the facts, and reported his vessel and cargo to the custom-house. Having represented the burthen of his vessel to be only 21 tons, he was told she was liable to confiscation, on which he gave a true state of the case, and was permitted so to report her; she was, however, afterwards visited by other persons, who seized her, carried her to the pier, and to that restricted both her and the crew, by putting a centinel over them. The officers then had the vessel measured, and, by omitting the cabin, steerage, &c., reduced her burthen to nearly one half. They were afterwards committed to close prison at St. Pol de Leon, where they had been confined ever since, that is, for three months. They were accused, first, of having sold tobacco in contraband; and secondly, as having entered a port of France in a vessel less than thirty tons burthen. The evidence of their selling was some loose tobacco in their possession, which they satisfactorily explained.

These people, however, were afterwards sentenced to the gallics, and to a fine, which the king remitted: their vessel and cargo were confiscated to the farmers of the revenue. It was not until the latter part of May that they were released, and the expenses of their enlargement and subsistence were furnished by Mr. Jefferson.

He now took occasion to renew his correspondence with Baron Geismer, who had shared Mr. Jefferson's hospitality at Monticello, while he was a prisoner in Albemarle. He tells the Baron that he is savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, and the independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of the gay metropolis of France. "I shall therefore," he says, "rejoin myself to my native country, with new attachments, and with exaggerated esteem for its advantages; for though there is less wealth there, there is more freedom, more ease, and less misery."

Declarations of this kind often originate in insincerity and affectation; sometimes from the wish to appear superior to those sensual indulgences and light amusements which are to be obtained only in cities, and sometimes from the pride of seeming to despise what is beyond our reach. But the sentiment here

expressed by Mr. Jefferson is truly felt by many an American, and we have no reason to doubt it was felt also by him. There is a charm in the life which one has been accustomed to in his youth, no matter what the modes of that life may have been, which always retains its hold on the heart. The Indian who has passed his first years with his tribe, is never reconciled to the habits and restraints of civilized life. And although in more artificial and advanced stages of society, individuals, whether they have been brought up in the town or the country, are not equally irreconcilable to a change from one to the other, it commonly takes some time to overcome their preference for the life they have been accustomed to: and in many instances it is never overcome, but continues to haunt the imagination with pleasing pictures of the past or imaginations of the future, when hope gives assurance that those scenes of former enjoyment may be renewed. That most of our country gentlemen, past the heyday of youth, would soon tire of Paris, and pant after the simple pleasures and exemption from restraint which their own country affords, is little to be wondered at; but it is the more remarkable in Mr. Jefferson, and more clearly illustrates the force of early habit, when it is recollected that he found in the French metropolis that society of men of letters and science which he must often have in vain coveted in his own country, and that here he met with those specimens of music, painting, and architecture, for which he had so lively a relish. But in these comparisons between the life we are leading and that which we have left, or are looking forward to, we must always allow much to the force of the imagination, and there are few men who felt its influence more than Mr. Jefferson. In one of his letters to Mr. Carmichael, he says, "I sometimes think of building a little hermitage at the Natural Bridge, (for it is my property,) and of passing there a part of the year at least."

198

CHAPTER IX.

Mr. Jefferson joins Mr. Adams in London. Their cold reception. Policy of the British government towards America. Treaty with Portugal not ratified. Unsuccessful negotiation with the Tripoline minister. Mr. Jefferson's description of England. His contributions to the Encyclopedie Methodique. The progress of population in the United States. Inland Navigation. Elk horns. Live oak. Fossil shells. Debts of Virginians. New federal government for the United States proposed. Houdon's statue of Washington. Proposes a donation to La Fayette. British debts in Virginia. Objects to the proposed extent of some new states. His opinion of the powers of Congress. Act of religious freedom. Popular instruction. Harbour of Cherbourg. Philosophical dialogue. Easterly winds. Connexion between the Atlantic and Pacific. The Cincinnati. His schemes of future happiness. Assists Ledyard, the traveller-his enterprises. Complains that his despatches had been published. Carriage wheels.

1786-1787.

MR. JEFFERSON's first official act this year was to join Mr. Adams in London, with the view of perfecting some treaties to which his concurrence was necessary. In February, he received information from Mr. Adams that there was a prospect of forming treaties with Tripoli, Tunis, and especially with Portugal. He accordingly set out a few days afterwards, and arrived in London about the 18th of March. He called on Mr. Adams the very night he arrived, and again the next day. But a temporary indisposition of the Portuguese minister delayed their interview with him.

His visit to London appeared to him and Mr. Adams to afford a good opportunity of ascertaining the real sentiments and ultimate determination of the British cabinet, on the subject of a commercial treaty with the United States. He remarked to a

correspondent, "there is no doubt what that determination will be; but it will be useful to have it, as it may put an end to all further expectations on our side the water, and show that the time is come for doing whatever is to be done by us for counteracting the unjust and greedy designs of this country."

On this occasion, as well as many others, he showed a thorough conviction, that the English government had a determined hostility towards the United States; and this belief may help to explain, and in some measure to warrant, his own illfeeling against that government. In a letter to Mr. Langdon, of New Hampshire, in September, 1785, he remarks, “in spite of treaties, England is still our enemy. Her hatred is deep rooted and cordial, and nothing is wanting with her but the power to wipe us and the land we live on out of existence. Her interest, however, is her ruling passion; and the late American measures* have struck at that so vitally, and with an energy too of which she had thought us quite incapable, that a possibility seems to open of forming some arrangement with her. When they shall see decidedly that without it, we shall suppress their commerce with us, they will be agitated by their avarice, on the one hand, and their hatred and their fear of us, on the other. The result of this conflict of duty and passions is yet to be awaited."

In the same month he wrote to Mr. Izard, of South Carolina: "England shows no disposition to enter into friendly connexions with us. On the contrary, her detention of our posts seems to be the speck which is to produce a storm. I judge that a war with America would be a popular war in England. Perhaps the situation of Ireland may deter the ministry from hastening it on."

It must be confessed, that he had but too much ground for his opinions of English hostility. It was manifested by the per

* This alludes to the recommendation of Congress, of the 30th of April, 1784, to the states, to invest that body with the power, for fifteen years, of excluding from the ports of the United States the vessels of all nations not having a treaty of commerce with them, and also of passing an act on the principles of the British navigation act. At the date of Mr. Jefferson's letter, seven states had passed laws in conformity with the recommendation, and three others had partially complied with it.-See Journals of Congress, March 3, 1786.

petual taunts and calumnies of their journals, and the increased difficulties in negotiation which American ministers experienced wherever British influence prevailed. It was indeed impossible that the losing party, in a civil contest, and a contest where the stake was so great, could feel well affected towards their successful adversaries, whether they regarded their own previous injustice, their haughty threats, their contemptuous sneers, or their final discomfiture and loss.

All that he met with in England seemed to confirm his previous impressions. He writes to his old colleague, Richard Henry Lee: "With respect to a commercial treaty with this country, be assured that this government not only has it not in contemplation, at present, to make any, but that they do not conceive that any circumstances will arise, which shall render it expedient for them to have any political connexion with us. They think we shall be glad of their commerce on their own terms. There is no party in our favour here, either in power or out of power." After noticing the inveterate hostile feelings of the king, he adds, "The object of the present ministry is to buoy up the nation with flattering calculations of their present prosperity, and to make them believe they are better without us than with us. This they seriously believe; for what is it men can not be made to believe? I dined the other day in a company of the ministerial party. A General Clark, a Scotchman and a ministerialist, sat next to me. He introduced the subject of American affairs, and in the course of the conversation, told me, that were America to petition Parliament to be again received on her former footing, the petition would be very generally rejected. He was serious in this, and I think it was the sentiment of the company, and is the sentiment perhaps of the nation. In this they are wise; but for a foolish reason. They think they lost more by suffering us to participate of their commercial privileges, at home and abroad, than they lose by our political severance."*

* Yet strange as it might then have seemed to Mr. Jefferson, Great Britain has never failed since the peace, except during the late war and the interruptions of our foreign commerce which preceded it, to export more goods to this country than she had ever done when they were colo