The commercial interests had been the first to denounce the English maritime regulations. The seizures which took place under the orders in council of November 6th, 1793, produced a tempest of excitement among them. Nothing but the organization of an imposing embassy (Mr. Jay's) arrested the current of the public mind in favor of war. The same interests were the first to call for redress or war, when in 1805 England enforced the rule of 1756 towards neutrals '-a rule which fell with great severity on our expanded commerce." These interests becomingly resented the British orders in council of 1806-7. The outrage on the Chesapeake had called out a lively burst of feeling from the maritime Federalists in the very emporium of New England.' Yet when the Embargo was resisted by the same class to the verge of insurrection, they proposed no practical alternative but a submission to the maritime regulations of England! This, probably, shows that there was no feasible and honorable substi

The Boston Memorial, January 20th, 1806 (signed in behalf of themselves and their constituents, the merchants of Boston generally, by James Lloyd, jr., David Green, Arnold Welles, David Sears, John Coffin Jones, George Cabot, and Thomas H. Perkins), declared these orders "would annihilate or greatly diminish the commerce of neutral nations"-that they "only served to invite depredation, to bankrupt ourselves and enrich others, until such commerce be swept from the ocean,' etc. that they were "unsound in point of principle, offensive in practice "-that the memorialists trusted "that such measures would, in consequence, be promptly adopted as would tend to disembarrass our commerce, assert our rights, and support the dignity of the United States."

The merchants and chamber of commerce of New Haven, in a memorial signed by Henry Dagget, president of the chamber of commerce (February 7th, 1806), more vehe mently declared that "all nations should combine against such innovations on their rights"-should firmly resist every encroachment upon the rights of neutral commerce -and they pledged themselves to give aid and support to every measure of Government calculated to accomplish this important object.'

The merchants of Newburyport used equally decisive language as to the evil and the remedy, in a memorial dated December, 1805, and signed by a committee of merchants, consisting of Ebenezer Stocker, Stephen Howard, Edward Tappan, John Pearson, William Bartlet, Moses Howard, and William Earls.

The inhabitants of Salem, generally, in a strong memorial, dated January 20, 1806, pronounced the orders "a mere pretext for predatory seizures," and declared that if conciliation could not effect the purpose of justice, and an appeal to arms was the last and necessary protection of honor, they felt no disposition to decline the common danger"-that "they felt no hesitation to pledge their lives and properties in support of the measures which might be adopted to vindicate the public rights, and redress the public wrongs.' The committee signing this paper, were John Hathorne, Joseph Sprague, Jonathan Mason, Benj. Crowninshield, jr., Joseph White, jr., and Joseph Story.

The New York Memorial was as strong as that of Boston, and was signed in behalf of the merchants generally, by John Broome, Oliver Wolcott, and forty-seven others, including the principal Federal merchants of the city.

The Philadelphia Memorial held the same tone, and was signed by a committee of twenty, including Thomas Fitzsimmons, and the principal Federalists.

2 The value of exports from the United States, foreign and domestic, during the first four years of General Washington's Presidency, was less than $100,000,000. During the first four years of Mr. Jefferson's Presidency, it exceeded $330,000,000, and about half of it ($163,287,000) was foreign-chiefly the production of the colonies of enemies of Great Britain, so that it was exposed to capture under the English regulations of 1805. 3 See note 1, p. 284.

tute for commercial restrictions but war. That fact was distinctly asserted in a memorial presented to the Government just before the final declaration of war, by some of the principal commercial characters of New York. The memorialists were headed by the profoundly sagacious John Jacob Astor, and three-quarters of them were Federalists.'

It must always be conceded that the Embargo was only a choice of evils. It was a hard and painful alternative, but for a time was probably the best one. As one of its most eloquent defenders, John Quincy Adams, remarked, "the orders in council, if submitted to, would have degraded us to the condition of colonies-if resisted, would have fattened the wolves of plunder with our spoils. The Embargo was the only shelter. from the tempest-the last refuge of our violated peace.""

And, finally, the policy on which it was based, has the convincing argument of ultimate success in its favor. The effect of the Non-intercourse law on France and England was the same in kind with that of the Embargo, and its extent was less. Those nations, finally, repealed their obnoxious maritime regulations against us, on condition that we would repeal that law. It weighs nothing against the evidence furnished by this fact, that the English repeal did not take place until five days. after our declaration of war against her. She acted without any knowledge of that declaration.

One of the characteristics of Mr. Jefferson's Presidency which stands forth most prominently, is its perfect consistency with the principles he avowed before his accession to that office. Indeed, the remark extends to all parts of his public life. He underwent one great ostensible change of political principlethat which took place in the minds of Franklin, the Adamses, Patrick Henry, and Washington, in 1775 or 1776-the change. from acquiescence in a constitutional mixed government to the warm support of a purely representative one. In Mr. Jefferson's case, it came so rapidly and was so complete, that we cannot help suspecting the earlier feeling was the result of habit, and that the latter accorded with the natural biases of his mind.

1 See APPENDIX, No. 22.

2 These words occur in Mr. Adams's letter to Harrison Gray Otis, published in 1808, to justify his own vote for the Embargo, and to answer Pickering's letter to Governor Sullivan against that measure. Yet Mr. Adams lived to sneer, seemingly, at this and other measures of the Administration, which he also contemporaneously voted for, and violently supported in the partisan publications of the day!

Most of the great leaders of the Revolution became conscientious Republicans; but they stopped short of democracy—and those who reached it, reached it gradually. Mr. Jefferson's mind appears to have had no subsequent growth in this direction. His republicanism and his democracy were not like rills gradually swelled into rivers by new accessions; they were like those outlets of seas, which are as deep and broad at their sources as at their mouths. More than most statesmen, he passed through all those political vicissitudes which make both victory and retaliation sweet-which wed the heart to the possession of power-which foster the disposition to wield power arbitrarily. He retired from public life without having done an act, or expressed a sentiment which any candid and intelligent friend or opponent will adjudge to imply an intentional deviation from the principles he professed.

He passed through public life, too, unchanged, unchilled, unhardened, in his private feelings. His faith in humanity had only increased, his hopes of the world's future had only grown brighter.

His relations with his Cabinet and with the other officers of the executive departments had been uniformly of the most agreeable character. Not a transient or trifling misunderstanding-not a cold word had ever occurred between him and one of them. Separated from each other by irreconcilable estrangements, after his firm and gentle influence ceased to form the bond of union between them, all of them agreed through life in remaining the devoted political admirers and personal friends of their former chief. It would be doing injustice to Mr. Jefferson's Federal opponents in Congress, to omit to say, that it is believed that those of them who became familiarly acquainted with him, thenceforth, without a single exception, laid aside their personal prejudices, and ceased to attack him in public or private. Among his staunchest friends were the wives and daughters of some very eminent Federalists. His servants at Washington were so attached to him that several of them wept on taking leave of him.

We shall offer no extended review of his Administration. It originated or reaffirmed nearly all the State maxims that still. continue to control our government; and these and their daily workings are open to all. It may at least be said, that hence

forth our policies were our own. We were an independent nation in spirit as well as form. We had a system which was supposed to be adapted to our particular wants and situation as a people, and which was our free choice. We were no longer copyists or colonists in spirit-we were Americans.

Mr. Jefferson's feelings in bidding a final farewell to office, after holding it with but a few brief intervals for nearly half a century, were thus described by him in a letter to his old friend. Dupont de Nemours, written two days before the expiration of his Presidency:

"Within a few days I retire to my family, my books and farms; and having gained the harbor myself, I shall look on my friends still buffeting the storm with anxiety indeed, but not with envy. Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power. Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions. I thank God for the opportunity of retiring from them without censure, and carrying with me the most consoling proofs of public approbation. I leave everything in the hands of men so able to take care of them, that if we are destined to meet misfortunes, it will be because no human wisdom could avert them. Should you return to the United States, perhaps your curiosity may lead you to visit the hermit of Monticello. He will receive you with affection and delight; hailing you in the meantime with his affectionate salutations and assurances of constant esteem and respect."

Addresses poured in upon him, on his approaching retirement, from every part of the Union. They came from legislatures, and popular bodies-from State, city, county, and town, conventions and meetings-from political, ecclesiastical, military, industrial, and almost all other associations. We will quote one of them as presenting the spirit of the whole. The following address (written by William Wirt) was moved in the Virginia Legislature, and passed, February 6th, by a vote of about five to one:

SIR:

The General Assembly of your native State cannot close their session without acknowledging your services in the office which you are just about to lay down, and bidding you a respectful and affectionate farewell.

We have to thank you for the model of an administration conducted on the purest principles of republicanism; for pomp and state laid aside; patronage discarded; internal taxes abolished; a host of superfluous officers disbanded; the monarchic maxim that a national debt is a national blessing, renounced, and more than thirty-three millions of our debt discharged; the native right to near one hun

dred millions of acres of our national domain extinguished; and without the guilt or calamities of conquest, a vast and fertile region added to our country, far more extensive than her original possessions, bringing along with it the Mississippi and the port of Orleans, the trade of the West to the Pacific ocean, and in the intrinsic value of the land itself, a source of permanent and almost inexhaustible revenue. These are points in your Administration which the historian will not fail to seize, to expand, and to teach posterity to dwell upon with delight. Nor will he forget our peace with the civilized world, preserved through a season of uncommon difficulty and trial; the good will cultivated with the unfortunate aborigines of our country, and the civilization humanely extended among them; the lesson taught the inhabitants of the coast of Barbary, that we have the means of chastising their piratical encroachments, and awing them into justice; and that theme, which, above all others, the historic genius will hang upon with rapture, the liberty of speech and the press preserved inviolate, without which genius and science are given to man in vain.

In the principles on which you have administered the government, we see only the continuation and maturity of the same virtues and abilities which drew upon you in your youth the resentment of Dunmore. From the first brilliant and happy moment of your resistance to foreign tyranny until the present day, we mark with pleasure and with gratitude the same uniform and consistent character-the same warm and devoted attachment to liberty and the Republic, the same Roman love of your country, her rights, her peace, her honor, her prosperity.

How blessed will be the retirement into which you are about to go! How deservedly blessed will it be! For you carry with you the richest of all rewards, the recollection of a life well spent in the service of your country, and proofs the most decisive of the love, the gratitude, the veneration of your countrymen.

That your retirement may be as happy as your life has been virtuous and useful; that our youth may see in the blissful close of your days, an additional inducement to form themselves on your model, is the devout and earnest prayer of your fellow-citizens who compose the General Assembly of Virginia.

To this address, transmitted by his friend Governor John Tyler (father of ex-President Tyler), Mr. Jefferson returned the following reply:

February 16th, 1809.

I receive with peculiar sensibility the affectionate address of the General Assembly of my native State, on my approaching retirement from the office with which I have been honored by the nation at large. Having been one of those who entered into public life at the commencement of an era the most extraordinary which the history of man has ever yet presented to his contemplation, I claim nothing more, for the part I have acted in it, than a common merit of having, with others, faithfully endeavored to do my duty in the several stations allotted me. In the measures which you are pleased particularly to approve, I have been aided by the wisdom and patriotism of the national legislature, and the talents and virtues of the able coadjutors with whom it has been my happiness to be associated, and to whose valuable and faithful services I with pleasure and gratitude bear witness.

From the moment that to preserve our rights a change of government became necessary, no doubt could be entertained that a republican form was most corsonant with reason, with right, with the freedom of man, and with the character