AND PRIVATE PAPERS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. NOW FIRST PUBLISHED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS. EDITED BY THOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPH. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. Gift LiL. Hubbard PREFACE. THE opinion universally entertained of the extraordinary abilities of THOMAS JEFFERSON, and the signal evidence given by his country, of a profound sense of his patriotic services, and of veneration for his memory, have induced the Editor, who is both the Executor and Legatee of his Manuscript papers, to believe that an extensive publication from them, would be particularly acceptable to the American people. The Memoir, contained in the first volume, commences with circumstantial notices of his earliest life; and is continued to his arrival in New York, in March, 1790, when he entered on the duties of the Department of State, of which he had been just appointed Secretary. From the aspect of the Memoir, it may be presumed that parts of it, at least, had been written for his own and his family's use only; and in a style without the finish of his revising pen. There is, however, no part of it, minute and personal as it may be, which |