Washington nominates Jefferson as Secretary of State.--
Jefferson's Regret.--Devotion of Southern Statesmen to
Country Life.--Letter to Washington.--Jefferson accepts
the Appointment.--Marriage of his Daughter.--He leaves
for New York.--Last Interview with Franklin.--Letters to
Son-in-law.--Letters of Adieu to Friends in Paris.--Family
Letters.
The calls of his country would not allow Jefferson to withdraw
from public life, and, living in that retirement for which he so
longed, abandon himself to the delights of rural pursuits. On
his way from Norfolk to Monticello he stopped to pay a visit, in
Chesterfield County, to his sister-in-law, Mrs. Eppes. There he
received letters from General Washington telling him that he had
nominated him as Secretary of State, and urging him so earnestly
and so affectionately to accept the appointment as to put a refusal
on his part out of the question. He tells us in his Memoir that he
received the proffered appointment with "real regret;" and we can
not doubt his sincerity. In reading the lives of the Fathers of
the Republic, we can but be struck with their weariness of public
life, and their longings for the calm enjoyment of the sweets of
domestic life in the retirement of their quiet homes. This was
eminently the case with our great men from the South. Being for the
most part large land-owners, their presence being needed on their
estates, and agricultural pursuits seeming to have an indescribable
fascination for them, all engagements grew irksome which prevented
the enjoyment of that manly and independent life which they found
at the head of a Southern plantation. The pomps and splendor of
office had no charms for them, and we find Washington turning with
regret from the banks of the Potomac to go and fill the highest
post in the gift of his countrymen; Jefferson sighing after the
sublime beauties of his distant Monticello, and longing to rejoin
his children and grandchildren there, though winning golden opinions
in the discharge of his duties as Premier; while Henry chafed in
the Congressional halls, and was eager to return to his woods in
Charlotte, though gifted with that wonderful power of speech whose
fiery eloquence could at any moment startle his audience to their
feet. But Jefferson, in this instance, had peculiar reasons for
wishing a reprieve from public duties. His constant devotion to
them had involved his private affairs in sad confusion, and there
was danger of the ample fortune which his professional success and
the skillful management of his property had secured to him being
lost, merely from want of time and opportunity to look after it. He
dreaded, then, to enter upon a public career whose close he could
not foresee; and there is a sad tone of resignation in his letter of
acceptance to General Washington, which seems to show that he felt
he was sacrificing his private repose to his duty to his country;
yet he did not know how entirely he was sacrificing his own for his
country's good. I give the whole letter:
_To George Washington._
Chesterfield, December 15th, 1789.
Sir--I have received at this place the honor of your letters of
October 13th and November the 30th, and am truly flattered by
your nomination of me to the very dignified office of Secretary
of State, for which permit me here to return you my very humble
thanks. Could any circumstance induce me to overlook the
disproportion between its duties and my talents, it would be the
encouragement of your choice. But when I contemplate the extent
of that office, embracing as it does the principal mass of
domestic administration, together with the foreign, I can not be
insensible to my inequality to it; and I should enter on it with
gloomy forebodings from the criticisms and censures of a public,
just indeed in their intentions, but sometimes misinformed and
misled, and always too respectable to be neglected. I can not
but foresee the possibility that this may end disagreeably
for me, who, having no motive to public service but the
public satisfaction, would certainly retire the moment that
satisfaction should appear to languish. On the other hand, I
feel a degree of familiarity with the duties of my present
office, as far, at least, as I am capable of understanding its
duties. The ground I have already passed over enables me to see
my way into that which is before me. The change of government,
too, taking place in the country where it is exercised,
seems to open a possibility of procuring from the new rulers
some new advantages in commerce, which may be agreeable to
our countrymen. So that as far as my fears, my hopes, or my
inclination might enter into this question, I confess they would
not lead me to prefer a change.
But it is not for an individual to choose his post. You are
to marshal us as may be best for the public good; and it is
only in the case of its being indifferent to you, that I would
avail myself of the option you have so kindly offered in your
letter. If you think it better to transfer me to another post,
my inclination must be no obstacle; nor shall it be, if there is
any desire to suppress the office I now hold or to reduce its
grade. In either of these cases, be so good as only to signify
to me by another line your ultimate wish, and I will conform
to it cordially. If it should be to remain at New York, my
chief comfort will be to work under your eye, my only shelter
the authority of your name, and the wisdom of measures to be
dictated by you and implicitly executed by me. Whatever you may
be pleased to decide, I do not see that the matters which have
called me hither will permit me to shorten the stay I originally
asked; that is to say, to set out on my journey northward till
the month of March. As early as possible in that month, I shall
have the honor of paying my respects to you in New York. In the
mean time, I have that of tendering you the homage of those
sentiments of respectful attachment with which I am, Sir, your
most obedient and most humble servant,
TH. JEFFERSON.
After some further correspondence with General Washington on the
subject, Mr. Jefferson finally accepted the appointment of Secretary
of State, though with what reluctance the reader can well judge from
the preceding letter.
Before setting out for New York, the seat of government, Jefferson
gave away in marriage his eldest daughter, Martha. The wedding took
place at Monticello on the 23d of February (1790), and the fortunate
bridegroom was young Thomas Mann Randolph, of Tuckahoe, the son of
Colonel Thomas Mann Randolph, of Tuckahoe, who had been Colonel Peter
Jefferson's ward. Young Randolph had visited Paris in 1788, and spent
a portion of the summer there after the completion of his education
at the University of Edinburgh, and we may suppose that the first
love-passages which resulted in their marriage took place between the
young people at that time. They were second-cousins, and had known
each other from their earliest childhood.
The marriage ceremony was performed by the Rev. Mr. Maury of the
Episcopal Church, and two people were rarely ever united in marriage
whose future seemed to promise a happier life. I have elsewhere
noticed the noble qualities both of head and heart which were
possessed by Martha Jefferson. It was the growth and development of
these which years afterwards made John Randolph, of Roanoke--though
he had quarrelled with her father--pronounce her the "noblest woman
in Virginia."[40] Thomas Mann Randolph was intellectually not less
highly gifted. He was a constant student, and for his genius and
acquirements ranked among the first students at the University of
Edinburgh. In that city he received the same attentions and held
the same position in society which his rank, his wealth, and his
brilliant attainments commanded for him at home. The bravest of the
brave, chivalric in his devotion to his friends and in his admiration
and reverence for the gentler sex; tall and graceful in person,
renowned in his day as an athlete and for his splendid horsemanship,
with a head and face of unusual intellectual beauty, bearing a
distinguished name, and possessing an ample fortune, any woman might
have been deemed happy who was led by him to the hymeneal altar.
[40] It was on the occasion of a dinner-party, when some one
proposing to drink the health of Mrs. Randolph, John Randolph
rose and said, "Yes, gentlemen, let us drink the health of the
noblest woman in Virginia."
A few days after his daughter's marriage, Mr. Jefferson set out for
New York, going by the way of Richmond. At Alexandria the Mayor and
citizens gave him a public reception. He had intended travelling in
his own carriage, which met him at that point, but a heavy fall of
snow taking place, he sent it around by water, and took a seat in the
stage, having his horses led. In consequence of the bad condition of
the roads, his journey was a tedious one, it taking a fortnight for
him to travel from Richmond to New York. He occasionally left the
stage floundering in the mud, and, mounting one of his led horses,
accomplished parts of his journey on horseback. On the 17th of March
he arrived in Philadelphia, and hearing of the illness of his aged
friend, Dr. Franklin, went at once to visit him, and in his Memoir
speaks thus of his interview with him:
At Philadelphia I called on the venerable and beloved Franklin.
He was then on the bed of sickness, from which he never rose.
My recent return from a country in which he had left so many
friends, and the perilous convulsions to which they had been
exposed, revived all his anxieties to know what part they had
taken, what had been their course, and what their fate. He went
over all in succession with a rapidity and animation almost too
much for his strength. When all his inquiries were satisfied and
a pause took place, I told him I had learned with pleasure that,
since his return to America, he had been occupied in preparing
for the world the history of his own life. "I can not say much
of that," said he; "but I will give you a sample of what I shall
leave," and he directed his little grandson (William Bache), who
was standing by the bedside, to hand him a paper from the table
to which he pointed. He did so; and the Doctor, putting it into
my hands, desired me to take it and read it at my leisure. It
was about a quire of folio paper, written in a large and running
hand, very like his own. I looked into it slightly, then shut
it, and said I would accept his permission to read it, and would
carefully return it. He said "No, keep it." Not certain of his
meaning, I again looked into it, folded it for my pocket, and
said again, I would certainly return it. "No," said he; "keep
it." I put it into my pocket, and shortly after took leave of
him.
He died on the 17th of the ensuing month of April; and as I
understood he had bequeathed all his papers to his grandson,
William Temple Franklin, I immediately wrote to Mr. Franklin,
to inform him I possessed this paper, which I should consider
as his property, and would deliver it to his order. He came on
immediately to New York, called on me for it, and I delivered
it to him. As he put it into his pocket, he said, carelessly,
he had either the original, or another copy of it, I do not
recollect which. This last expression struck my attention
forcibly, and for the first time suggested to me the thought
that Dr. Franklin had meant it as a confidential deposit in my
hands, and that I had done wrong in parting from it.
I have not yet seen the collection of Dr. Franklin's works that
he published, and therefore know not if this is among them.
I have been told it is not. It contained a narrative of the
negotiations between Dr. Franklin and the British Ministry, when
he was endeavoring to prevent the contest of arms that followed.
The negotiation was brought about by the intervention of Lord
Howe and his sister, who, I believe, was called Lady Howe, but I
may misremember her title.
Lord Howe seems to have been friendly to America, and
exceedingly anxious to prevent a rupture. His intimacy with Dr.
Franklin, and his position with the Ministry, induced him to
undertake a mediation between them, in which his sister seems
to have been associated. They carried from one to the other,
backward and forward, the several propositions and answers which
passed, and seconded with their own intercessions the importance
of mutual sacrifices, to preserve the peace and connection of
the two countries. I remember that Lord North's answers were
dry, unyielding, in the spirit of unconditional submission,
and betrayed an absolute indifference to the occurrence of a
rupture; and he said to the mediators, distinctly, at last,
that "a rebellion was not to be deprecated on the part of Great
Britain; that the confiscations it would produce would provide
for many of their friends." This expression was reported by the
mediators to Dr. Franklin, and indicated so cool and calculated
a purpose in the Ministry as to render compromise impossible,
and the negotiation was discontinued.
If this is not among the papers published, we ask what has
become of it? I delivered it with my own hands into those of
Temple Franklin. It certainly established views so atrocious in
the British Government, that its suppression would be to them
worth a great price. But could the grandson of Dr. Franklin be
in such a degree an accomplice in the parricide of the memory of
his immortal grandfather? The suspension for more than twenty
years of the general publication, bequeathed and confided to
him, produced for a while hard suspicion against him; and if
at last all are not published, a part of these suspicions may
remain with some.
I arrived at New York on the 21st of March, where Congress was
in session.
Jefferson's first letter from New York was to his son-in-law, Mr.
Randolph, and is dated New York, March 28th. He gives him an account
of the journey, which speaks much for the tedium of travelling in
those days.
_Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph._
I arrived here on the 21st instant, after as laborious a journey
of a fortnight from Richmond as I ever went through, resting
only one day at Alexandria and another at Baltimore. I found my
carriage and horses at Alexandria, but a snow of eighteen inches
falling the same night, I saw the impossibility of getting on in
my carriage, so left it there, to be sent to me by water, and
had my horses led on to this place, taking my passage in the
stage, though relieving myself a little sometimes by mounting
my horse. The roads through the whole way were so bad that we
could never go more than three miles an hour, sometimes not more
than two, and in the night not more than one. My first object
was to look out a house in the Broadway, if possible, as being
the centre of my business. Finding none there vacant for the
present, I have taken a small one in Maiden Lane, which may give
me time to look about me. Much business had been put by for my
arrival, so that I found myself all at once involved under an
accumulation of it. When this shall be got through, I will be
able to judge whether the ordinary business of my department
will leave me any leisure. I fear there will be little.
The reader, I feel sure, will not find out of place here the
following very graceful letters of adieu, written by Jefferson to his
kind friends in France:
_To the Marquis de Lafayette._
New York, April 2d, 1790.
Behold me, my dear friend, elected Secretary of State, instead
of returning to the far more agreeable position which placed
me in the daily participation of your friendship. I found the
appointment in the newspapers the day of my arrival in Virginia.
I had, indeed, been asked, while in France, whether I would
accept of any appointment at home, and I had answered that, not
meaning to remain long where I was, I meant it to be the last
office I should ever act in. Unfortunately this letter had not
arrived at the time of fixing the new Government. I expressed
freely to the President my desire to return. He left me free,
but still showing his own desire. This and the concern of
others, more general than I had any right to expect, induced me,
after three months' parleying, to sacrifice my own inclinations.
I have been here these ten days harnessed in my new gear.
Wherever I am, or ever shall be, I shall be sincere in my
friendship to you and your nation. I think, with others, that
nations are to be governed with regard to their own interests,
but I am convinced that it is their interest, in the long run,
to be grateful, faithful to their engagements, even in the
worst of circumstances, and honorable and generous always. If
I had not known that the Head of our Government was in these
sentiments, and his national and private ethics were the same,
I would never have been where I am. I am sorry to tell you
his health is less firm than it used to be. However, there is
nothing in it to give alarm....
Our last news from Paris is of the eighth of January. So far
it seemed that your revolution had got along with a steady
pace--meeting, indeed, occasional difficulties and dangers;
but we are not translated from despotism to liberty on a
feather-bed. I have never feared for the ultimate result, though
I have feared for you personally. Indeed, I hope you will never
see such another 5th or 6th of October. Take care of yourself,
my dear friend, for though I think your nation would in any
event work out her own salvation, I am persuaded, were she
to lose you, it would cost her oceans of blood, and years of
confusion and anarchy. Kiss and bless your dear children for me.
Learn them to be as you are, a cement between our two nations. I
write to Madame de Lafayette, so have only to add assurances of
the respect of your affectionate friend and humble servant.
_To Madame de Corny._
New York, April 2d, 1790.
I had the happiness, my dear friend, to arrive in Virginia,
after a voyage of twenty-six days only of the finest autumn
weather it was possible, the wind having never blown harder
than we would have desired it. On my arrival I found my name
announced in the papers as Secretary of State. I made light of
it, supposing I had only to say "No," and there would be an end
of it. It turned out, however, otherwise. For though I was left
free to return to France, if I insisted on it, yet I found it
better in the end to sacrifice my own inclinations to those of
others.
After holding off, therefore, near three months, I acquiesced. I
did not write you while this question was in suspense, because
I was in constant hope to say to you certainly I should return.
Instead of that, I am now to say certainly the contrary, and
instead of greeting you personally in Paris, I am to write you a
letter of adieu. Accept, then, my dear Madam, my cordial adieu,
and my grateful thanks for all the civilities and kindnesses
I have received from you. They have been greatly more than I
had a right to expect, and they have excited in me a warmth
of esteem which it was imprudent in me to have given way to
for a person whom I was one day to be separated from. Since it
is so, continue towards me those friendly sentiments that I
always flattered myself you entertained; let me hear from you
sometimes, assured that I shall always feel a warm interest in
your happiness.
Your letter of November 25th afflicts me; but I hope that a
revolution so pregnant with the general happiness of the nation
will not in the end injure the interests of persons who are
so friendly to the general good of mankind as yourself and M.
de Corny. Present to him my most affectionate esteem, and ask
a place in his recollection.... Your affectionate friend and
humble servant,
TH. JEFFERSON.
_To the Comtesse d'Houdetôt._
New York, April 2d, 1790.
Being called by our Government to assist in the domestic
administration, instead of paying my respects to you in person
as I hoped, I am to write you a letter of adieu. Accept, I
pray you, Madame, my grateful acknowledgments for the manifold
kindnesses by which you added so much to the happiness of my
life in Paris. I have found here a philosophic revolution,
philosophically effected. Yours, though a little more turbulent,
has, I hope, by this time issued in success and peace. Nobody
prays for it more sincerely than I do, and nobody will do more
to cherish a union with a nation dear to us through many ties,
and now more approximated by the change in its Government.
I found our friend Dr. Franklin in his bed--cheerful and free
from pain, but still in his bed. He took a lively interest in
the details I gave him of your revolution. I observed his face
often flushed in the course of it. He is much emaciated. M. de
Crevecœur is well, but a little apprehensive that the spirit of
reforming and economizing may reach his office. A good man will
suffer if it does. Permit me, Madame la Comtesse, to present
here my sincere respects to Monsieur le Comte d'Houdetôt and
to Monsieur de Sainte Lambert. The philosophy of the latter
will have been greatly gratified to see a regeneration of the
condition of man in Europe so happily begun in his own country.
Repeating to you, Madame, my sincere sense of your goodness
to me, and my wishes to prove it on every occasion, adding my
sincere prayer that Heaven may bless you with many years of
life and health, I pray you to accept here the homage of those
sentiments of respect and attachment with which I have the honor
to be, Madame la Comtesse, your most obedient and humble servant,
TH. JEFFERSON.
We find the following interesting passage in a letter from Jefferson
to M. Grand, written on the 23d of April:
The good old Dr. Franklin, so long the ornament of our country,
and I may say of the world, has at length closed his eminent
career. He died on the 17th instant, of an imposthume of his
lungs, which having suppurated and burst, he had not strength to
throw off the matter, and was suffocated by it. His illness from
this imposthume was of sixteen days. Congress wear mourning for
him, by a resolve of their body.
Nearly a year later we find him writing to the President of the
National Assembly of France as follows:
I have it in charge from the President of the United States
of America, to communicate to the National Assembly of France
the peculiar sensibility of Congress to the tribute paid to
the memory of Benjamin Franklin by the enlightened and free
representatives of a great nation, in their decree of the 11th
of June, 1790.
That the loss of such a citizen should be lamented by us
among whom he lived, whom he so long and eminently served,
and who feel their country advanced and honored by his birth,
life, and labors, was to be expected. But it remained for the
National Assembly of France to set the first example of the
representatives of one nation doing homage, by a public act, to
the private citizen of another, and, by withdrawing arbitrary
lines of separation, to reduce into one fraternity the good and
the great, wherever they have lived or died.
Jefferson's health was not good during the spring of the year 1790,
and although he remained at his post he was incapacitated for
business during the whole of the month of May. He was frequently
prostrated from the effects of severe headaches, which sometimes
lasted for two or three days. His health was not re-established
before July.
I give now his letters home, which were written to his daughters.
Mrs. Randolph was living at Monticello, and Maria, or "little Poll,"
now not quite twelve years old, was at Eppington on a visit to her
good Aunt Eppes. These letters give an admirable picture of Jefferson
as the father, and betray an almost motherly tenderness of love for,
and watchfulness over, his daughters. Martha, though a married woman,
is warned of the difficulties and little cares of her new situation
in life, and receives timely advice as to how to steer clear of them;
while little Maria is urged to prosecute her studies, to be good and
industrious, in terms so full of love as to make his fatherly advice
almost irresistible. The letters show, too, his longing for home,
and how eagerly he craved the small news, as well as the great, of
the loved ones he had left behind in Virginia. I give sometimes an
extract, instead of the whole letter.
_To Martha Jefferson Randolph._--[_Extract._]
New York, April 4th, 1790.
I am anxious to hear from you of your health, your occupations,
where you are, etc. Do not neglect your music. It will be a
companion which will sweeten many hours of life to you. I
assure you mine here is triste enough. Having had yourself and
dear Poll to live with me so long, to exercise my affections
and cheer me in the intervals of business, I feel heavily the
separation from you. It is a circumstance of consolation to know
that you are happier, and to see a prospect of its continuance
in the prudence and even temper of Mr. Randolph and yourself.
Your new condition will call for abundance of little sacrifices.
But they will be greatly overpaid by the measure of affection
they secure to you. The happiness of your life now depends on
the continuing to please a single person. To this all other
objects must be secondary, even your love for me, were it
possible that could ever be an obstacle. But this it never can
be. Neither of you can ever have a more faithful friend than
myself, nor one on whom you can count for more sacrifices.
My own is become a secondary object to the happiness of you
both. Cherish, then, for me, my dear child, the affection of
your husband, and continue to love me as you have done, and to
render my life a blessing by the prospect it may hold up to me
of seeing you happy. Kiss Maria for me if she is with you, and
present me cordially to Mr. Randolph; assuring yourself of the
constant and unchangeable love of yours, affectionately,
TH. JEFFERSON.
His daughter Maria, to whom the following letter is addressed, was at
the time, as I have said, not quite twelve years old.
_To Mary Jefferson._
New York, April 11th, 1790.
Where are you, my dear Maria? how are you occupied? Write me a
letter by the first post, and answer me all these questions.
Tell me whether you see the sun rise every day? how many pages
you read every day in Don Quixote? how far you are advanced in
him? whether you repeat a grammar lesson every day; what else
you read? how many hours a day you sew? whether you have an
opportunity of continuing your music? whether you know how to
make a pudding yet, to cut out a beefsteak, to sow spinach? or
to set a hen? Be good, my dear, as I have always found you;
never be angry with any body, nor speak harm of them; try to let
every body's faults be forgotten, as you would wish yours to be;
take more pleasure in giving what is best to another than in
having it yourself, and then all the world will love you, and I
more than all the world. If your sister is with you, kiss her,
and tell her how much I love her also, and present my affections
to Mr. Randolph. Love your aunt and uncle, and be dutiful and
obliging to them for all their kindness to you. What would you
do without them, and with such a vagrant for a father? Say to
both of them a thousand affectionate things for me; and adieu,
my dear Maria.
TH. JEFFERSON.
_To Martha Jefferson Randolph._
New York, April 26th, 1791.
I write regularly once a week to Mr. Randolph, yourself, or
Polly, in hopes it may induce a letter from one of you every
week also. If each would answer by the first post my letter to
them, I should receive it within the three weeks, so as to keep
a regular correspondence with each....
I long to hear how you pass your time. I think both Mr. Randolph
and yourself will suffer with ennui at Richmond. Interesting
occupations are essential to happiness. Indeed the whole art of
being happy consists in the art of finding employment. I know
none so interesting, and which crowd upon us so much as those of
a domestic nature. I look forward, therefore, to your commencing
housekeepers in your own farm, with some anxiety. Till then you
will not know how to fill up your time, and your weariness of
the things around you will assume the form of a weariness of one
another. I hope Mr. Randolph's idea of settling near Monticello
will gain strength, and that no other settlement will, in the
mean time, be fixed on. I wish some expedient may be devised for
settling him at Edgehill. No circumstance ever made me feel so
strongly the thralldom of Mr. Wayles's debt. Were I liberated
from that, I should not fear but that Colonel Randolph and
myself, by making it a joint contribution, could effect the
fixing you there, without interfering with what he otherwise
proposes to give Mr. Randolph. I shall hope, when I return to
Virginia in the fall, that some means may be found of effecting
all our wishes.
_From Mary Jefferson._
Richmond, April 25th, 1790.
My dear Papa--I am afraid you will be displeased in knowing
where I am, but I hope you will not, as Mr. Randolph certainly
had some good reason, though I do not know it.[41] I have not
been able to read in Don Quixote every day, as I have been
travelling ever since I saw you last, and the dictionary is too
large to go in the pocket of the chariot, nor have I yet had an
opportunity of continuing my music. I am now reading Robertson's
America. I thank you for the advice you were so good as to give
me, and will try to follow it. Adieu, my dear papa. I am your
affectionate daughter,
MARIA JEFFERSON.
[41] Mr. Randolph took her to Richmond.
_To Mary Jefferson._
New York, May 2d, 1790.
My dear Maria--I wrote to you three weeks ago, and have not
yet received an answer. I hope, however, that one is on the
way, and that I shall receive it by the first post. I think it
very long to have been absent from Virginia two months, and
not to have received a line from yourself, your sister, or Mr.
Randolph, and I am very uneasy at it. As I write once a week to
one or the other of you in turn, if you would answer my letter
the day, or the day after you receive it, it would always come
to hand before I write the next to you. We had two days of snow
the beginning of last week. Let me know if it snowed where you
are. I send you some prints of a new kind for your amusement.
I send several to enable you to be generous to your friends.
I want much to hear how you employ yourself. Present my best
affections to your uncle, aunt, and cousins, if you are with
them, or to Mr. Randolph and your sister, if with them. Be
assured of my tender love to you, and continue yours to your
affectionate,
TH. JEFFERSON.
_From Mary Jefferson._
Eppington, May 23d, 1790.
Dear Papa--I received your affectionate letter when I was at
Presqu'il, but was not able to answer it before I came here, as
the next day we went to Aunt Bolling's and then came here. I
thank you for the pictures you were so kind as to send me, and
will try that your advice shall not be thrown away. I read in
Don Quixote every day to my aunt, and say my grammar in Spanish
and English, and write, and read in Robertson's America. After
I am done that, I work till dinner, and a little more after. It
did not snow at all last month. My cousin Bolling and myself
made a pudding the other day. My aunt has given us a hen and
chickens. Adieu, my dear papa. Believe me to be your dutiful,
and affectionate daughter,
MARIA JEFFERSON.
_To Mary Jefferson._
New York, May 23d, 1790.
My dear Maria--I was glad to receive your letter of April 25th,
because I had been near two months without hearing from any of
you. Your last told me what you were not doing; that you were
not reading Don Quixote, not applying to your music. I hope
your next will tell me what you are doing. Tell your uncle that
the President, after having been so ill as at one time to be
thought dying, is now quite recovered.[42] I have been these
three weeks confined by a periodical headache. It has been the
most moderate I ever had, but it has not yet left me. Present my
best affections to your uncle and aunt. Tell the latter I shall
never have thanks enough for her kindness to you, and that you
will repay her in love and duty. Adieu, my dear Maria.
Yours affectionately,
TH. JEFFERSON.
[42] In a letter to his daughter, Mrs. Randolph, after mentioning
the President's illness and convalescence, he says, "He continues
mending to-day, and from total despair we are now in good hopes
of him."
_To Mrs. Eppes._
New York, June 13th, 1790.
Dear Madam--I have received your favor of May 23, and with great
pleasure, as I do every thing which comes from you. I have had
a long attack of my periodical headache, which was severe for a
few days, and since that has been very moderate. Still, however,
it hangs upon me a little, though for about ten days past I have
been able to resume business. I am sensible of your goodness
and attention to my dear Poll, and really jealous of you; for I
have always found that you disputed with me the first place in
her affections. It would give me infinite pleasure to have her
with me, but there is no good position here, and indeed we are
in too unsettled a state; the House of Representatives voted the
day before yesterday, by a majority of 53 against 6, to remove
to Baltimore; but it is very doubtful whether the Senate will
concur. However, it may, very possibly, end in a removal either
to that place or Philadelphia. In either case, I shall be nearer
home, and in a milder climate, for as yet we have had not more
than five or six summer days. Spring and fall they never have,
as far as I can learn; they have ten months of winter, two of
summer, with some winter days interspersed. Does Mr. Eppes sleep
any better since the 6th of March. Remember me to him in the
most friendly terms, and be assured of the cordial and eternal
affection of yours sincerely,
TH. JEFFERSON.
_To Mary Jefferson._
New York, June 13th, 1790.
My dear Maria--I have received your letter of May 23d, which
was in answer to mine of May 2d, but I wrote you also on the
23d of May, so that you still owe me an answer to that, which I
hope is now on the road. In matters of correspondence as well
as of money, you must never be in debt. I am much pleased with
the account you give me of your occupations, and the making the
pudding is as good an article of them as any. When I come to
Virginia I shall insist on eating a pudding of your own making,
as well as on trying other specimens of your skill. You must
make the most of your time while you are with so good an aunt,
who can learn you every thing. We had not peas nor strawberries
here till the 8th day of this month. On the same day I heard the
first whip-poor-will whistle. Swallows and martins appeared here
on the 21st of April. When did they appear with you? and when
had you peas, strawberries, and whip-poor-wills in Virginia?
Take notice hereafter whether the whip-poor-wills always come
with the strawberries and peas. Send me a copy of the maxims I
gave you, also a list of the books I promised you. I have had a
long touch of my periodical headache, but a very moderate one.
It has not quite left me yet. Adieu, my dear; love your uncle,
aunt, and cousins, and me more than all.
Yours affectionately,
TH. JEFFERSON.
_To Mary Jefferson._
New York, July 4th, 1790.
I have written you, my dear Maria, four letters since I have
been here, and I have received from you only two. You owe me
two, then, and the present will make three. This is a kind of
debt I will not give up. You may ask how I will help myself. By
petitioning your aunt, as soon as you receive a letter, to make
you go without your dinner till you have answered it. How goes
on the Spanish? How many chickens have you raised this summer?
Send me a list of the books I have promised you at different
times. Tell me what sort of weather you have had, what sort of
crops are likely to be made, how your uncle and aunt and the
family do, and how you do yourself. I shall see you in September
for a short time. Adieu, my dear Poll.
Yours affectionately,
TH. JEFFERSON.
_From Mary Jefferson._
Eppington, July 20th, 1790.
Dear Papa--I hope you will excuse my not writing to you before,
though I have none for myself. I am very sorry to hear that you
have been sick, but flatter myself that it is over. My aunt
Skipwith has been very sick, but she is better now; we have been
to see her two or three times. You tell me in your last letter
that you will see me in September, but I have received a letter
from my brother that says you will not be here before February;
as his is later than yours, I am afraid you have changed your
mind. The books that you have promised me are Anacharsis and
Gibbon's Roman Empire. If you are coming in September, I hope
you will not forget your promise of buying new jacks for the
piano-forte that is at Monticello. Adieu, my dear papa.
I am your affectionate daughter,
MARY JEFFERSON.
_From Mary Jefferson._
Eppington, ----, 1790.
Dear Papa--I have just received your last favor, of July
25th, and am determined to write to you every day till I have
discharged my debt. When we were in Cumberland we went to
church, and heard some singing-masters that sang very well.
They are to come here to learn my sister to sing; and as I
know you have no objection to my learning any thing, I am to
be a scholar, and hope to give you the pleasure of hearing
an anthem. We had peas the 10th of May, and strawberries the
17th of the same month, though not in that abundance we are
accustomed to, in consequence of a frost this spring. As for the
martins, swallows, and whip-poor-wills, I was so taken up with
my chickens that I never attended to them, and therefore can not
tell you when they came, though I was so unfortunate as to lose
half of them (the chickens), for my cousin Bolling and myself
have raised but thirteen between us. Adieu, my dear papa.
Believe me to be your affectionate daughter,
MARIA JEFFERSON.
The following beautiful letter to Mrs. Randolph was called forth by
the marriage of her father-in-law to a lady of a distinguished name
in Virginia. At the time of his second marriage, Colonel Randolph was
advanced in years, and his bride still in her teens. The marriage
settlement alluded to in the letter secured to her a handsome fortune.
_To Martha Jefferson Randolph._
New York, July 17th, 1790.
My dear Patsy--I received two days ago yours of July 2d, with
Mr. Randolph's of July 3d. Mine of the 11th to Mr. Randolph
will have informed you that I expect to set out from hence for
Monticello about the 1st of September. As this depends on the
adjournment of Congress, and they begin to be impatient, it is
more probable that I may set out sooner than later. However, my
letters will keep you better informed as the time approaches.
Col. Randolph's marriage was to be expected. All his amusements
depending on society, he can not live alone. The settlement
spoken of may be liable to objections in point of prudence
and justice. However, I hope it will not be the cause of any
diminution of affection between him and Mr. Randolph, and
yourself. That can not remedy the evil, and may make it a great
deal worse. Besides your interests, which might be injured
by a misunderstanding, be assured that your happiness would
be infinitely affected. It would be a canker-worm corroding
eternally on your minds. Therefore, my dear child, redouble your
assiduities to keep the affections of Col. Randolph and his
lady (if he is to have one), in proportion as the difficulties
increase. He is an excellent, good man, to whose temper nothing
can be objected, but too much facility, too much milk. Avail
yourself of this softness, then, to obtain his attachment.
If the lady has any thing difficult in her disposition, avoid
what is rough, and attach her good qualities to you. Consider
what are otherwise as a bad stop in your harpsichord, and do not
touch on it, but make yourself happy with the good ones. Every
human being, my dear, must thus be viewed, according to what it
is good for; for none of us, no not one, is perfect; and were we
to love none who had imperfections, this world would be a desert
for our love. All we can do is to make the best of our friends,
love and cherish what is good in them, and keep out of the way
of what is bad; but no more think of rejecting them for it, than
of throwing away a piece of music for a flat passage or two.
Your situation will require peculiar attentions and respects to
both parties. Let no proof be too much for either your patience
or acquiescence. Be you, my dear, the link of love, union, and
peace for the whole family. The world will give you the more
credit for it, in proportion to the difficulty of the task, and
your own happiness will be the greater as you perceive that you
promote that of others. Former acquaintance and equality of age
will render it the easier for you to cultivate and gain the love
of the lady. The mother, too, becomes a very necessary object of
attentions.
This marriage renders it doubtful with me whether it will be
better to direct our overtures to Col. R. or Mr. H. for a farm
for Mr. Randolph. Mr. H. has a good tract of land on the other
side of Edgehill, and it may not be unadvisable to begin by
buying out a dangerous neighbor. I wish Mr. Randolph could have
him sounded to see if he will sell, and at what price; but
sounded through such a channel as would excite no suspicion that
it comes from Mr. Randolph or myself. Col. Monroe would be a
good and unsuspected hand, as he once thought of buying the same
lands. Adieu, my dear child. Present my warm attachment to Mr.
Randolph.
Yours affectionately,
TH. JEFFERSON.