Early in seventy-five, he was elected a deputy-substitute, in case Peyton Randolph should not attend, to the second Congress, where he took his seat, and prepared part of one of its most important documents-a declaration of the causes of taking up arms.* On the eleventh of August, seventy-five, he was chosen a full member of Congress. Fourteen days after, the convention of Virginia having resolved to raise a regular force, and to embody its militia, Jefferson addressed a private letter to a kinsman, the Royal Attorney-General, "who, taking sides with the government, was about to leave Virginia for England."+ In this letter, he avowed that he "would rather be in dependence on Great Britain, properly limited, than on any nation on earth, or than on no nation,‡ a predilection repeated by him to the same loyal officer, not long after. These letters have been variously interpreted. A month later, on the twenty-eighth of December, he withdrew from Congress, and regardless of the great intervening measures preparatory to war, and of its being actually authorized by that body,** he did not resume his seat until the middle of the following May. Virginia, at this time, preconcerting independence, left him no option but to return.

Congress, acting directly on the instructions of that State, resolved on independence, and he was appointed

*Tucker, i. 78.

John Randolph.-ibid. i. 84, 85.

Randall, i. 122.

§ Nov. 29, 1775,

Lee's Observations, 239. Randall, i. 121.

We are not able to state positively the occasion of this absence, but the presumption would seem to be that it finds its explanation in the antecedents of the fact thus stated in his pocket-book account: "March 31, 1776-My mother died about eight o'clock this morning."

** March 23, 1776.

chairman of a committee to prepare a declaration of it, which duty, it has been seen, he ably performed.

A new Congress was chosen to conduct the operations of the war. Jefferson, being elected a member declined, and on the second of September, when the tidings reached Philadelphia of the defeat at Long Island, and the retreat of the army, forgetting the recent public pledge of "his life and fortune, and sacred honor," he RESIGNED his seat in Congress, and "the next day set out for Virginia."*

It cannot but be regarded as a sad fact in the history of this republic, to which all time must point derisively and with sorrow, that two men, Jefferson and Adams, so prominent as to be charged with the Declaration to the world of American Independence, deserted their posts at its most trying crisis, thus discouraging the people, and encouraging the enemy. Had other leaders been of like temper, the result inevitably must have been, not a revolution full of glories and of blessings, but a short-lived, craven, abortive rebellion. All the circumstances considered, in vain will a parallel be sought.

Escaped from the scene of conspicuous, imminent danger, Jefferson, in October, took his seat again in the House of Burgesses, of which he continued a member part of three successive years. There, his presence was soon felt in the introduction of bills, parts of a comprehensive and

"Our delegation

Randall, i. 198. Memoir by Jefferson, Works, i. 29. had been renewed for the ensuing year, commencing Aug. 11, but the new government was now organized, a meeting of the legislature was to be held in October, and I had been elected a member by my county. I knew that our legislation, under the regal government, had many very vicious points which urgently required reformation, and I thought I could be of more use in forwarding that work. I therefore retired from my seat in Congress on the 2d of September, resigned it, and took my place in the legislature on the 7th of October."

important system of legislation, and in the revision, with "able coadjutors," of the existing laws.

On the first of June, seventy-nine, he was, as has been related, elected Governor by the legislature. His delinquency in the fulfillment of its duties, before partially disclosed, but of which fuller evidence exists, has been shown. Defending himself as to almost every other period of his history, it would seem remarkable that he should have left this part of his story to a foreigner, tracing it in secrecy under his own eye.* But his own brief posthumous allusion to it is not to be mistaken. "From a belief," he states in a memoir of his life," that, under the pressure of the invasion under which we were then laboring, the public would have more confidence in a military chief, and that the military commander, being invested with the civil power also, both might be wielded with more energy, promptitude, and effect for the defence of the State, I resigned the administration at the end of my second year, and General Nelson was appointed to succeed me."

Were it a question of military capacity, this plea might have served; but it was a point of honour, of personal courage, of fidelity to his station, and to his State.

What is this but a cry for quarter? unmanning himself by the poor excuse, that he was not educated to the command of armies. Of the heroes of the revolutionary war, how many had been educated to arms? Were Prescott and Warren, Knox and Pickering, Greene and

*Mr. Girardin, "who wrote," Jefferson relates (Works, i. 41), "his continuance of Burke's history of Virginia, while at Milton, in this neighborhood, had free access to all my papers, while composing it, aud has given as faithful an account as I could myself. For this portion, therefore, of my own life, I refer altogether to his history."

Olney, Smallwood and Howard, Lee and Morgan, Graham and Marion, soldiers by education? Did they wait to be solicited, importuned, besought to incur hazard for their country? or did they rush foremost and onward, seeking, soliciting posts of danger; and by their example, making posts of danger-posts to be sought, solicited above all others, by the brave of their countrymen, rich and poor, old and young, educated and. untaught, clergy and laity, even by its women? Jefferson makes no defence, demands no investigation. His absolution by the legislature, of which he was a member, was the absolution of a penitent, granted twelve months after the offence, in most guarded terms-not an acquittal from charges preferred, for they were smothered. Knowing its little value, this absolution did not content him. Though remaining a member of that body, he did not attend its ensuing session. His élève, Monroe, also a member, urges his presence. His reply shows not the indignant sense of undeserved dishonor, but his humiliation and his shame, talks of satisfied ambition, his passion for private life, and "mental quiet," of his consultation of what best suited self; and admits his consciousness of universal condemna

tion.

"Before I ventured to declare to my countrymen my determination to retire from public employment, I examined well my heart to know whether it were thoroughly cured of every principle of political ambition, whether no lurking particle remained which might leave me uneasy', when reduced within the limits of mere private life. I became satisfied, that every fibre of that passion was thoroughly eradicated. I examined also, in other views, my right to withdraw. I considered that, by a constant sacrifice of time, labor, parental and friendly duties, I had, so far from gaining the affection of my countrymen, which

VOL. III.-5

was the only reward I ever asked or could have felt, even lost the small estimation I had before possessed. (That, however, I might have comforted myself under the disapprobation of the well meaning, but uninformed people, but that of their representatives was a shock on which I had not calculated.) But, in the meantime, I had been suspected in the eyes of the world, without the least hint then or afterwards, being made public, which might restrain them from supposing, that I stood arraigned for treason of the heart, and not merely weakness of the head; and I felt that these injuries, for such they have been since acknowledged, had inflicted a wound on my spirit which will only be cured by an all-healing grave.'

Ere six months had elapsed,† being appointed, on the motion of Madison, as previously stated, a commissioner to join in the pending negotiation at Paris, he repaired to Philadelphia.

He had declined a mission in seventy-six, instituted to obtain the all-important aid of France.‡ Again appointed, early in eighty-one, he again declined. It was now stated in his behalf, that a recent domestic calamity had probably changed his sentiments that "all the reasons for his original appointment still existed, and had acquired additional force, from the improbability, that Laurens would actually

*May 20, 1782. Yet Madison wrote him, January 15, 1782: "Your favor of the day of, written on the eve of your departure from Richnond, came safe to hand by the last week's post. The result of the attack on your administration was so fully anticipated that it made little impression

on me."

Nov. 12, 1782.

Jefferson's Works, i. 41. The quotation in note, vol. ii. 469, is erroneously referred to his second declension. This error is, however, of no moment, as Jefferson writes on the same page, still to decline."

"The same reasons obliged me