servant, TH. JEFFERSON.
The following is to his only brother: To Randolph Jefferson. Paris, January 11th, 1789. Dear Brother—The occurrences of this part of the globe are of a nature to interest you so little that I have never made them the subject of a letter to you. Another discouragement has been the distance and time a letter would be on its way. I have not the less continued to entertain for you the same sincere affection, the same wishes for your health and that of your family, and almost an envy of your quiet and retirement. The very short period of my life which I have passed unconnected with public business suffices to convince me it is the happiest of all situations, and that no society is so precious as that of one's own family. I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you for a while the next summer. I have asked of Congress a leave of absence for six months, and if I obtain it in time I expect to sail from hence in April, and to return in the fall. This will enable me to pass two months at Monticello, during which I hope I shall see you and my sister there. You will there meet an old acquaintance, very small when you knew her, but now of good stature.[36] Polly you hardly remember, and she scarcely recollects you. Both will be happy to see you and my sister, and to be once more placed among their friends they well remember in Virginia.... Nothing in this country can make amends for what one loses by quitting their own. I suppose you are by this time the father of a numerous family, and that my namesake is big enough to begin the thraldom of education. Remember me affectionately to my sister, joining my daughters therein, who present their affectionate duty to you also; and accept yourself assurances of the sincere attachment and esteem of, dear brother, Yours affectionately, TH. JEFFERSON.
Six months before writing the above he wrote the following: To Mrs. Eppes. Paris, July 12th, 1788. Dear Madam—Your kind favor of January 6th has come duly to hand. These marks of your remembrance are always dear to me, and recall to my mind the happiest portion of my life. It is among my greatest pleasures to receive news of your welfare and that of your family. You improve in your trade, I see, and I heartily congratulate you on the double blessings of which Heaven has just begun to open her stores to you. Polly is infinitely flattered to find a namesake in one of them. She promises in return to teach them both French. This she begins to speak easily enough, and to read as well as English. She will begin Spanish in a few days, and has lately begun the harpsichord and drawing. She and her sister will be with me to-morrow, and if she has any tolerable scrap of her pencil ready I will inclose it herein for your diversion. I will propose to her, at the same time, to write to you. I know she will undertake it at once, as she has done a dozen times. She gets all the apparatus, places herself very formally with pen in hand, and it is not till after all this and rummaging her head thoroughly that she calls out, "Indeed, papa, I do not know what to say; you must help me," and, as I obstinately refuse this, her good resolutions have always proved abortive, and her letters ended before they were begun. Her face kindles with love whenever she hears your name, and I assure you Patsy is not behind her in this. She remembers you with warm affection, recollects that she was bequeathed to you, and looks to you as her best future guide and guardian. She will have to learn from you things which she can not learn here, and which after all are among the most valuable parts of education for an American. Nor is the moment so distant as you imagine; on this I will enter into explanations in my next letter. I will only engage, from her dispositions, that you will always find in her the most passive compliance. You say nothing to us of Betsy, whom we all remember too well not to remember her affectionately. Jack, too, has failed to write to me since his first letter. I should be much pleased if he would himself give me the details of his occupations and progress. I would write to Mrs. Skipwith,[37] but I could only repeat to her what I say to you, that we love you both sincerely, and pass one day in every week together, and talk of nothing but Eppington, Hors-du-monde, and Monticello, and were we to pass the whole seven, the theme would still be the same. God bless you both, Madam, your husbands, your children, and every thing near and dear to you, and be assured of the constant affection of your sincere friend and humble servant, TH. JEFFERSON.
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