against him, that of Governor William Plumer of New Hampshire, who was elected on the Republican ticket. Various expressions of familiar opinions, made during this year, do not require repetition. To several correspondents Mr. Jefferson complained that the wrist fractured or dislocated in France in 1786, and which had never entirely recovered, was now becoming so stiff from the effects of age, that writing was a slow and painful operation to him. His general health was not good. As early as November of the preceding year (1819) he had been nearly rendered unable to walk, by a swelling of his limbs, occasioned by debility; but he continued to ride daily to the University, a distance, going and returning, of eight miles, to superintend the erection of the buildings. He placed a telescope on one of the terraces of his house, which enabled him to see from thence how the workmen were employed at all hours of the day. He was earnestly urged by his physician in the opening of 1820, to suspend this unremitting care and activity, by making a long visit to Poplar Forest; but he could not then tear himself from his favorite employment, and the journey was deferred until November. It was consequently made with much less benefit, and at the close of the year he felt himself only in a state of "slow and uncertain convalescence." His constitution, however, rallied in the spring of 1821, and this was a year to him of health and activity. His appearance at this time of life may be judged by Sully's portrait at West Point, which the painter made a journey to Monticello to execute. Timothy Pickering wrote to Mr. Jefferson in February, 1821, inclosing to him a discourse of the Rev. Dr. Channing, and making what was regarded as some kind of personal overture, as appears in the following paragraph of the reply, dated February 27th: "I have received, sir, your favor of the 12th, and I assure you I received it with pleasure. It is true, as you say, that we have differed in political opinions; but I can say with equal truth, that I never suffered a political to become a personal difference. I have been left on this ground by some friends whom I dearly loved, but I was never the first to separate. With some others, of politics different from mine, I have continued in the warmest friendship to this day, and to all, and to yourself particularly, I have ever done moral justice." This is as purely characteristic as was the fact that Picker ing, three years later, without a particle of new personal aggression from Mr. Jefferson, made that most offensive and malignant attack on him which has already been noticed in connection with the Mazzei letter. Jefferson wrote to General Dearborn, August 17th: "I am happy to hear of his [John Adams's] good health. I think he will outlive us all, I mean the Declaration-men, although our senior since the death of Colonel Floyd. It is a race in which I have no ambition to win. Man, like the fruit he eats, has his period of ripeness. Like that, too, if he continues longer hanging to the stem, it is but a useless and unsightly appendage." Adams wrote to Jefferson, September 24th: "As Brother Floyd has gone, I am now the oldest of the little Congressional group that remain. I may, therefore, rationally hope to be the first to depart; and as you are the youngest and most energetic in mind and body, you may therefore rationally hope to be the last to take your flight, and to rake up the fire, as Father Sherman, who always staid to the last, and commonly two days afterwards, used to say, that it was his office to sit up and rake the ashes over the coals.' And much satisfaction may you have in your office." Mr. Jefferson's customary views in regard to the independence of the different branches of the General Government of each other, and of the attempts of the judiciary to encroach on the executive and legislative departments, are frequently repeated in 1821. Col. Taylor of Caroline, Judge Roane, and Jefferson's son-in-law Governor Randolph (elected Governor in 1819), desired him to permit some of his letters on this topic to be published. He declined on the ground that they were not exactly proper" for publication-that they "contained matter which might give offence to the judges without adding strength to the opinion." He therefore prepared a draft which he allowed to be printed in which all offensive expressions were omitted. He wrote Mr. Macon, November 23d, the same year: "My confidence, as you kindly observed, has been often abused by the publication of my letters for the purposes of interest or vanity, and it has been to me the source of much pain to be exhibited before the public in forms not meant for them. I receive letters expressed in the most friendly and even affectionate terms, sometimes, perhaps, asking my opinion on some subject. I cannot refuse to answer such letters, nor can I do it drily and suspiciously. Among a score or two of such correspondents, one perhaps betrays me. I feel it mortifyingly, but conclude I had better incur one treachery than offend a score or two of good people. I sometimes expressly desire that my letter may not be published; but this is so like requesting a man not to steal or cheat, that I am ashamed of it after I have done it." There are other interesting letters of 1821, but the correspondence of the year was lighter than usual, owing to the activity of Mr. Jefferson's occupations. He wrote, March 6th, 1822, to Jedediah Morse, who proposed to him to become a member of a Society for the civilization and improvement of the Indian tribes. It was to consist of ex-Presidents, heads of Departments, the United States Judiciary, Governors of States, Members of Congress, General Officers of the Army, Presidents of Colleges and Theological Seminaries, the Clergy, etc., etc., ex officio, and of such private individuals as would pay a certain price for membership. Mr. Jefferson declared that the expressed object of the association was "one which he had ever had much at heart," but he declined to become a member of it, stating his objections at length to its nature and magnitude. These were in part similar to those urged at an earlier day by himself and Franklin against the Cincinnati. Party animosity continued to burn against Jefferson. He was accused in the newspapers by a writer signing himself " A Native Virginian," of having overdrawn his account as Minister to France, to the amount of one thousand one hundred and fortyeight dollars! Jefferson replied, May 13th, in a public letter to Messrs. Ritchie & Gooch, of the Richmond Enquirer. The assailant returned to the charge, sustaining himself by quoting pretended entries from the public accounts-aware, doubtless, that their forged character could not be proved from the original documents, which were destroyed in the Register's office when the public buildings were burned by the British in 1814. Unfortunately, however, for this ingenious knave, Mr. Jefferson had preserved a press copy of his public account with the Government. In his answer, he also cited numerous entries in his private account books. We have been at the pains to examine the originals, and those feeling any further curiosity in the matter will find it explained in Appendix.' Nothing can be given more strictly (and it may be added, interestingly) biographical, at this period, than the following: 1 See APPENDIX, No. 31. TO JOHN ADAMS. MONTICELLO, June 1, 1822. It is very long, my dear sir, since I have written to you. My dislocated wrist is now become so stiff that I write slow and with pain, and therefore write as little as I can. Yet it is due to mutual friendship to ask once in a while how we do. The papers tell us that General Stark is off at the age of 93. Charles Thompson still lives at about the same age, cheerful, slender as a grasshopper, and so much without memory that he scarcely recognizes the members of his household. An intimate friend of his called on him not long since; it was difficult to make him recollect who he was, and, sitting one hour, he told him the same story four times over. Is this life? "With lab'ring step To tread our former footsteps? pace the round Eternal?-to beat and beat The beaten track? to see what we have seen, To taste the tasted? o'er our palates to decant It is at most but the life of a cabbage; surely not worth a wish. When all our faculties have left, or are leaving us, one by one-sight, hearing, memory-every avenue of pleasing sensation is closed, and athumy, debility, and malaise left in their places-when friends of our youth are all gone, and a generation is risen around us whom we know not, is death an evil? "When one by one our ties are torn, And friend from friend is snatched forlorn, Oh! then how sweet it is to die! When trembling limbs refuse their weight, I really think so. I have ever dreaded a doting old age; and my health haɛ been generally so good, and is now so good, that I dread it still. The rapid decline of my strength during the last winter has made me hope sometimes that I see land. During summer I enjoy its temperature, but I shudder at the approach of winter, and wish I could sleep through it with the dormouse, and only wake with him in spring, if ever. They say that Stark could walk about his room. I am told you walk well and firmly. I can only reach my garden, and that with sensible fatigue. I ride, however, daily. But reading is my delight. I should wish never to put pen to paper; and the more because of the treacherous practice some people have of publishing one's letters without leave. Lord Mansfield declared it a breach of trust, and punishable at law. I think it should be a penitentiary felony; yet you will have seen that they have drawn me out into the arena of the newspapers; although I know it is too late for me to buckle on the armor of youth, yet my indignation would not permit me passively to receive the kick of an ass. 1 To turn to the news of the day, it seems that the Cannibals of Europe are going to eating one another again. A war between Russia and Turkey is like the battle of the kite and snake. Whichever destroys the other, leaves a destroyer the less 1 Alluding to his letters to Ritchie & Gooch, in reply to a "Native Virginiau." for the world. This pugnacious humor of mankind seems to be the law of his nature, one of the obstacles to too great multiplication provided in the mechanism of the universe. The cocks of the henyard kill one another. Bears, bulls, rams, do the same. And the horse, in his wild state, kills all the young males, until worn down with age and war, some vigorous youth kills him, and takes to himself the harem of females. I hope we shall prove how much happier for man the Quaker policy is, and that the life of the feeder is better than that of the fighter; and it is some consolation that the desolation by these maniacs of one part of the earth is the means of improving it in other parts. Let the latter be our office, and let us milk the cow, while the Russian holds her by the horns, and the Turk by the tail. God bless you, and give you health, strength, and good spirits, and as much of life as you think worth having. Mr. Adams suggested the publication of this letter, to protect the writer of it, in future, from the annoyances of which he complained. Jefferson so far assented as to leave the matter to the discretion of his friend. The following mournfully sounding extract from his reply, contains some astonishing state ments: "I do not know how far you may suffer, as I do, under the persecution of letters, of which every mail brings a fresh load. They are letters of inquiry, for the most part, always of good will, sometimes from friends whom I esteem, but much oftener from persons whose names are unknown to me, but written kindly and civilly, and to which, therefore, civility requires answers. Perhaps the better known failure of your hand in its function of writing may shield you in greater degree from this distress, and so far qualify the misfortune of its disability. I happened to turn to my letter-list some time ago, and a curiosity was excited to count those received in a single year. It was the year before the last. I found the number to be one thousand two hundred and sixty-seven, many of them requiring answers of elaborate research, and all to be answered with due attention and consideration. Take an average of this number for a week or a day, and I will repeat the question suggested by other considerations in mine of the 1st. Is this life? At best it is but the life of a mill-horse, who sees no end to his circle but in death. To such a life, that of a cabbage is paradise. It occurs then, that my condition of existence, truly stated in that letter, if better known, might check the kind indiscretions which are so heavily oppressing the departing hours of life. Such a relief would, to me, be an ineffable blessing. But yours of the 11th, equally interesting and affecting, should accompany that to which it is an answer. The two, taken together, would excite a joint interest, and place before our fellow-citizens the present condition of two ancient servants, who having faithfully performed their forty or fifty campaigns, stipendiis omnibus expletis, have a reasonable claim to repose from all disturbance in the sanctuary of invalids and superannuates.” What a lesson this to the herd of epistolary lion-hunters, and to a smaller and less ambitious class of persecutors, who only forget that some thousands of other persons are as likely as themselves to desire the opinions or the autograph of such a man as |