Jefferson asks for leave of Absence.--Character of the Prince
of Wales.--Letters to Madame de Brehan.--Fondness for Natural
History.--Anecdote told by Webster.--Jefferson's Opinion of
Chemistry.--Letter to Professor Willard.--Martha Jefferson.--
She wishes to enter a Convent.--Her Father takes her Home.--He
is impatient to return to Virginia.--Letter to Washington.--To
Mrs. Eppes.--Receives leave of Absence.--Farewell to France.--
Jefferson as an Ambassador.--He leaves Paris.--His Daughter's
Account of the Voyage, and Arrival at Home.--His Reception by
his Slaves.
In November, 1788, Mr. Jefferson wrote to Mr. Jay to petition
Congress for a leave of absence of five or six months. He earnestly
desired this leave, that he might return to America to look after his
own private affairs, which sadly needed his personal attention, and
that he might carry his daughters back to Virginia and leave them
with their relations there, as he thought they were now at an age
when they should be associating with those among whom they were to
live.
During the months which elapsed before he received leave to return
home, his correspondence with his friends in America continued to be
interesting. In a letter written to Mr. Jay early in January, 1789,
we find the following sketch of a character then notorious in Europe:
_To John Jay._
As the character of the Prince of Wales is becoming interesting,
I have endeavored to learn what it truly is. This is less
difficult in his case than it is in other persons of his rank,
because he has taken no pains to hide himself from the world.
The information I most rely on is from a person here, with whom
I am intimate, who divides his time between Paris and London--an
Englishman by birth, of truth, sagacity, and science. He is of
a circle, when in London, which has had good opportunities
of knowing the Prince; but he has also, himself, had special
occasions of verifying their information by his own personal
observations. He happened, when last in London, to be invited to
a dinner of three persons. The Prince came by chance, and made
the fourth. He ate half a leg of mutton; did not taste of small
dishes, because small; drank Champagne and Burgundy as small
beer during dinner, and Bourdeaux after dinner, as the rest of
the company. Upon the whole, he ate as much as the other three,
and drank about two bottles of wine without seeming to feel it.
My informant sat next him, and being until then unknown to the
Prince personally (though not by character), and lately from
France, the Prince confined his conversation to him almost
entirely. Observing to the Prince that he spoke French without
the slightest foreign accent, the Prince told him that, when
very young, his father had put only French servants about him,
and that it was to that circumstance he owed his pronunciation.
He led him from this to give an account of his education, the
total of which was the learning a little Latin. He has not a
single element of mathematics, of natural or moral philosophy,
or of any other science on earth, nor has the society he has
kept been such as to supply the void of education. It has been
that of the lowest, the most illiterate and profligate persons
of the kingdom, without choice of rank or mind, and with whom
the subjects of conversation are only horses, drinking-matches,
bawdy-houses, and in terms the most vulgar. The young nobility
who begin by associating with him soon leave him disgusted by
the insupportable profligacy of his society; and Mr. Fox, who
has been supposed his favorite, and not over-nice in the choice
of company, would never keep his company habitually. In fact,
he never associated with a man of sense. He has not a single
idea of justice, morality, religion, or of the rights of men,
or any anxiety for the opinion of the world. He carries that
indifference for fame so far, that he probably would not be hurt
if he were to lose his throne, provided he could be assured of
having always meat, horses, and women. In the article of women,
nevertheless, he has become more correct since his connection
with Mrs. Fitzherbert, who is an honest and worthy woman; he is
even less crapulous than he was.
He had a fine person, but it is becoming coarse. He possesses
good native common sense, is affable, polite, and very
good-humored--saying to my informant, on another occasion,
"Your friend such a one dined with me yesterday, and I made him
damned drunk;" he replied, "I am sorry for it. I had heard that
your royal highness had left off drinking." The Prince laughed,
tapped him on the shoulder very good-naturedly, without saying a
word, or ever after showing any displeasure.
The Duke of York, who was for some time cried up as the prodigy
of the family, is as profligate and of less understanding. To
these particular traits, from a man of sense and truth, it would
be superfluous to add the general terms of praise or blame in
which he is spoken of by other persons, in whose impartiality
and penetration I have less confidence. A sample is better than
a description. For the peace of Europe, it is best that the King
should give such gleamings of recovery as would prevent the
Regent or his ministry from thinking themselves firm, and yet
that he should not recover.
The following letters were written by Jefferson to his friend
Madame de Brehan, who was still in America. The first is a note
of introduction given to one of his lady friends, and the second
contains an interesting account of the severity of the winter of
1788-'89 and of the sufferings of the poor in Paris.
_To Madame de Brehan._
Paris, Feb. 15th, 1789.
It is an office of great pleasure to me, my dear Madam, to bring
good people together. I therefore present to you Mrs. Church,
who makes a short visit to her native country. I will not tell
you her amiable qualities, but leave you the pleasure of seeing
them yourself. You will see many _au premier abord_, and you
would see more every day of your lives, were every day of your
lives to bring you together. In truth, I envy you the very gift
I make you, and would willingly, if I could, take myself the
moments of her society which I am procuring you. I need not pray
you to load her with civilities. Both her character and yours
will insure this. I will thank you for them in person, however,
very soon after you shall receive this. Adieu, ma chère Madame.
Agreez toutes les hommages de respect et d'attachement avec
lesquelles j'ai l'honneur d'être, Madame, votre très humble et
très obeissant serviteur,
TH. JEFFERSON.
_To Madame de Brehan._
Paris, March 14th, 1789.
Dear Madam--I had the honor of writing to you on the 15th of
February, soon after which I had that of receiving your favor of
December the 29th. I have a thousand questions to ask you about
your journey to the Indian treaty, how you like their persons,
their manners, their costumes, _cuisine_, etc. But this I must
defer until I can do it personally in New York, where I hope to
see you for a moment in the summer, and to take your commands
for France. I have little to communicate to you from this place.
It is deserted; every body being gone into the country to choose
or be chosen deputies to the States General. I hope to see that
great meeting before my departure. It is to be on the 27th of
next month. A great political revolution will take place in your
country, and that without bloodshed. A king, with two hundred
thousand men at his orders, is disarmed by the force of public
opinion and the want of money. Among the economies becoming
necessary, perhaps one may be the Opera. They say it has cost
the public treasury a hundred thousand crowns in the last year.
A new theatre is established since your departure--that of the
Opera Buffons, where Italian operas are given, and good music.
Paris is every day enlarging and beautifying. I do not count
among its beauties, however, the wall with which they have
inclosed us. They have made some amends for this by making
fine Boulevards within and without the walls. These are in
considerable forwardness, and will afford beautiful rides around
the city of between fifteen and twenty miles in circuit. We have
had such a winter, Madame, as makes me shiver yet whenever I
think of it. All communications, almost, were cut off. Dinners
and suppers were suppressed, and the money laid out in feeding
and warming the poor, whose labors were suspended by the rigors
of the season. Loaded carriages passed the Seine on the ice, and
it was covered with thousands of people from morning to night,
skating and sliding. Such sights were never seen before, and
they continued two months. We have nothing new and excellent
in your charming art of painting. In fact, I do not feel an
interest in any pencil but that of David. But I must not hazard
details on a subject wherein I am so ignorant and you are such
a connoisseur. Adieu, my dear Madam; permit me always the honor
of esteeming and being esteemed by you, and of tendering you the
homage of that respectful attachment, with which I am and shall
ever be, dear Madam, your most obedient, humble servant,
TH. JEFFERSON.
Jefferson's devotion to the study of Natural History is well
known, and the accuracy of his knowledge in it is most strikingly
illustrated in the following anecdote, which we quote from his
biography by Randall:
An amusing anecdote is preserved of the subject of his
correspondence with the celebrated Buffon. The story used to be
so well told by Daniel Webster--who probably heard it from the
lips of the New Hampshire party to it--that we will give it in
his words, as we find it recorded by an intelligent writer, and
one evidently very familiar with Mr. Webster, in an article in
Harper's Magazine, entitled "Social Hours of Daniel Webster:"
"Mr. Webster, in the course of his remarks, narrated a story
of Jefferson's overcoming Buffon on a question of Natural
History. It was a dispute in relation to the moose--the
moose-deer, as it is called in New Hampshire--and in one of
the circles of _beaux-esprits_ in Paris. Mr. Jefferson
contended for certain characteristics in the formation of the
animal which Buffon stoutly denied. Whereupon Mr. Jefferson,
without giving any one notice of his intention, wrote from
Paris to General John Sullivan, then residing in Durham, New
Hampshire, to procure and send him the whole frame of a moose.
The General was no little astonished at a request he deemed so
extraordinary; but, well acquainted with Mr. Jefferson, he knew
he must have sufficient motive for it; so he made a
hunting-party of his neighbors, and took the field. They
captured a moose of unusual proportions, stripped it to the
bone, and sent the skeleton to Mr. Jefferson, at a cost of
fifty pounds sterling. On its arrival Mr. Jefferson invited
Buffon and some other _savants_ to a supper at his house, and
exhibited his dear-bought specimen. Buffon immediately
acknowledged his error, and expressed his great admiration for
Mr. Jefferson's energetic determination to establish the truth.
'I should have consulted you, Monsieur,' he said, with usual
French civility, 'before publishing my book on Natural History,
and then I should have been sure of my facts.'"
This has the advantage of most such anecdotes of eminent men, of
being accurate nearly to the letter, as far as it goes. The box of
President Sullivan (he was President of New Hampshire), containing
the bones, horns, and skin of a moose, and horns of the caribou elk,
deer, spiked horned buck, etc., reached Mr. Jefferson on the 2d of
October. They were the next day forwarded to Buffon--who, however,
proved to be out of town. On his return, he took advantage of a
supper at Jefferson's, to make the handsome admissions mentioned by
Mr. Webster.[38]
[38] See Randall's Life of Jefferson, vol. i., p. 490.
In a letter written early in the summer of the year 1788 to the
Rev. Mr. Madison, of William and Mary College, we find Jefferson
again right and Buffon wrong on a scientific subject. The student of
chemistry will smile at Buffon's opinion, while he can not but admire
Jefferson's wonderful foresight in predicting the discoveries to be
made in that science, even though he should have erred in his opinion
of Lavoisier's chemical nomenclature. We quote the following from the
above-mentioned letter:
_To Rev. Mr. Madison._
Speaking one day with Monsieur de Buffon on the present ardor
of chemical inquiry, he affected to consider chemistry but as
cookery, and to place the toils of the laboratory on a footing
with those of the kitchen. I think it, on the contrary, among
the most useful of sciences, and big with future discoveries for
the utility and safety of the human race. It is yet, indeed, a
mere embryon. Its principles are contested; experiments seem
contradictory, their subjects are so minute as to escape our
senses; and their results too fallacious to satisfy the mind.
It is probably an age too soon to propose the establishment of
a system. The attempts, therefore, of Lavoisier to reform the
chemical nomenclature is premature. One single experiment may
destroy the whole filiation of his terms, and his string of
sulphates, sulphites, and sulphures may have served no other end
than to have retarded the progress of the science, by a jargon,
from the confusion of which time will be requisite to extricate
us. Accordingly, it is not likely to be admitted generally.
The letter of which we now give the conclusion shows how closely
and how minutely Jefferson watched and studied the improvements and
progress made in the arts and sciences during his stay in Europe.
This letter--to be found in both editions of his correspondence--was
written in the spring of the year 1789, and addressed to Doctor
Willard, professor in the University of Harvard, which University
had just conferred on Jefferson a diploma as Doctor of Laws. After
mentioning and criticising all the late publications bearing on the
different branches of science and letters, he makes the following
eloquent conclusion:
_To Dr. Willard._
What a field have we at our doors to signalize ourselves in! The
Botany of America is far from being exhausted, its mineralogy
is untouched, and its Natural History or Zoology totally
mistaken and misrepresented. As far as I have seen, there is
not one single species of terrestrial birds common to Europe
and America, and I question if there be a single species of
quadrupeds. (Domestic animals are to be excepted.) It is for
such institutions as that over which you preside so worthily,
Sir, to do justice to our country, its productions, and its
genius. It is the work to which the young men you are forming
should lay their hands. We have spent the prime of our lives
in procuring them the precious blessing of liberty. Let them
spend theirs in showing that it is the great parent of _science_
and of virtue, and that a nation will be great in both always
in proportion as it is free. Nobody wishes more warmly for
the success of your good exhortations on this subject than he
who has the honor to be, with sentiments of great esteem and
respect, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, etc.
Mr. Jefferson, as I have elsewhere noticed, placed his daughters at
school in a convent, and they were there educated during his stay
in Paris. His daughter Martha was now in her sixteenth year. She
had not failed to take advantage of the fine opportunities of being
an accomplished and well-informed woman which had been secured to
her by the most thoughtful and devoted of fathers. She was a good
linguist, an accomplished musician, and well read for her years;
and we doubt whether any of her Virginian or even American female
contemporaries could boast so thorough an education as could the
modest, yet highly-gifted, Martha Jefferson. The gentle and loving
kindness lavished on her by the inmates of the convent won for them
her warmest affection, while the sweet amiability of her disposition,
the charming simplicity of her manner, and the unusual powers of her
mind endeared her to them. Thus her school-days flowed peacefully
and gently by. But while their father had so carefully secured for
his daughters a good mental and moral training by the situation in
which he had placed them, he had overlooked the danger of their
becoming too fond of it. He was startled, therefore, by receiving
a note from Martha requesting permission to enter the convent and
spend the rest of her days in the discharge of the duties of a
religious life. He acted on this occasion with his usual tact. He did
not reply to the note, but after a day or two drove to the Abbaye,
had a private interview with the Abbess, and then asked for his
daughters. He received them with more than usual affectionate warmth
of manner, and, without making the least allusion to Martha's note
or its contents, told his daughters that he had called to take them
from school, and accordingly he drove back home accompanied by them.
Martha was soon introduced into society at the brilliant court of
Louis the Sixteenth, and soon forgot her girlish desire to enter a
convent. No word in allusion to the subject ever passed between the
father and daughter, and it was not referred to by either of them
until years afterwards, when she spoke of it to her children.
Getting more and more impatient for leave to return home for a few
months, we find Jefferson writing to Washington, in the spring of
1789, as follows:
_To George Washington._
In a letter of November 19th to Mr. Jay, I asked a leave of
absence to carry my children back to their own country, and to
settle various matters of a private nature, which were left
unsettled, because I had no idea of being absent so long. I
expected that letter would have been received in time to be
acted upon by the Government then existing. I know now that it
would arrive when there was no Congress, and consequently that
it must have awaited your arrival in New York. I hope you found
the request not an unreasonable one. I am excessively anxious
to receive the permission without delay, that I may be able to
get back before the winter sets in. Nothing can be so dreadful
to me as to be shivering at sea for two or three months in a
winter passage. Besides, there has never been a moment at which
the presence of a minister here could be so well dispensed with,
from certainty of no war this summer, and that the Government
will be so totally absorbed in domestic arrangements as to
attend to nothing exterior.
In the same letter we find him congratulating Washington on his
election as President, and seizing that occasion to pay a graceful
tribute to him of praise and admiration, and also of affection. He
says:
Though we have not heard of the actual opening of the new
Congress, and consequently have not official information of your
election as President of the United States, yet, as there never
could be a doubt entertained of it, permit me to express here my
felicitations, not to yourself, but to my country. Nobody who
has tried both public and private life can doubt but that you
were much happier on the banks of the Potomac than you will be
at New York. But there was nobody so well qualified as yourself
to put our new machine into a regular course of action--nobody,
the authority of whose name could have so effectually crushed
opposition at home and produced respect abroad. I am sensible
of the immensity of the sacrifice on your part. Your measure
of fame was full to the brim; and therefore you have nothing
to gain. But there are cases wherein it is a duty to risk all
against nothing, and I believe this was exactly the case. We
may presume, too, according to every rule of probability, that,
after doing a great deal of good, you will be found to have lost
nothing but private repose.
How anxiously Jefferson awaited the arrival of his leave of
absence will be seen from the letter below, written by him to his
sister-in-law:
_To Mrs. Eppes._
Paris, Dec. 15th, 1788.
Dear Madam--In my last, of July 12th, I told you that in my next
I would enter into explanations about the time my daughters
would have the happiness to see you. Their future welfare
requires that this should be no longer postponed. It would have
taken place a year sooner, but that I wished Polly to perfect
herself in her French. I have asked leave of absence of Congress
for five or six months of the next year, and if I obtain it in
time I shall endeavor to sail about the middle of April. As my
time must be passed principally at Monticello during the two
months I destine for Virginia, I shall hope that you will come
and encamp there with us a while. He who feedeth the sparrow
must feed us also. Feasting we shall not expect, but this will
not be our object. The society of our friends will sweeten all.
Patsy has just recovered from an indisposition of some days.
Polly has the same; it is a slight but continual fever, not
sufficient, however, to confine her to her bed. This prevents
me from being able to tell you that they are absolutely well.
I inclose a letter which Polly wrote a month ago to her aunt
Skipwith, and her sickness will apologize for her not writing
to you or her cousins; she makes it up in love to you all, and
Patsy equally, but this she will tell you herself, as she is
writing to you. I hope you will find her an estimable friend as
well as a dutiful niece. She inherits stature from her father,
and that, you know, is inheriting no trifle. Polly grows fast.
I should write to Mrs. Skipwith also, but that I rely on your
friendship to repeat to her the assurance of my affection for
her and Mr. Skipwith. We look forward with impatience to the
moment when we may be all reunited, though but for a little
time. Kiss your dear children for us, the little and the big,
and tender them my warmest affections, accepting yourself
assurances of the sincere esteem and attachment, with which I
am, my dear Madam, your affectionate and humble servant,
TH. JEFFERSON.
The long-expected leave of absence came at last, and was received by
Jefferson during the last days of August (1789). October being deemed
the best month in which to be at sea, he postponed his voyage until
that time. He left Paris on the 26th of September, as he thought,
to be absent only a few months, but, as the event proved, never
to return again. We find in his Memoir the following affectionate
farewell to the kind people and the fair land of France:
I can not leave this great and good country without expressing
my sense of its pre-eminence of character among the nations of
the earth. A more benevolent people I have never known, nor
greater warmth and devotedness in their select friendships.
Their kindness and accommodation to strangers is unparalleled,
and the hospitality of Paris is beyond any thing I had conceived
to be practicable in a large city. Their eminence, too, in
science, the communicative dispositions of their scientific men,
the politeness of their general manners, the ease and vivacity
of their conversation, give a charm to their society to be found
nowhere else. In a comparison of this with other countries, we
have the proof of primacy which was given to Themistocles after
the battle of Salamis. Every general voted to himself the first
reward of valor, and the second to Themistocles. So, ask the
travelled inhabitant of any nation, on what country on earth
would you rather live?--Certainly in my own, where are all my
friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest affections
and recollections of my life. Which would be your second choice?
France.
Of Jefferson's discharge of his duties as minister at the Court of
St. Germains, Mr. Webster spoke thus:
Mr. Jefferson's discharge of his diplomatic duties was marked
by great ability, diligence, and patriotism; and while he
resided at Paris, in one of the most interesting periods, his
character for intelligence, his love of knowledge and of the
society of learned men, distinguished him in the highest circles
of the French capital. No court in Europe had at that time a
representative in Paris commanding or enjoying higher regard,
for political knowledge or for general attainments, than the
minister of this then infant republic.
So, too, the Edinburgh Review, though no admirer of Jefferson's
political creed, says of his ambassadorial career:
His watchfulness on every subject which might bear on the most
favorable arrangement of their new commercial treaties, his
perseverance in seeking to negotiate a general alliance against
Algiers, the skill and knowledge with which he argued the
different questions of national interest that arose during his
residence, will not suffer even in comparison with Franklin's
diplomatic talents. Every thing he sees seems to suggest to
him the question whether it can be made useful in America.
Could we compare a twelvemonth's letters from our ambassadors'
bags at Paris, Florence, or elsewhere, we should see whether
our enormous diplomatic salaries are any thing else than very
successful measures for securing our business being ill and idly
done.
Jefferson, as I have just mentioned, left Paris the last of
September. The account given below, of his journey home and reception
there, is from the narrative of Martha Jefferson, before quoted:
In returning, he was detained ten days at Havre de Grace, and,
after crossing the Channel, ten more at Cowes, in the Isle of
Wight, which were spent in visiting different parts of the
island, when the weather permitted: among others, Carisbrook
Castle, remarkable for the confinement of Charles the First,
and also for a well of uncommon depth. We sailed on the 23d of
October, 1789, in company with upwards of thirty vessels who
had collected there and been detained, as we were, by contrary
winds. Colonel Trumbull, who chartered the ship for my father
in London, applied to Mr. Pitt to give orders to prevent his
baggage from being searched on his arrival, informing Mr. Pitt
at the same time that the application was made without his
knowledge. The orders to such an effect were accordingly issued,
I presume, as he was spared the usual vexation of such a search.
The voyage was quick and not unpleasant. When we arrived on the
coast there was so thick a mist as to render it impossible to
see a pilot, had any of them been out. After beating about three
days, the captain, a bold as well as an experienced seaman,
determined to run in at a venture, without having seen the
Capes. The ship came near running upon what was conjectured to
be the Middle Ground, when anchor was cast at ten o'clock P.M.
The wind rose, and the vessel drifted down, dragging her anchor,
one or more miles. But she had got within the Capes, while a
number which had been less bold were blown off the coast, some
of them lost, and all kept out three or four weeks longer. We
had to beat up against a strong head-wind, which carried away
our topsails; and we were very near being run down by a brig
coming out of port, which, having the wind in her favor, was
almost upon us before we could get out of the way. We escaped,
however, with only the loss of a part of our rigging. My father
had been so anxious about his public accounts, that he would
not trust them to go until he went with them. We arrived at
Norfolk in the forenoon, and in two hours after landing, before
an article of our baggage was brought ashore, the vessel took
fire, and seemed on the point of being reduced to a mere hull.
They were in the act of scuttling her, when some abatement in
the flames was discovered, and she was finally saved. So great
had been the activity of her crew, and of those belonging to
other ships in the harbor who came to their aid, that every
thing in her was saved. Our trunks, and perhaps also the papers,
had been put in our state-rooms, and the doors incidentally
closed by the captain. They were so close that the flames did
not penetrate; but the powder in a musket in one of them was
silently consumed, and the thickness of the travelling-trunks
alone saved their contents from the excessive heat. I understood
at the time that the state-rooms alone, of all the internal
partitions, escaped burning. Norfolk had not recovered from
the effects of the war, and we should have found it difficult
to obtain rooms but for the politeness of the gentlemen at the
hotel (Lindsay's), who were kind enough to give up their own
rooms for our accommodation.
There were no stages in those days. We were indebted to the
kindness of our friends for horses; and visiting all on the
way homeward, and spending more or less time with them all in
turn, we reached Monticello on the 23d of December. The negroes
discovered the approach of the carriage as soon as it reached
Shadwell,[39] and such a scene I never witnessed in my life.
They collected in crowds around it, and almost drew it up the
mountain by hand. The shouting, etc., had been sufficiently
obstreperous before, but the moment it arrived at the top it
reached the climax. When the door of the carriage was opened,
they received him in their arms and bore him to the house,
crowding around and kissing his hands and feet--some blubbering
and crying--others laughing. It seemed impossible to satisfy
their anxiety to touch and kiss the very earth which bore him.
These were the first ebullitions of joy for his return, after a
long absence, which they would of course feel; but perhaps it is
not out of place here to add that they were at all times very
devoted in their attachment to him.
[39] Shadwell is four miles distant from Monticello.
A letter written by Mr. Jefferson to his overseer had been the means
of the negroes getting information of their master's return home
some days before he arrived. They were wild with joy, and requested
to have holiday on the day on which he was expected to reach
home. Their request was, of course, granted, and they accordingly
assembled at Monticello from Mr. Jefferson's different farms. The
old and the young came--women and children--and, growing impatient,
they sauntered down the mountain-side and down the road until they
met the carriage-and-four at Shadwell, when the welkin rang with
their shouts of welcome. Martha Jefferson speaks of their "almost"
drawing the carriage by hand up the mountain: her memory in this
instance may have failed her, for I have had it from the lips of old
family servants who were present as children on the occasion, that
the horses were actually "unhitched," and the vehicle drawn by the
strong black arms up to the foot of the lawn in front of the door at
Monticello. The appearance of the young ladies, before whom they fell
back and left the way clear for them to reach the house, filled them
with admiration. They had left them when scarcely more than children
in the arms, and now returned--Martha a tall and stately-looking girl
of seventeen years, and the little Maria, now in her eleventh year,
more beautiful and, if possible, more lovable than when, two years
before, her beauty and her loveliness had warmed into enthusiasm the
reserved but kind-hearted Mrs. Adams.
The father and his two daughters were then at last once more
domiciled within the walls of their loved Monticello. How grateful
it would have been for him never again to have been called away from
home to occupy a public post, the following extract from a letter
written by him before leaving Paris will show. He writes to Madison:
You ask me if I would accept any appointment on that side
of the water? You know the circumstances which led me from
retirement, step by step, and from one nomination to another, up
to the present. My object is to return to the same retirement.
Whenever, therefore, I quit the present, it will not be to
engage in any other office, and most especially any one which
would require a constant residence from home.