Anonymous Attacks on Jefferson.—Washington's Letter to him.—His Reply.—Letter to Edmund Randolph.—Returns to Philadelphia.—Washington urges him to remain in his Cabinet.—Letters to his Daughter.—To his Son-in-law.—To his Brother-in-law.—Sends his Resignation to the President.—Fever in Philadelphia.—Weariness of Public Life.—Letters to his Daughters.—To Mrs. Church.—To his Daughter.—Visits Monticello.—Returns to Philadelphia.—Letter to Madison.—To Mrs. Church.—To his Daughters.—Interview with Genet.—Letter to Washington.—His Reply.—Jefferson returns to Monticello.—State of his Affairs, and Extent of his Possessions.—Letter to Washington.—To Mr. Adams.—Washington attempts to get Jefferson back in his Cabinet.—Letter to Edmund Randolph, declining.—Pleasures of his Life at Monticello.—Letter to Madison.—To Giles.—To Rutledge.—To young Lafayette.
In a letter which Jefferson wrote to Edmund Randolph (September 17th, 1792) while on a visit to Monticello, he thus alludes to an anonymous newspaper attack on himself: To Edmund Randolph. Every fact alleged under the signature of "An American" as to myself is false, and can be proved so, and perhaps will be one day. But for the present lying and scribbling must be free to those mean enough to deal in them, and in the dark. I should have been setting out for Philadelphia within a day or two; but the addition of a grandson and indisposition of my daughter will probably detain me here a week longer.
The grandson whose birth is announced in this letter received the name of his distinguished grandsire, and grew up to bear in after life the relations and fulfill the duties of a son to him. On his way back to Philadelphia, after a stay of some months at Monticello, Jefferson stopped at Mount Vernon, and was there earnestly entreated by the President to reconsider his determination to resign his office as Secretary of State. Washington having consented to be elected President for a second term, was more and more persistent in his efforts to retain Jefferson in his cabinet, and his wishes, added to the entreaties of his friends, shook his resolution to retire, and finally succeeded in making him agree to remain in office at least for a short time longer. How reluctantly he yielded, and with what sacrifice of his own feelings and interests, the reader may judge from the following letter written by him to his daughter before his mind was finally made up on the subject: To Martha Jefferson Randolph. Philadelphia, January 26th, 1793. My dear Martha—I received two days ago yours of the 16th. You were never more mistaken than in supposing you were too long on the prattle, etc., of little Anne. I read it with quite as much pleasure as you write it. I sincerely wish I could hear of her perfect re-establishment. I have for some time past been under an agitation of mind which I scarcely ever experienced before, produced by a check on my purpose of returning home at the close of this session of Congress. My operations at Monticello had all been made to bear upon that point of time; my mind was fixed on it with a fondness which was extreme, the purpose firmly declared to the President, when I became assailed from all quarters with a variety of objections. Among these it was urged that my retiring just when I had been attacked in the public papers would injure me in the eyes of the public, who would suppose I either withdrew from investigation, or because I had not tone of mind sufficient to meet slander. The only reward I ever wished on my retirement was to carry with me nothing like a disapprobation of the public. These representations have for some weeks past shaken a determination which I have thought the whole world could not have shaken. I have not yet finally made up my mind on the subject, nor changed my declaration to the President. But having perfect reliance in the disinterested friendship of some of those who have counselled and urged it strongly; believing they can see and judge better a question between the public and myself than I can, I feel a possibility that I may be detained here into the summer. A few days will decide. In the mean time I have permitted my house to be rented after the middle of March, have sold such of my furniture as would not suit Monticello, and am packing up the rest and storing it ready to be shipped off to Richmond as soon as the season of good sea-weather comes on. A circumstance which weighs on me next to the weightiest is the trouble which, I foresee, I shall be constrained to ask Mr. Randolph to undertake. Having taken from other pursuits a number of hands to execute several purposes which I had in view this year, I can not abandon those purposes and lose their labor altogether. I must, therefore, select the most important and least troublesome of them, the execution of my canal, and (without embarrassing him with any details which Clarkson and George are equal to) get him to tell them always what is to be done and how, and to attend to the levelling the bottom; but on this I shall write him particularly if I defer my departure. I have not received the letter which Mr. Carr wrote me from Richmond, nor any other from him since I left Monticello. My best affections to him, Mr. Randolph, and your fireside, and am, with sincere love, my dear Martha, yours, TH. JEFFERSON.
To Thomas Mann Randolph.—[Extract.] Philadelphia, Feb. 3d, 1793. In my letter to my daughter, of the last week, I suggested to her that a possibility had arisen that I might not return home as early as I had determined. It happened unfortunately that the attack made on me in the newspapers came out soon after I began to speak freely and publicly of my purpose to retire this spring, and, from the modes of publication, the public were possessed of the former sooner than of the latter; and I find that as well those who are my friends as those who are not, putting the two things together as cause and effect, conceived I was driven from my office either from want of firmness or perhaps fear of investigation. Desirous that my retirement may be clouded by no imputations of this kind, I see not only a possibility, but rather a probability, that I shall postpone it for some time. Whether for weeks or months, I can not now say. This must depend in some degree on the will of those who troubled the waters before. When they suffer them to be calm I will go into port. My inclinations never before suffered such violence, and my interests also are materially affected.
The following extracts from letters to his daughter show the tenderness of his feelings for his young grandchildren: To Martha Jefferson Randolph. The last letter received from Mr. Randolph or yourself is of Oct. 7, which is near seven weeks ago. I ascribe this to your supposed absence from Monticello, but it makes me uneasy when I recollect the frail state of your two little ones. I hope some letter is on the way to me. I have no news for you except the marriage of your friend, Lady Elizabeth Tufton, to some very rich person. I have this day received yours of the 18th November, and sincerely sympathize with you on the state of dear Anne, if that can be called sympathy which proceeds from affection at first-hand; for my affections had fastened on her for her own sake, and not merely for yours. Still, however, experience (and that in your own case) has taught me that an infant is never desperate. Let me beseech you not to destroy the powers of her stomach with medicine. Nature alone can re-establish infant organs; only taking care that her efforts be not thwarted by any imprudences of diet. I rejoice in the health of your other hope.
The following will be found of interest: To Francis Eppes. Philadelphia, Jan. 4th, 1793. Dear Sir—The greatest council of Indians which has been or will be held in our day, is to be at the River Glaise, about the southwest corner of Lake Erie, early in the spring. Three commissioners will be appointed to go there on our part. Jack is desirous of accompanying them; and though I do not know who they will be, I presume I can get him under their wing.... He will never have another chance for seeing so great a collection of Indian (probably 3000) nations from beyond the lakes and the Mississippi. It is really important that those who come into public life should know more of these people than we generally do.... I know no reason against his going, but that Mrs. Eppes will be thinking of his scalp. However, he may safely trust his where the commissioners will trust theirs.... Your affectionate friend and servant, TH. JEFFERSON.
The address to the following letter from Jefferson is lost: Philadelphia, March 18th, 1793. Dear Sir—I received your kind favor of the 26th ult., and thank you for its contents as sincerely as if I could engage in what they propose. When I first entered on the stage of public life (now twenty-four years ago), I came to a resolution never to engage, while in public office, in any kind of enterprise for the improvement of my fortune, nor to wear any other character than that of a farmer. I have never departed from it in a single instance; and I have in multiplied instances found myself happy in being able to decide and to act as a public servant, clear of all interest, in the multiform questions that have arisen, wherein I have seen others embarrassed and biased by having got themselves in a more interested situation. Thus I have thought myself richer in contentment than I should have been with any increase of fortune. Certainly, I should have been much wealthier had I remained in that private condition which renders it lawful, and even laudable, to use proper efforts to better it. However, my public career is now closing, and I will go through on the principle on which I have hitherto acted. But I feel myself under obligations to repeat my thanks for this mark of your attention and friendship.
After quoting this letter, Jefferson's biographer well says: "If Mr. Jefferson would have consented to adopt a different rule, the saddest page in his personal history would not be for us to write." On the last day of July, Jefferson, still longing for the quiet of home-life, wrote to the President, tendering his resignation. After stating his reasons for so doing, he says: To George Washington. At the close, therefore, of the ensuing month of September, I shall beg leave to retire to scenes of greater tranquillity from those which I am every day more and more convinced that neither my talents, tone of mind, nor time of life fit me. I have thought it my duty to mention the matter thus early, that there may be time for the arrival of a successor from any part of the Union from which you may think proper to call one. That you may find one more able to lighten the burthen of your labors, I most sincerely wish; for no man living more sincerely wishes that your administration could be rendered as pleasant to yourself as it is useful and necessary to our country, nor feels for you a more rational or cordial attachment and respect than, dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant.
Early in August the President visited Jefferson at his house in the country, and urged that he would allow him to defer the acceptance of his resignation until the 1st of January. This Jefferson finally, though reluctantly, agreed to do. The following extract from a letter written by him to Madison in June will show how irksome public life was to him: To James Madison. If the public, then, has no claim on me, and my friends nothing to justify, the decision will rest on my own feelings alone. There has been a time when these were very different from what they are now; when, perhaps, the esteem of the world was of higher value in my eye than every thing in it. But age, experience, and reflection, preserving to that only its due value, have set a higher on tranquillity. The motion of my blood no longer keeps time with the tumult of the world. It leads me to seek for happiness in the lap and love of my family, in the society of my neighbors and my books, in the wholesome occupations of my farms and my affairs, in an interest or affection in every bud that opens, in every breath that blows around me, in an entire freedom of rest, of motion, of thought—owing account to myself alone of my hours and actions. What must be the principle of that calculation which would balance against these the circumstances of my present existence—worn down with labors from morning to night, and day to day; knowing them as fruitless to others as they are vexatious to myself, committed singly in desperate and eternal contest against a host who are systematically undermining the public liberty and prosperity, even the rare hours of relaxation sacrificed to the society of persons in the same intentions, of whose hatred I am conscious, even in those moments of conviviality when the heart wishes most to open itself to the effusions of friendship and confidence; cut off from my family and friends, my affairs abandoned to chaos and derangement; in short, giving every thing I love in exchange for every thing I hate, and all this without a single gratification in possession or prospect, in present enjoyment or future wish. Indeed, my dear friend, duty being out of the question, inclination cuts off all argument, and so never let there be more between you and me on this subject.
To Mr. Morris he wrote, on September the 11th: An infectious and mortal fever is broke out in this place. The deaths under it, the week before last, were about forty; the last week about fifty; this week they will probably be about two hundred, and it is increasing. Every one is getting out of the city who can. Colonel Hamilton is ill of the fever, but is on the recovery. The President, according to an arrangement of some time ago, set out for Mount Vernon on yesterday. The Secretary of War is setting out on a visit to Massachusetts. I shall go in a few days to Virginia. When we shall reassemble again may, perhaps, depend on the course of this malady, and on that may depend the date of my next letter.
I shall now carry the reader back to the beginning of this year (1793), and give extracts from Jefferson's letters to his daughter, Mrs. Randolph, giving them in their chronological order: To Martha Jefferson Randolph. Philadelphia, January 14th, 1793. Though his letter informed me of the re-establishment of Anne, yet I wish to learn that time confirms our hopes. We were entertained here lately with the ascent of Mr. Blanchard in a balloon. The security of the thing appeared so great, that every body is wishing for a balloon to travel in. I wish for one sincerely, as, instead of ten days, I should be within five hours of home.
Philadelphia, February 24th, 1793. Kiss dear Anne, and ask her if she remembers me and will write to me. Health to the little one, and happiness to you all.
Philadelphia, March 10th, 1793. When I shall see you I can not say; but my heart and thoughts are all with you till I do. I have given up my house here, and taken a small one in the country, on the banks of the Schuylkill, to serve me while I stay. We are packing all our superfluous furniture, and shall be sending it by water to Richmond when the season becomes favorable. My books, too, except a very few, will be packed and go with the other things; so that I shall put it out of my own power to return to the city again to keep house, and it would be impossible to carry on business in the winter at a country residence. Though this points out an ultimate term of stay here, yet my mind is looking to a much shorter one, if the circumstances will permit it which broke in on my first resolution. Indeed, I have it much at heart to be at home in time to run up the part of the house, the latter part of the summer and fall, which I had proposed to do in the spring.
The following was written to an old friend: To Mrs. Church. Philadelphia, June 7th, 1793. Dear Madam—Monsieur de Noailles has been so kind as to deliver me your letter. It fills up the measure of his titles to any service I can render him. It has served to recall to my mind remembrances which are very dear to it, and which often furnish a delicious resort from the dry and oppressive scenes of business. Never was any mortal more tired of these than I am. I thought to have been clear of them some months ago, but shall be detained a little longer, and then I hope to get back to those scenes for which alone my heart was made. I had understood we were shortly to have the happiness of seeing you in America. It is now, I think, the only country of tranquillity, and should be the asylum of all those who wish to avoid the scenes which have crushed our friends in Paris. What is become of Madame de Corny? I have never heard of her since I returned to America. Where is Mrs. Cosway? I have heard she was become a mother; but is the new object to absorb all her affections? I think, if you do not return to America soon, you will be fixed in England by new family connections; for I am sure my dear Kitty is too handsome and too good not to be sought, and sought till, for peace' sake, she must make somebody happy. Her friend Maria writes to her now, and I greet her with sincere attachment. Accept yourself assurances of the same from, dear Madam, your affectionate and humble servant, TH. JEFFERSON.
I continue his letters to his daughter, Mrs. Randolph. To Martha Jefferson Randolph. Philadelphia, June 10th, 1793. I sincerely congratulate you on the arrival of the mocking-bird. Learn all the children to venerate it as a superior being in the form of a bird, or as a being which will haunt them if any harm is done to itself or its eggs. I shall hope that the multiplication of the cedar in the neighborhood, and of trees and shrubs round the house, will attract more of them; for they like to be in the neighborhood of our habitations if they furnish cover.
Philadelphia, July 7th, 1793. My head has been so full of farming since I have found it necessary to prepare a place for my manager, that I could not resist the addressing my last weekly letters to Mr. Randolph and boring him with my plans. Maria writes to you to-day. She is getting into tolerable health, though not good. She passes two or three days in the week with me under the trees, for I never go into the house but at the hour of bed. I never before knew the full value of trees. My house is entirely embosomed in high plane-trees, with good grass below; and under them I breakfast, dine, write, read, and receive my company. What would I not give that the trees planted nearest round the house at Monticello were full-grown.
Philadelphia, July 21st, 1793. We had peaches and Indian corn the 12th inst. When do they begin with you this year? Can you lay up a good stock of seed-peas for the ensuing summer? We will try this winter to cover our garden with a heavy coating of manure. When earth is rich it bids defiance to droughts, yields in abundance, and of the best quality. I suspect that the insects which have harassed you have been encouraged by the feebleness of your plants; and that has been produced by the lean state of the soil. We will attack them another year with joint efforts.
Philadelphia, Aug. 4th, 1793. I inclose you two of Petit's recipes. The orthography will amuse you, while the matter may be useful. The last of the two is really valuable, as the beans preserved in that manner are as firm, fresh, and green as when gathered.
The orthography alluded to in this letter was that of the word pancakes—the French cook spelling it thus: pannequaiques. On August 18th, Jefferson writes to Mrs. Randolph: Maria and I are scoring off the weeks which separate us from you. They wear off slowly; but time is sure, though slow.... My blessings to your little ones; love to you all, and friendly howd'ye's to my neighbors. Adieu.
Jefferson visited Monticello in the autumn, and left his daughter Maria there on his return to Philadelphia, or rather to Germantown, from which place the following letter was written. The address of this is lost, but it was probably written to Madison. I give only extracts: Germantown, November 2d, 1793. I overtook the President at Baltimore, and we arrived here yesterday, myself fleeced of seventy odd dollars to get from Fredericksburg here, the stages running no further than Baltimore. I mention this to put yourself and Monroe on your guard. The fever in Philadelphia has so much abated as to have almost disappeared. The inhabitants are about returning. It has been determined that the President shall not interfere with the meeting of Congress.... According to present appearances, this place can not lodge a single person more. As a great favor, I have got a bed in the corner of the public room of a tavern; and must continue till some of the Philadelphians make a vacancy by removing into the city. Then we must give him from four to six or eight dollars a week for cuddies without a bed, and sometimes without a chair or table. There is not a single lodging-house in the place. Ross and Willing are alive. Hancock is dead.
To James Madison. Germantown, November 17th, 1793. Dear Sir—I have got good lodgings for Monroe and yourself—that is to say, a good room with a fire-place and two beds, in a pleasant and convenient position, with a quiet family. They will breakfast you, but you must mess in a tavern; there is a good one across the street. This is the way in which all must do, and all, I think, will not be able to get even half beds. The President will remain here, I believe, till the meeting of Congress, merely to form a point of union for them before they can have acquired information and courage. For at present there does not exist a single subject in the disorder, no new infection having taken place since the great rains of the 1st of the month, and those before infected being dead or recovered.... Accept, both of you, my sincere affection.
Though bearing a later date than some which follow, we give the following letter here: To Mrs. Church. Germantown, Nov. 27th, 1793. I have received, my very good friend, your kind letter of August 19th, with the extract from that of Lafayette, for whom my heart has been constantly bleeding. The influence of the United States has been put into action, as far as it could be either with decency or effect. But I fear that distance and difference of principle give little hold to General Washington on the jailers of Lafayette. However, his friends may be assured that our zeal has not been inactive. Your letter gives me the first information that our dear friend Madame de Corny has been, as to her fortune, among the victims of the times. Sad times, indeed! and much-lamented victim! I know no country where the remains of a fortune could place her so much at her ease as this, and where public esteem is so attached to worth, regardless of wealth; but our manners, and the state of our society here, are so different from those to which her habits have been formed, that she would lose more, perhaps, in that scale. And Madam Cosway in a convent! I knew that to much goodness of heart she joined enthusiasm and religion; but I thought that very enthusiasm would have prevented her from shutting up her adoration of the God of the universe within the walls of a cloister; that she would rather have sought the mountain-top. How happy should I be that it were mine that you, she, and Madame de Corny would seek. You say, indeed, that you are coming to America, but I know that means New York. In the mean time, I am going to Virginia. I have at length been able to fix that to the beginning of the new year. I am then to be liberated from the hated occupations of politics, and to remain in the bosom of my family, my farm, and my books. I have my house to build, my fields to farm, and to watch for the happiness of those who labor for mine. I have one daughter married to a man of science, sense, virtue, and competence; in whom indeed I have nothing more to wish. They live with me. If the other shall be as fortunate, in due process of time I shall imagine myself as blessed as the most blessed of the patriarchs. Nothing could then withdraw my thoughts a moment from home but a recollection of my friends abroad. I often put the question, whether yourself and Kitty will ever come to see your friends at Monticello? but it is my affection, and not my experience of things, which has leave to answer, and I am determined to believe the answer, because in that belief I find I sleep sounder, and wake more cheerful. En attendant, God bless you. Accept the homage of my sincere and constant affection, TH. JEFFERSON.
The following letters and extracts will be found interesting by the reader: To Mary Jefferson. Germantown, Nov. 17th, 1793. No letter yet from my dear Maria, who is so fond of writing, so punctual in her correspondence. I enjoin as a penalty that the next be written in French.... I have not yet been in [to Philadelphia], not because there is a shadow of danger, but because I am afoot. Thomas is returned into my service. His wife and child went into town the day we left them. They then had the infection of the yellow fever, were taken two or three days after, and both died. Had we staid those two or three days longer, they would have been taken at our house. Mrs. Fullarton left Philadelphia. Mr. and Mrs. Rittenhouse remained here, but have escaped the fever. Follow closely your music, reading, sewing, housekeeping, and love me, as I do you, most affectionately. TH. JEFFERSON. P.S.—Tell Mr. Randolph that Gen. Wayne has had a convoy of twenty-two wagons of provisions and seventy men cut off in his rear by the Indians.
To Mary Jefferson. Philadelphia, Dec. 15th, 1793. My dear Maria—I should have written to you last Sunday in turn, but business required my allotting your turn to Mr. Randolph, and putting off writing to you till this day. I have now received your and your sister's letters of November 27 and 28. I agree that Watson shall make the writing-desk for you. I called the other day on Mrs. Fullarton, and there saw your friend Sally Cropper. She went up to Trenton the morning after she left us, and staid there till lately. The maid-servant who waited on her and you at our house caught the fever, on her return to town, and died. In my letter of last week, I desired Mr. Randolph to send horses for me, to be at Fredericksburg on the 12th of January. Lest that letter should miscarry, I repeat it here, and wish you to mention it to him. I also informed him that a person of the name of Eli Alexander would set out this day from Elktown to take charge of the plantations under Byrd Rogers, and praying him to have his accommodations at the place got ready as far as should be necessary before my arrival. I hope to be with you all by the 15th of January, no more to leave you. My blessings to your dear sister and little ones; affections to Mr. Randolph and your friends with you. Adieu, my dear. Yours tenderly, TH. JEFFERSON.
To Martha Jefferson Randolph.—[Extract.] Philadelphia, Dec. 22d, 1793. In my letter of this day fortnight to Mr. Randolph, and that of this day week to Maria, I mentioned my wish that my horses might meet me at Fredericksburg on the 12th of January. I now repeat it, lest those letters should miscarry. The President made yesterday what I hope will be the last set at me to continue; but in this I am now immovable by any considerations whatever. My books and remains of furniture embark to-morrow for Richmond.... I hope that by the next post I shall be able to send Mr. Randolph a printed copy of our correspondence with Mr. Genet and Mr. Hammond, as communicated to Congress. Our affairs with England and Spain have a turbid appearance. The letting loose the Algerines on us, which has been contrived by England, has produced peculiar irritation. I think Congress will indemnify themselves by high duties on all articles of British importation. If this should produce war, though not wished for, it seems not to be feared.
The well-informed reader is familiar with the controversy alluded to in the preceding letter, between the United States Government and the French and English ministers, Messrs. Genet and Hammond. I can not refrain from giving the following extract from Jefferson's report of an interview between Mr. Genet and himself: He (Genet) asked if they (Congress) were not the Sovereign. I told him no, they were sovereign in making laws only; the Executive was sovereign in executing them; and the Judiciary in construing them when they related to their department. "But," said he, "at least Congress are bound to see that the treaties are observed!" I told him no; there were very few cases, indeed, arising out of treaties, which they could take notice of; that the President is to see that treaties are observed. "If he decides against the treaty, to whom is a nation to appeal?" I told him the Constitution had made the President the last appeal. He made me a bow, and said that indeed he would not make me his compliments on such a Constitution, expressed the utmost astonishment at it, and seemed never before to have had such an idea.
The following letter explains itself: To George Washington. Philadelphia, December 31st, 1793. Dear Sir—Having had the honor of communicating to you in my letter of the last of July my purpose of retiring from the office of Secretary of State at the end of the month of September, you were pleased, for particular reasons, to wish its postponement to the close of the year. That term being now arrived, and my propensities to retirement becoming daily more and more irresistible, I now take the liberty of resigning the office into your hands. Be pleased to accept with it my sincere thanks for all the indulgences which you have been so good as to exercise towards me in the discharge of its duties. Conscious that my need of them has been great, I have still ever found them greater, without any other claim on my part than a firm pursuit of what has appeared to me to be right, and a thorough disdain of all means which were not as open and honorable as their object was pure. I carry into my retirement a lively sense of your goodness, and shall continue gratefully to remember it. With very sincere prayers for your life, health, and tranquility, I pray you to accept the homage of the great and constant respect and attachment with which I have the honor to be, dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, TH. JEFFERSON.
This called forth from Washington the following handsome and affectionate letter: From George Washington. Philadelphia, Jan. 1st, 1794. Dear Sir—I yesterday received with sincere regret your resignation of the office of Secretary of State. Since it has been impossible to prevail upon you to forego any longer the indulgence of your desire for private life, the event, however anxious I am to avert it, must be submitted to. But I can not suffer you to leave your station without assuring you that the opinion which I had formed of your integrity and talents, and which dictated your original nomination, has been confirmed by the fullest experience, and that both have been eminently displayed in the discharge of your duty. Let a conviction of my most earnest prayers for your happiness accompany you in your retirement; and while I accept with the warmest thanks your solicitude for my welfare, I beg you to believe that I am, dear Sir, etc.
Perhaps no man ever received a higher compliment for the able discharge of his official duties than that paid to Jefferson by his adversaries, who, in opposing his nomination as President, urged as an objection—"that Nature had made him only for a Secretary of State." Jefferson set out on the 5th of January for his loved home, Monticello—fondly imagining that he would never again leave the peaceful shelter of its roof to enter upon the turmoils of public life, but in reality destined to have only a short respite from them in the far sweeter enjoyments of domestic life, surrounded by his children and grandchildren. His private affairs were in sad need of his constant presence at home after such long absences in the public service. He now owned in his native State over ten thousand acres of land, which for ten long years had been subject to the bad cultivation, mismanagement, and ravages of hired overseers. Of these large landed estates, between five and six thousand acres, comprising the farms of Monticello, Montalto, Tufton, Shadwell, Lego, Pantops, Pouncey's, and Limestone, were in the county of Albemarle; while another fine and favorite estate, called Poplar Forest, lay in Bedford County, and contained over four thousand acres. Of his land in Albemarle only twelve hundred acres were in cultivation, and in Bedford eight hundred—the two together making two thousand acres of arable land. The number of slaves owned by Jefferson was one hundred and fifty-four—a very small number in proportion to his landed estate. Some idea may be formed of the way things were managed on these farms, from the fact that out of the thirty-four horses on them eight were saddle-horses. The rest of the stock on them consisted of five mules, two hundred and forty-nine cattle, three hundred and ninety hogs, and three sheep. The few months' continuous stay at home which Jefferson had been able to make during the past ten years had not been sufficient for him to set things to rights. How greatly his farms needed a new system of management may be seen from the following letter to General Washington, written by him in the spring of 1794. He says: To George Washington. I find, on a more minute examination of my lands than the short visits heretofore made to them permitted, that a ten years' abandonment of them to the ravages of overseers has brought on them a degree of degradation far beyond what I had expected. As this obliges me to adopt a milder course of cropping, so I find that they have enabled me to do it, by having opened a great deal of lands during my absence. I have therefore determined on a division of my farms into six fields, to be put under this rotation: First year, wheat; second, corn, potatoes, peas; third, rye or wheat, according to circumstances; fourth and fifth, clover, where the fields will bring it, and buckwheat-dressings where they will not; sixth, folding and buckwheat-dressing. But it will take me from three to six years to get this plan under way. I am not yet satisfied that my acquisition of overseers from the head of Elk has been a happy one, or that much will be done this year towards rescuing my plantations from their wretched condition. Time, patience, and perseverance must be the remedy; and the maxim of your letter, "slow and sure," is not less a good one in agriculture than in politics.... But I cherish tranquillity too much to suffer political things to enter my mind at all. I do not forget that I owe you a letter for Mr. Young; but I am waiting to get full information. With every wish for your health and happiness, and my most friendly respects to Mrs. Washington, I have the honor to be, dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant.
Notwithstanding this disordered and disheartening state of his affairs (due to no fault of his), we still find him luxuriating in the quiet and repose of private life. On this subject he writes to Mr. Adams, on April 25th, as follows: To John Adams. Dear Sir—I am to thank you for the work you were so kind as to transmit me, as well as the letter covering it, and your felicitations on my present quiet. The difference of my present and past situation is such as to leave me nothing to regret but that my retirement has been postponed four years too long. The principles on which I calculated the value of life are entirely in favor of my present course. I return to farming with an ardor which I scarcely knew in my youth, and which has got the better entirely of my love of study. Instead of writing ten or twelve letters a day, which I have been in the habit of doing as a thing in course, I put off answering my letters now, farmer-like, till a rainy day, and then find them sometimes postponed by other necessary occupations.... With wishes of every degree of happiness to you, both public and private, and with my best respects to Mrs. Adams, I am your affectionate and humble servant.
The land not having been prepared for cultivation during the preceding fall, Jefferson's farming operations during the summer of 1794 amounted to nothing. Unfortunately, when the next season came around for the proper preparation to be made for the coming year, it found him in such a state of health as to prevent his giving his personal direction to his farms, and thus he was cut off from any profit from them for another twelvemonth. Just about this time General Washington made another attempt, through his Secretary of State, Edmund Randolph, to get Jefferson back into his cabinet. Though at the time ill, Jefferson at once sent the following reply to Randolph: To Edmund Randolph. Monticello, September 7th, 1794. Dear Sir—Your favor of August the 28th finds me in bed under a paroxysm of the rheumatism, which has now kept me for ten days in constant torment, and presents no hope of abatement. But the express and the nature of the case requiring immediate answer, I write you in this situation. No circumstances, my dear Sir, will ever more tempt me to engage in any thing public. I thought myself perfectly fixed in this determination when I left Philadelphia, but every day and hour since has added to its inflexibility. It is a great pleasure to me to retain the esteem and approbation of the President, and this forms the only ground of any reluctance at being unable to comply with every wish of his. Pray convey these sentiments, and a thousand more to him, which my situation does not permit me to go into....
I find nothing worthy of notice in Jefferson's life during the year 1795. He continued tranquilly and happily enjoying the society of his children and grandchildren in his beautiful mountain home. Mrs. Randolph was now the mother of three children. We have seen from his letters to her how devotedly she was loved by her father. From the time of her mother's death she had been his constant companion until her own marriage; Maria Jefferson, now seventeen years old, was as beautiful and loving as a girl as she had been as a child. The brilliancy of her beauty is spoken of with enthusiasm by those still living who remember her. In a letter to Mr. Madison written in the spring of this year (1795), Mr. Jefferson writes thus of himself: To James Madison. If these general considerations were sufficient to ground a firm resolution never to permit myself to think of the office, or be thought of for it, the special ones which have supervened on my retirement still more insuperably bar the door to it. My health is entirely broken down within the last eight months; my age requires that I should place my affairs in a clear state; these are sound if taken care of, but capable of considerable dangers if longer neglected; and above all things, the delights I feel in the society of my family, and in the agricultural pursuits in which I am so eagerly engaged. The little spice of ambition which I had in my younger days has long since evaporated, and I set still less store by a posthumous than present name.... I long to see you.... May we hope for a visit from you? If we may, let it be after the middle of May, by which time I hope to be returned from Bedford.
In writing on the same day to his friend, Mr. Giles, he says: I shall be rendered very happy by the visit you promise me. The only thing wanting to make me completely so is the more frequent society of my friends. It is the more wanting, as I am become more firmly fixed to the glebe. If you visit me as a farmer, it must be as a con-disciple; for I am but a learner—an eager one indeed, but yet desperate, being too old now to learn a new art. However, I am as much delighted and occupied with it as if I were the greatest adept. I shall talk with you about it from morning till night, and put you on very short allowance as to political aliment. Now and then a pious ejaculation for the French and Dutch republicans, returning with due dispatch to clover, potatoes, wheat, etc.
To Edward Rutledge he wrote, on November 30th, 1795: I received your favor of October the 12th by your son, who has been kind enough to visit me here, and from whose visit I have received all that pleasure which I do from whatever comes from you, and especially from a subject so deservedly dear to you. He found me in a retirement I doat on, living like an antediluvian patriarch among my children and grandchildren, and tilling my soil. As he had lately come from Philadelphia, Boston, etc., he was able to give me a great deal of information of what is passing in the world; and I pestered him with questions, pretty much as our friends Lynch, Nelson, etc., will us when we step across the Styx, for they will wish to know what has been passing above ground since they left us. You hope I have not abandoned entirely the service of our country. After five-and-twenty years' continual employment in it, I trust it will be thought I have fulfilled my tour, like a punctual soldier, and may claim my discharge. But I am glad of the sentiment from you, my friend, because it gives a hope you will practice what you preach, and come forward in aid of the public vessel. I will not admit your old excuse, that you are in public service, though at home. The campaigns which are fought in a man's own house are not to be counted. The present situation of the President, unable to get the offices filled, really calls with uncommon obligation on those whom nature has fitted for them.
Early in the spring of 1796, in a letter to his friend Giles, he gives us the following glimpse of his domestic operations: We have had a fine winter. Wheat looks well. Corn is scarce and dear: twenty-two shillings here, thirty shillings in Amherst. Our blossoms are but just opening. I have begun the demolition of my house, and hope to get through its re-edification in the course of the summer. We shall have the eye of a brick-kiln to poke you into, or an octagon to air you in.
To another friend he wrote, a few weeks later: I begin to feel the effects of age. My health has suddenly broken down, with symptoms which give me to believe I shall not have much to encounter of the tedium vitÆ.
The reader will read with interest the following kind and affectionate letter to young Lafayette—son of the Marquis de Lafayette: To Lafayette, Junior. Monticello, June 19th, 1796. Dear Sir—The inquiries of Congress were the first intimation which reached my retirement of your being in this country; and from M. Volney, now with me, I first learned where you are. I avail myself of the earliest moments of this information to express to you the satisfaction with which I learn that you are in a land of safety, where you will meet in every person the friend of your worthy father and family. Among these, I beg leave to mingle my own assurances of sincere attachment to him, and my desire to prove it by every service I can render you. I know, indeed, that you are already under too good a patronage to need any other, and that my distance and retirement render my affections unavailing to you. They exist, nevertheless, in all their warmth and purity towards your father and every one embraced by his love; and no one has wished with more anxiety to see him once more in the bosom of a nation who, knowing his works and his worth, desire to make him and his family forever their own. You were, perhaps, too young to remember me personally when in Paris. But I pray you to remember that, should any occasion offer wherein I can be useful to you, there is no one on whose friendship and zeal you may more confidently count. You will some day, perhaps, take a tour through these States. Should any thing in this part of them attract your curiosity, it would be a circumstance of great gratification to me to receive you here, and to assure you in person of those sentiments of esteem and attachment, with which I am, dear Sir, your friend and humble servant, TH. JEFFERSON.
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