The inscription for the base was: BORN APRIL 2D, 1743, O. S. DIED His wishes were carried out,' the blank in the last line being filled with "July 4th, 1826." Governor Thomas Mann Randolph died on the 20th day of June, 1828. At some period before, he was riding on horseback near nightfall, on a wet cold day, when he overtook an aged man thinly clad, and apparently suffering. They were remote from any dwelling. Randolph unsolicited unbuckled his cloak, threw it on the old man, and rode on. He had a number of miles to go, and the exposure proved fatal to him. The gloom and misanthropy which had clouded his later years broke away at his dying couch. He expired at peace with all the world, and invoking blessings on every member of his family. Mrs. Randolph died on the 10th of October, 1836. Her health had not been quite as good as usual during the autumn, but its condition excited no uneasiness, and she was preparing to make a long journey to visit one of her daughters. She was subject to severe attacks of sick-headache, and was suffering from one of these without appearing unusually ill until a few moments before her death. In the efforts produced by the nausea, a small blood-vessel was ruptured in her head, and she expired almost instantly in the arms of her children. Three years after Mr. Jefferson's death (in 1829), appeared the first edition of his writings, published by his grandson who was the legatee of the papers.' In 1848, Congress appropriated twenty thousand dollars for the purchase of Mr. Jefferson's manuscripts of a public character, and six thousand for printing and publishing them "under 1 His monument is in the centre of a close group of graves, which are covered with horizontal tablets of white marble, on a level with the ground. His wife lies on one side of him, his youngest daughter on the other, Mrs. Randolph at right angles at the head of these, and Governor Randolph at their feet. The grave of Dabney Carr (the elder) is a yard or two off. 2 These reopened wounds, and furnished new grounds of attack. Nowhere was this warfare more rancorously prosecuted than by a few persons in Charlottesville. For a circumstance which this led to, and for a decisive expression of the feelings of the people of Albemarle on the subject, see APPENDIX No. 37. the authority of the joint committee on the Library, the whole or any part thereof to be printed as the said committee might direct." The Library committee employed Professor Henry A. Washington of Virginia to edit the papers. This, which we have generally mentioned as the Congress Edition of Mr. Jefferson's Works, was published in nine volumes octavo in 1853 and 1854. The most cursory reader of this biography cannot fail to see how much we must have been indebted for personal information and details to Mr. Jefferson's family in a great many instances where no express acknowledgments have been made. Accordingly, without suggestion from them or from any other quarter, we feel desirous to say that in no instance have that family evinced an inclination to re-open or wage any controversies through these pages. Where personal circumstances have required their explanations, their information has stopped at the boundaries of necessary defence. While we make no apology for the truth in whatever form we have presented it, we are not willing that others incur any portion of what is our own proper and sole responsibility.' 1 For an important correction in regard to Patrick Henry, see APPENDIX No. 38. Should other errors of fact or omissions be discovered before the completion of the work, they will be included in same Appendix. APPENDIX. APPENDIX NO. I.-VOL. I. p. 123. Six Letters from Mr. Jefferson to his Brother-in-Law, Francis Eppes, in 1775. PHILADELPHIA, June 26th, 1775. DEAR SIR: You will before this have heard that the war is now heartily entered into, without a prospect of accommodation but through the effectual interposition of arms. General Gage has received considerable reinforcements, though not to the whole amount of what was expected. There has lately been an action at the outlet of the town of Boston. The particulars we have not yet been able to get with certainty; the event, however, was considerably in our favor as to the numbers killed. Our account says we had between 40 and 70 killed, and 140 wounded. The enemy has certainly 500 wounded and the same account supposes that number killed; but judging from the proportion of wounded and slain on our part, they should not have perhaps above two hundred killed. This happened on Saturday, and on Monday, when the express came away, the provincials had begun to make another attack. Washington set out from here on Friday last as generalissimo of all the provincial troops in North America. Ward and Lee are appointed major-generals and Gates adjutant. We are exceedingly anxious till we hear of their arrival at Boston, as it is evident to every one that the provincial encampment is the most injudicious that can possibly be conceived. For the sole purpose of covering two small towns near Boston they have encamped so near the line of the ministerial army that the sentries may converse. Gage, too, being well fortified, is in little danger of an attack from them; while their situation is such that he may attack them when he pleases, and if he is unsuccessful, they cannot pursue him a foot scarcely, on account of the ships and floating batteries bearing on the Neck of Boston. If no evil arises from this till General Washington arrives, we may expect to hear of his withdrawing the provincial troops to a greater distance. The Congress have directed 20,000 men to be raised, and hope by a vigorous campaign to dispose our enemies to treaty. Governor Carleton has been spiriting up the Canadian Indians to fall on our back settlements; but this we hope will be prevented. Governor Skeene, appointed to take charge of the fortresses on the lakes, was intercepted here, and as we had already taken possession of those fortifications and provided a governor, there was no occasion for lowers, who have found an interest in sophisticating and perverting the simple doctrines he taught, by engrafting on them the mysticisms of a Grecian sophist, frittering them into subtleties, and obscuring them with jargon, until they haves caused good men to reject the whole in disgust, and to view Jesus himself as an impostor. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, a system of morals is presented to us, which, if filled up in the style and spirit of the rich fragments he left us, would be the most perfect and sublime that has ever been taught by man. The question of his being a member of the Godhead, or in direct communication with it, claimed for him by some of his followers, and denied by others, is foreign to the present view, which is merely an estimate of the intrinsic merits of his doctrines. 1. He corrected the Deism of the Jews, confirming them in their belief of one only God, and giving them juster notions of his attributes and government. 2. His moral doctrines, relating to kindred and friends, were more pure and perfect than those of the most correct of the philosophers, and greatly more so than those of the Jews; and they went far beyond both in inculcating universal philanthropy not only to kindred and friends, to neighbors and countrymen, but to all mankind, gathering all into one family, under the bonds of love, charity, peace, common wants and common aids. A development of this head will evince the peculiar superiority of the system of Jesus over all others. 3. The precepts of philosophy, and of the Hebrew code, laid hold of actions only. He pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man; erected his tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head. 4. He taught, emphatically, the doctrines of a future state, which was either doubted, or disbelieved by the Jews; and wielded it with efficacy, as an important incentive, supplementary to the other motives to moral conduct. Jefferson did not assent to all of Priestley's leading views. He wrote to John Adams, August 22d, 1813: "You are right in supposing, in one of yours, that I had not read much of Priestley's Predestination, his no-soul system, or his controversy with Horsley. But I have read his Corruptions of Christianity, and Early Opinions of Jesus, over and over again; and I rest on them, and on Middleton's writings, especially his letters from Rome, and to Waterland, as the basis of my own faith. These writings have never been answered, nor can be answered, by quoting historical proofs, as they have done. For these facts, therefore, I cling to their learning, so much superior to my own." And to the same, January 24th, 1814: "I think with you that Priestley, in his comparison of the doctrines of philosophy and revelation, did not do justice to the undertaking. But he felt himself pressed by the hand of death." He wrote the Rev. Mr. Whittemore, June 5th, 1822, that he had "never permitted himself to meditate a specified creed "that those "formulas had been the bane and ruin of the Christian |
