26

CHAPTER II.

Birth and parentage of Thomas Jefferson. His Education. Sent to College. Dr. Small. His amusements. Description of his person. His familiar letters to John Page. Governor Fauquier. Studies law under George Wythe. Visits Annapolis and Philadelphia. His character as a lawyer. Patrick Henry. The stamp act. Is elected to the General Assembly. It denies the right of Great Britain to tax the colonies. The members meet at the Raleigh Tavern. Progress of discontents.

THOMAS JEFFERSON was born on the 2nd day of April, 1743, at a place called Shadwell, in what is now the county of Albe-. marle, but which then constituted a part of the county of Goochland. Though at present very near the centre of popu lation of Virginia, it was at that period almost a frontier settlement; and six years before, when his father first seated himself on it, he found but three or four settlers in that part of the country: yet such has been the progress of population, during a single life, that the settlements had extended, at the time of Mr. Jefferson's death, nearly 800 miles farther west.

His family, on the father's side, was, according to tradition, originally Welch, but the time when it first migrated to America does not appear. It has been traced back no farther than to Mr. Jefferson's grandfather, who lived at Osborne's, in the county of Chesterfield, and who had three sons. Of these, Thomas died young, Field settled on the southern border of the state, and left numerous descendants, and Peter, the father of the subject of this memoir, settled at Shadwell, as has been mentioned. His mother was Jane Randolph, of a numerous and wealthy family in Virginia, who, he says, "trace their pedigree far back in England and Scotland," to which, he adds, "let every one

ascribe the faith and merit he chooses." He had a brother younger than himself, and six sisters.

He was put to an English school at five years of age, and at nine he was placed under a Mr. Douglas, a Scotch clergyman, at whose school he was instructed in the Latin, Greek, and French languages, until he was thirteen, at which time he lost his father. He then was sent to the school of Mr. Maury, where he continued two years. He acquired from this gentleman, who was a good scholar, a taste for classical learning, which he retained ever afterwards.

Mr. James Maury, the late estimable American consul at Liverpool, and who still survives, is the son of Mr. Jefferson's preceptor, and was his classmate. According to this gentleman, Thomas Jefferson was distinguished at school for diligence and proficiency. He farther says, that whenever young Jefferson was desirous of a holiday, he seemed, from a certain shyness of disposition, averse to soliciting it himself, but would prevail upon some of his school-fellows to make the application; and if it proved successful, he immediately withdrew to some place of quiet, where he remained until he had made himself master of the task set for the class, after which he rejoined his young associates, and entered as heartily as any one into their sports and recreations. One of these was hunting in a neighbouring mountain, part of the south-west range, which traverses Albemarle, and which then and many years afterwards abounded with deer, wild turkies and other game. It was in the pure air of these mountains, and in the exercise of these manly sports, that he acquired that vigour of constitution which his erect carriage and light step exhibited to the last.

At the age of seventeen he was sent to William and Mary, the only college in the colony, where he remained two years; and to the advantages he here enjoyed, he, not without reason,

*When Mr. Jefferson, in a letter to Mr. Maury, fifty-seven years afterwards, reproached himself with the habit of procrastination, this companion of his early years must have thought him greatly altered in this particular. But in truth he was not changed, and his self-condemnation only shows that punctual and industrious as he really was, he fell short of the standard he aimed at.

attributes a decisive influence on his character and future destiny. Dr. William Small, who was a native of Scotland, and then professor of mathematics at William and Mary, seems to have added liberal sentiments and urbane manners to a large stock of science, as well as skill in communicating it; and won by his pupil's modesty, docility, and love of study, he soon formed for him so strong an attachment as to make him his daily companion. By the same professor, he was initiated in the arcana of general science, and more especially instructed in mathematics, ethics and belles-lettres. The value of such a friend and preceptor to such a pupil, is scarcely to be estimated. But for the incidents of so varied a course of instruction, it may be fairly presumed that Mr. Jefferson would not have been the author of the papers which gave him reputation, before he joined the first congress, and without which reputation he would not have been placed on the committee that drew the Declaration of Independence; or, if we can believe that he would nevertheless have been, in the first place, one of the seven delegates from Virginia, and in the next, one of that memorable committee, we may safely say that the Declaration, as well as other papers drawn by him, would have been far less worthy of their elevated purposes, and less an object of pride to the nation, and of honour to their author.

It was probably to that diversity of knowledge with which he was here imbued, and which characterizes the Scotch system of instruction, that Mr. Jefferson owed the general taste for science for which he was always distinguished among his compatriots; and although his time was chiefly given to the more pressing duties of legislator, diplomatist, or statesman, there were few Americans in his day who could boast of equal attainments in science and learning.

Whilst he was at college, he participated in the pleasures and amusements common to his age, without neglecting his studies. His favourite recreations were music and riding, and he is said to have been a good horseman, and to have performed Iwell on the violin. His bosom friend was the late Governor Page, who had a correspondent relish for science and classical

literature. Their friendship, founded on congeniality of taste and disposition, continued without interruption through life. Some of Mr. Jefferson's letters to this friend, soon after he left college, have been preserved, and extracts from them are now given, not because they indicate any extraordinary talent in the writer, but because they give us some insight into his character, before it had received any modification from his commerce with the world, and make us acquainted with circumstances of which there is no other existing memorial.*

Like most young collegians, at least of his day, he seems to have fallen in love in Williamsburg; and although the correspondence which gives us the beginning of this little episode in his life, does not inform us also of the conclusion, it leaves us to infer that it ended in disappointment on his part. It is agreed by Mr. Jefferson's cotemporaries that he was not handsome in his youth. He was tall, thin, and rawboned; had red hair, a freckled face, and pointed features. But with these disadvantages of exterior, his countenance was so highly expressive of intelligence and benevolence, he conversed so fluently and sensibly, and such a vein of pleasantry ran through his discourse, that he was even then a favourite with the sex; and as he advanced in life, when the expression of the features becomes more marked, and more enters into our estimate of manly beauty, he was esteemed a very good looking man in middle age, and quite a handsome old man. But to return to his youthful correspondence:

Dear Page:

Fairfield, December 25, 1762.

This very day, to others the day of greatest mirth and jollity, sees me overwhelmed with more and greater misfortunes than have befallen a descendant of Adam for these thousand years past I am sure; and perhaps, after excepting Job, since the

*I am indebted to John Page, Esq. for these letters to his father. They are probably the earliest specimens of Mr. Jefferson's epistolary writing extant. They are marked by the same graces of ease and simplicity which characterize his subsequent compositions.

creation of the world. I think his misfortunes were somewhat greater than mine: for although we may be pretty nearly on a level in other respects, yet, I thank my God, I have the advan tage of brother Job in this, that Satan has not as yet put forth his hand to load me with bodily afflictions. You must know, dear Page, that I am now in a house surrounded with enemies who take counsel together against my soul; and when I lay me down to rest, they say among themselves, come let us destroy him. I am sure if there is such a thing as a Devil in this world, he must have been here last night and have had some hand in contriving what happened to me. Do you think the cursed rats (at his instigation, I suppose) did not eat up my pocket-book, which was in my pocket, within a foot of my head? And not contented with plenty for the present, they carried away my jemmy worked silk garters, and half a dozen new minuets I had just got, to serve, I suppose, as provision for the winter. But of this I should not have accused the Devil, (because, you know rats will be rats, and hunger, without the addition of his instigations, might have urged them to do this,) if something worse, and from a different quarter, had not happened. You know it rained last night, or if you do not know it, I am sure I do. When I went to bed, I laid my watch in the usual place, and going to take her up after I arose this morning, I found her in the same place, it's true, but! Quantum mutatus ab illo! all afloat in water, let in at a leak in the roof of the house, and as silent and still as the rats that had eat my pocket-book. Now, you know, if chance had had any thing to do in this matter, there were a thousand other spots where it might have chanced to leak as well as at this one, which was perpendicularly over my watch. But I'll tell you; it's my opinion that the Devil came and bored the hole over it on purpose. Well, as I was saying, my poor watch had lost her speech. I should not have cared much for this, but something worse attended it; the subtle particles of the water with which the case was filled, had, by their penetration, so overcome the cohesion of the particles of the paper, of which my dear picture and watch paper were composed, that, in attempting to take them out to dry them, good