ministration whilst in office. The Assembly wish, in the strongest manner, to declare the high opinion they entertain of Mr. Jefferson's ability, rectitude, and integrity, as chief magistrate of this commonwealth, and mean, by thus publickly avowing their opinion, to obviate and to remove all unmerited censures."

It is due to Mr. Nicholas to state, that in a publication some time afterwards, he made an honourable acknowledgment of the erroneous views he had entertained on the subject. The same candour has not marked all the opponents of Mr. Jefferson; but we are not, however, now to learn, that in the violence of political asperity, circumstances long proved, and generally acknowledged to be incorrect, are brought forward with no inconsiderable effrontery, and the mild and virtuous must be content to wait until time has swept away the fabrications and assertions of faction, and confirmed that which is founded in honesty and truth.

On the 15th June, 1781, Mr. Jefferson was appointed, with Mr. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jay, and Mr. Laurens, a Minister Plenipotentiary for negotiating peace, then expected to be effected through the mediation of the Empress of Russia; but such was the state of his family, that he could neither leave it nor expose it to the dangers of the sea, and was consequently obliged to decline. In the autumn of the next year, Congress having received assurances that a general peace would be concluded in the winter and spring, renewed his appointment on the 13th November of that year. Two months before the last appointment, he had lost the cherished companion of his life, in whose affections, unabated on both sides, he had lived the last ten

years in unchequered happiness. With the publick interests, the state of his mind concurred in recommending the change of scene proposed; he accordingly accepted the appointment, and left Monticello on the 19th of December, 1782, for Philadelphia, where he arrived on the 27th. The minister of France, Luzerne, offered him a passsage in the Romulus frigate, and which was accepted; but she was then lying a few miles below Baltimore, blocked up in the ice. Mr. Jefferson remained, therefore, a month in Philadelphia, looking over the papers in the office of state, and possessing himself of the general situation of our foreign relations, and then went to Baltimore, to await the liberation of the frigate from the ice. After waiting there nearly a month, information was received, that a provisional treaty of peace had been signed by our Commissioners on the 3d of September, 1782, to become absolute on the conclusion of peace between France and Great Britain. Considering his proceeding to Europe as now of no utility to the publick, he returned immediately to Philadelphia, to take the orders of Congress, and was excused by them from further proceeding. He therefore returned home, and arrived there on the 15th of May, 1783.

On the sixth of June, 1783, Mr. Jefferson was again elected a delegate to Congress, the appointment to take place on the 1st of November ensuing, when that of the existing delegation would expire. He accordingly left home on the 16th of October, arrived at Trenton, where Congress was sitting, on the 3d November, and took his seat on the 4th, on which day Congress adjourned, to meet at Annapolis on the 26th.

Congress," says he, "had now become a very small body, and the members very remiss in their attendance on its duties, insomuch that a majority of the states, necessary by the Confederation to constitute a house, even for minor business, did not assemble until the 13th of December.

In this body, Mr. Jefferson, as was to be expected, took a prominent station, and became, at once, engaged in all the principal measures that occupied the publick attention. Among other services rendered by him, was that of establishing a standard of value for the country, and the adoption of a money unit. "They," (Congress,) says Mr. Jefferson, "as early as January 7, 1782, had turned their attention to the moneys current in the several states, and had directed the Financier, Robert Morris, to report to them a table of rates, at which the foreign coins should be received at the treasury. That officer, or rather his assistant, Gouverneur Morris, answered them on the 15th, in an able and elaborate statement of the denominations of money current in the several states, and of the comparative value of the foreign coins chiefly in circulation with us. He went into the consideration of the necessity of establishing a standard of value with us, and of the adoption of a money unit. He proposed for that unit, such a fraction

of

pure silver as would be a common measure of the penny of every state, without leaving a fraction. This common divisor he found to be of a dollar, or yo of the crown sterling. The value of a dollar was, therefore, to be expressed by 1440 units, and of a crown by 1600; each unit containing a quarter of a grain of fine silver. Congress turning again their attention to

this subject the following year, the Financier, by a letter of April 30, 1783, further explained and urged the unit he had proposed, but nothing more was done on it until the ensuing year, when it was again taken up, and referred to a committee, of which I was a member. The general views of the Financier were sound, and the principle was ingenious on which he proposed to found his unit; but it was too minute for ordinary use, too laborious for computation, either by the head or in figures. The price of a loaf of bread,

of a dollar, would be 72 units. A pound of butter, of a dollar, 288 units. A horse, or bullock, of eighty dollars' value, would require a notation of six figures, to wit, 115,200; and the publick debt, suppose of eighty millions, would require twelve figures, to wit, 115,200,000,000 units. Such a system of moneyarithmetick would be entirely unmanageable for the common purposes of society. I proposed, therefore, instead of this, to adopt the dollar as our unit of account and payment, and that its divisions and subdivisions should be in the decimal ratio. I wrote some notes on the subject, which I submitted to the consideration of the Financier. I received his answer, and adherence to his general system, only agreeing to take for his unit one hundred of those he first proposed, so that a dollar should be 14,4%, and a crown 16 units. I replied to this, and printed my Notes and Reply on a flying sheet, which I put into the hands of the members of Congress for consideration, and the committee agreed to report on my principle. This was adopted the ensuing year, and is the system which now prevails. The division into dimes, cents, and mills, is now so

well understood, that it would be easy of introduction into the kindred branches of weights and measures. I use, when I travel, an Odometer of Clarke's invention, which divides the mile into cents, and I find every one comprehends a distance readily, when stated to him in miles and cents; so he would in feet and cents, pounds and cents, &c."

I will again extract, from the memoirs of Mr. Jefferson, what follows below, for the sake of introducing a practical anecdote from Dr. Franklin : "The remissness of Congress, and their permanent session, began to be a subject of uneasiness; and even some of the legislatures had recommended to them intermissions, and periodical sessions. As the Confederation had made no provision for a visible head of the government during vacations of Congress, and such a one was necessary to superintend the executive business, to receive and communicate with foreign ministers and nations, and to assemble Congress on sudden and extraordinary emergencies, I proposed, early in April, the appointment of a committee to be called the "Committee of the States," to consist of a member from each state, who should remain in session during the recess of Congress; that the functions of Congress should be divided into executive and legislative, the latter to be reserved, and the former, by a general resolution, to be delegated to that committee. This proposition was afterwards agreed to; a committee appointed, who afterwards entered on duty on the subsequent adjournment of Congress, quarrelled very soon, split into two parties, abandoned their post, and left the government without any visible head, until the next meeting of