fied at the prospect of a solid peace with England,' and he was proportionably disappointed. The effect of the rejection was still more serious on a class of young, ardent and splendid men, like Clay, Calhoun and Grundy, who were soon to be the leaders of the Republican party. It converted them into determined advocates of war. In this they got a year or two ahead of the seniors; but England took good care to leave no chance for a chasm between front and rear, for she swelled her aggressions until the coldest were ready to draw the sword.

The following extract from a letter from Mr. Jefferson to Governor Jay (April 7th, 1809), embodies views several times expressed at about the same period :

"An equilibrium of agriculture, manufactures and commerce, is certainly become essential to our independence. Manufactures sufficient for our consumption, of what we raise the raw material (and no more). Commerce sufficient to carry the surplus produce of agriculture beyond our own consumption, to a market for exchanging it for articles we cannot raise (and no more). These are the true limits of manufactures and commerce. To go beyond them is to increase our dependence on foreign nations and our liability to war."

Dissensions in Mr. Madison's Cabinet called out several letters from Mr. Jefferson during the year. The President had retained the same gentlemen who served with himself in his predecessor's Cabinet, except Dearborn, Secretary of War, who had determined to retire some time before the close of Mr. Jefferson's term, and who only deferred his resignation for the latter event. The State Department, which had been held by Madison, was filled by Robert Smith, the Secretary of the Navy; and Paul Hamilton, of South Carolina, was appointed to the Navy department. General Dearborn's place at the War bureau, was filled by Dr. William Eustis, the former member of Congress from Boston. Gallatin, Granger, and Rodney retained their places. Feuds presently sprung up among these previously harmonious associates, and particularly between Smith and Gallatin. These extended to their friends in Congress, and became so serious, that Gallatin thought of retiring. Jefferson implored him not to do so in a letter dated October 11th (1809), from which we take the following:

In a letter of the period to his bosom confidant, General Dearborn, he spoke of England as a power "with which mutual interests would urge a mutual and affectionate intercourse.'

"I consider the fortunes of our republic as depending, in an eminent degree, on the extinguishment of the public debt before we engage in any war: because, that done, we shall have revenue enough to improve our country in peace and defend it in war, without recurring either to new taxes or loans. But if the debt should once more be swelled to a formidable size, its entire discharge will be despaired of, and we shall be committed to the English career of debt, corruption and rottenness, closing with revolution. The discharge of the debt, therefore, is vital to the destinies of our government, and it hangs on Mr. Madison and yourself alone. We shall never see another President and Secretary of the Treasury making all other objects subordinate to this. Were either of you to be lost to the public, that great hope is lost. I had always cherished the idea that you would fix on that object the measure of your fame, and of the gratitude which our country will owe you."

These entreaties prevailed.

One of Mr. Jefferson's occasional occupations, during 1809, was the careful perusal of Marshall's Life of Washington, and the correction of what, in his opinion, "was wrong" in that production. He commenced committing to paper (so he wrote Barlow, Oct. 8th) "such facts and annotations as the reading of that work brought into his recollection." He promised to send these to his correspondent, to be used in a history of the United States, which the latter then contemplated writing. Barlow did not proceed with the work, and whether the memoranda were sent to him does not appear. No such paper is in possession of Mr. Jefferson's family; and if it is among his papers in the State department at Washington, its publication in Professor Washington's (Congress) edition of his Works would have been expected. We are inclined to think, from several circumstances, that the design ultimately resolved itself into the revision of his Ana, and prefixing an introduction to them in 1818.

Mr. Jefferson communicated to Dr. Barton, in September, a very disagreeable loss. In removing his effects from Washington, a large trunk, sent round by water, was broken open by thieves on the James River, and its contents cast into the stream. These consisted of fifty Indian vocabularies, which he had spent thirty years in collecting, and probably with better opportunities than ever had been, or ever could again be, possessed by any other individual. Some of these dialects were already nearly or quite extinct, and others had become commingled by the crowding together and mixture of the different clans, as they receded. before the whites. But a few muddy and defaced leaves of this great collection were ever recovered. It is difficult to conceive VOL. III.-21

a more annoying loss to the owner, or to the student in our aboriginal philology and history.

Among his casual opinions worth mention, we find a recommendation of county circulating libraries-his determination (no new one with him) to confine his contributions for literary, charitable and other useful institutions to those in some degree under his supervision, instead of making his gratuities inconsiderable by scattering them over a vast surface-and his severe denunciation of the growing custom of making speeches two or three days long in Congress.

The spring of 1809 had been unusually cold and backward in Virginia. Mr. Jefferson did not succeed in getting in a large breadth of crops, and the season turned out a very unpropitious one. To add to injuries occasioned by weather, his lands, during his residence in Washington, had been, in spite of all his efforts, deteriorating in fertility. Under the evils of absenteeism and overseers, important directions had been neglected, or obeyed in a half-way and slovenly manner. Everything was out of repair. There had been one standing excuse for every short-coming: "The force had been worked as hard as it could be, without disobeying his orders." His directions had always been imperative to overtask his servants under no circumstances-that whatever else suffered, they must not suffer that where there was a doubt on this subject, they must have the benefit of it. The consequences were, that not much hard work was done at Monticello; and the "sick-list" was reached with a facility which possibly sometimes encouraged deception. In these respects, matters were not materially mended by his return home. He made good economical arrangements on paper, but he could not endure to see sweat flow to secure their performance. His "force" did not perform the amount of labor ordinarily required by good farmers of the most humane dispositions, nor nearly so much as is commonly performed by white hired laborers. He generally went to bed the most tired, if not the only tired man, on his farm. He thus described his habits of life in a letter to Kosciusko (February 26th, 1810):

"My mornings are devoted to correspondence. From breakfast to dinner, I am in my shops, my garden, or on horseback among my farms; from dinner to dark, I give to society and recreation with my neighbors and friends; and from candle

light to early bed-time, I read. My health is perfect; and my strength considerably reinforced by the activity of the course I pursue; perhaps it is as great as usually falls to the lot of near sixty-seven years of age. I talk of ploughs and harrows, of seeding and harvesting, with my neighbors, and of politics too, if they choose, with as little reserve as the rest of my fellow-citizens, and feel, at length, the blessing of being free to say and do what I please, without being responsible for it to any mortal. A part of my occupation, and by no means the least pleasing, is the direction of the studies of such young men as ask it. They place themselves in the neighboring village, and have the use of my library and counsel, and make a part of my society. In advising the course of their reading, I endeavor to keep their attention fixed on the main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. So that coming to bear a share in the councils and government of their country, they will keep ever in view the sole objects of all legitimate government.

"Instead of the unalloyed happiness of retiring unembarrassed and independent, to the enjoyment of my estate, which is ample for my limited views, I have to pass such a length of time in a thraldom of mind never before known to me. Except for this, my happiness would have been perfect. That yours may never know disturbance, and that you may enjoy as many years of life, health and ease as yourself shall wish, is the sincere prayer of your constant and affectionate friend."

In the last paragraph, we have the writer's first particular allusion, in his correspondence, to his pecuniary difficulties, and it is one of the very few he ever uttered. The disastrous sequel of those difficulties is well known, but the causes which led to them have been misunderstood and grossly misrepresented. It is due to him that the public should know whether he was a weak visionary, squandering his property in absurd undertakings, or whether his fortunes sunk as any other man's whose forte was not acquisition would be likely to sink, under similar circumstances. And it is now time to enter upon this inquiry.

His property, patrimonial and acquired, his income in earlier life, and his business habits, have already been stated.' He has been quoted as saying, that the estate inherited by his wife, "after the debts should be paid," about equalled his own "patrimony," by which latter word it was conjectured he meant property. But these debts had to be paid more than once, and they proved a canker to his fortune. It has been seen that his wife's share of the British debt on her father's estate, was £3,749 128., that he made sales of property at three different periods to meet it, and that it ultimately "swept nearly half of his estate."

1 See vol. i., 65, et seq.

2 See Col. Randolph's letter to us. ib.

The first of these sales took place in 1776. He disposed of lands to the amount of £4,200, and not receiving his pay in hand, offered the bonds to Mr. Evans, the agent of the creditors. They were declined. The creditors, of course, fairly had their option in this, but the result, without proving beneficial to them, was particularly injurious to their debtor. The bonds, by the conditions of the subsequent treaty of peace, would have been payable in gold and silver to British holders, and the makers of them were amply responsible. But, although Mr. Jefferson had sold before the emission of paper money, and at hard money prices, he was compelled to receive his pay in the former when it was worth but about two and a half per cent. of its nominal value.

The State of Virginia, crushed under the calamities of the war, was then calling on her citizens who owed money to British subjects, to bring it into the treasury to be applied to the support of the war-stipulating to become answerable for the British debts. Mr. Jefferson deposited in the treasury the paper money he had received in payment of his bonds. English remittances were generally suspended during the war, owing to the great risk of capture. Subsequently to the war, and before Virginia had determined what action to take in regard to the discharge of her engagements, Mr. Jefferson wrote to his English creditors, from Paris (January 5th, 1787), a letter, from which we take a few extracts:

"I am desirous of arranging with you such just and practicable conditions as will ascertain to you the terms at which you will receive my part of your debt, and give me the satisfaction of knowing that you are contented. What the laws of Virginia are, or may be, will in no wise influence my conduct. Substantial justice is my object, as decided by reason, and not by authority or compulsion."

After mentioning his deposit in the Virginia treasury to the credit of his correspondents, he added:

"Subsequent events have been such, that the State cannot, and ought noc, to pay the same nominal sum in gold or silver, which they received in paper; nor is it certain what they will do: my intention being, and having always been, that, whatever the State decides, you shall receive my part of your debt fully. I am ready to remove all difficulty arising from this deposit, to take back to myself the demand against the State, and to consider the deposit as originally made for myself, and not for you." 1

He however stated a variety of considerations, not necessary here to be repeated, which ought, he thought, to exempt him from the payment of interest during the war.