measures had been disposed of, Congress turned its attention to foreign affairs; and this led to an important change in the career of Jefferson. "I have been thrown back," he wrote to General Washington, April 16, 1784, "on a stage where I had never more thought to appear. It is but for a time, however, and as a daylaborer, free to withdraw, or be withdrawn, at will." Three weeks after these words were written, Congress found a piece of work for this day-laborer to do.

It was the golden age of "protection." All interests were protected then, except the interests of human nature; and every right was enforced, except the rights of man. British commerce and manufactures, since Charles II., had been so rigorously protected, that, when a member of Parliament moved that Americans should be compelled to send their horses to England to be shod, there was room for doubt whether he was in jest or earnest. James Otis believed he spoke ironically; only believed! But there was no doubt of the seriousness of the parliamentary orator who avowed the opinion that "not a hobnail should be made in America; of the binding force of the law which made it penal for an American to carry a fleece of wool across a creek in a canoe. John Adams, looking back in his old age upon the studies of his early professional life, declared, that, as a young lawyer, he never turned over the leaves of the British statutes regulating American trade "without pronouncing a hearty curse upon them." He felt them "as a humiliation, a degradation, a disgrace," to his country, and to himself as a native of it.

nor

One consequence of this fierce protection was, that America was not on trading terms with the nations of the earth; and Congress felt that one of its most important duties, after securing independence, was to propose to each of them a treaty of commerce. With France, Holland, and Sweden, such treaties had already been negotiated; but Congress desired commercial intercourse, "on the footing of the most favored nation," with Great Britain, Hamburg, Saxony, Prussia, Denmark, Russia, Austria, Venice, Rome, Naples, Tuscany, Sardinia, Genoa, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Algiers, Tripoli, Tunis, and Morocco. Congress wielded sovereign power; a nation was coming into existence; and the conclusion of treaties was at once a dignified way of asserting those not sufficiently obvious truths, and a convenient mode of getting them acknowledged by

other nations. Congress, as Jefferson confesses, though it would not condescend to ask recognition from any of the powers, yet "we are not unwilling to furnish opportunities for receiving their friendly salutations and welcome."

Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, who still represented Congress in Europe, were not supposed to be equal to so much labor. May 7, 1784, Congress agreed to add a third plenipotentiary to aid them in negotiating commercial treaties; and their choice for this office fell upon Thomas Jefferson. The appointment was for two years, at the reduced salary of nine thousand dollars a year. He accepted the post; and, expecting to be absent only two years, he determined to spare himself a laborious journey home, and the re-opening of a healing wound, by going direct from Annapolis northward "in quest of a passage." This he could do the easier, since, as he records, "I asked an advance of six months' salary, that I might be in cash to meet the first expenses; which was ordered." His two younger children were in safe hands at home; and his eldest daughter he would take with him, and place at school in Paris. His nephews he left to the guardianship of James Madison, to whom, on the day after his election, he wrote in an affecting strain :

"I have a tender legacy to leave you on my departure. I will not say it is the son of my sister, though her worth would justify it on that ground; but it is the son of my friend, the dearest friend I knew, who, had fate reversed our lots, would have been a father to my children. He is a boy of fine dispositions, and of sound, masculine talents. I was his preceptor myself as long as I staid at home; and, when I came away, I placed him with Mr. Maury. There is a younger one, just now in his Latin rudiments. If I did not fear to overcharge you, I would request you to recommend a school for him."

Mr. Madison fulfilled this trust with affectionate care, and kept his friend informed of the progress of his nephews during his long

absence.

CHAPTER XXXII.

ENVOY TO FRANCE.

MAY 11, four days after his election, the plenipotentiary left Annapolis for Philadelphia, a four days' journey then; and, while his daughter was getting ready for her departure, he improved the opportunity to collect precise and full information respecting the commerce of the port; for was he not going to Europe on commercial business? One of the toasts given in 1784, at the May-day festival of the St. Tammany Society of Philadelphia, which he probably read in the newspapers during his stay, gave him a hint of what was desired," Free-trade in American Bottoms." Pleasing dream! Many a year must yet pass before it comes true. It was a buoyant, expectant time, when Mr. Jefferson made this sea-board journey. The refuse of the war was clearing away, and new projects were in the air. It was while Jefferson was in Philadelphia on this occasion, that some ingenious contriver managed to extract from the deep mud of the bottom of the Delaware those chevaux-de-frise which Dr. Franklin had placed there nine years before to keep out the British fleet, to the sore obstruction of the navigation ever since. It was an "Herculean task," said the newspapers, requiring "vast apparatus;" but up came the biggest cheval of them all at the first yank of the mighty engine.

But this was a small matter compared with the project for an "air-balloon" of silk, sixty feet high, also announced while Jefferson was in Philadelphia, to be paid for by private subscriptions. Philadelphia, too, should behold the new wonder of the world, described at great length in a Paris volume lately received from Dr. Franklin. Gentlemen were invited to send their money, and philosophers their advice, to the committee having the scheme in charge. The glowing prospectus issued by the committee may have

drawn a guinea and a smile from Jefferson. "Is it not probable," asked these sanguine gentlemen, "that those who sometimes travel through the parched and sandy deserts of Arabia, where there is danger of perishing for want of water, or of being buried under mountains of sand suddenly raised by whirling eddies of wind, as hath too often been the case, would prefer a voyage by means of an air-balloon to any other known method of conveyance? In places where the plague may suddenly appear, it is capable, when improved, of rescuing those from danger who happen to be travelling through that region without any other means of making their escape. It may perform the same service to such as are suddenly surprised by unexpected sieges, and to whom no other means of safety may be left." "Quick advices may be given of intended invasions;" and, in short, war rendered so little destructive, that no one will think it worth while to resort to that "unchristian mode of arbitrating disputes." Then, "by means of these balloons, the utmost despatch may be given to express-boats," which they will both lift and draw. They were expected also to enable philosophers to push their discoveries into the upper regions of the air, to ascertain "the causes of hail and snow," and "make further improvements in thermometers, barometers, hygrometers, in astronomy and electricity." This programme of blessings did not tempt the guineas fast enough, until the committee added personal solicitation; and when, at last, the balloon ascended, they were obliged to charge two dollars for the best places in the amphitheatre.

It was a simple, credulous world, then, full of curiosity respecting the truths which science was beginning to disclose. This balloon prospectus, with its betrayals of ignorance, credulity, and curiosity, was perfectly characteristic of the period. I am not sure that Franklin and Jefferson would have deemed it so very absurd, though Franklin might have thought it improbable that a traveller caught by an unexpected siege would have a balloon in his trunk. Franklin had high hopes of the balloon. "Of what use is this discovery which makes so much noise?" some one asked him, soon after the first ascension in Paris. "Of what use is a new-born child?" was his reply.

In quest of a passage to France, the plenipotentiary, his daughter, and William Short, whom he was so happy as to have for a secretary, left Philadelphia near the end of May, and went to New York.

The monthly Havre packet, La Sylphe, had been gone ten days. After a few days' stay in New York, where he continued his commercial studies, the party resumed their "quest," travelling eastward from port to port in the leisurely manner of the time. At New Haven, could he fail to pause a day or two to view a college so distinguished as Yale, and converse with the president and professors, and promise to send them from Europe some account of the new discoveries and the new books? The newspapers, silent as to his stay in Philadelphia and New York, chronicle the arrival of His Excellency at New Haven on the 7th of June, and his departure for Boston on the 9th. At Boston the travellers met another disappointment, peculiarly aggravating. A good ship was within thirty-six hours of sailing, in which Mrs. Adams was going to join her husband; and she would have been as agreeable a companion to the father as a kind protector to the daughter. But, in those days, passengers had to lay in stores of various kinds, and make extensive preparations for a voyage, which could not be done in so short a time, even if the plenipotentiary had regarded his commercial information as complete. Mrs. Adams sailed without them; but, while Jefferson was thinking of returning in all haste to New York to catch the next French packet, he heard of a Boston ship loading for London, that would, it was thought, put him ashore on the French coast. It proved to be the ship Ceres, belonging to Nathaniel Tracy, one of the great merchants of New England, who was going in her himself, and would land the party at Portsmouth, after having passed the whole voyage in communicating commercial knowledge to Mr. Jefferson. Nothing could have been more fortunate.

Boston gave the Virginian a courteous and warm reception on this occasion. A chair in the chamber of the Massachusetts House of Representatives was assigned to "His Excellency, Thomas Jefferson, late governor of Virginia, and now one of the commissioners for negotiating treaties;" and "no small part of my time," as he wrote to Elbridge Gerry," has been occupied by the hospitality and civilities of this place, which I have experienced in the highest degree." Mr. Gerry not reaching home in time to see him off, Jefferson left for him a present, not common then, which he was rather fond of giving, a portable writing-desk. To add to his knowledge of business, he made an excursion along the coast to Salem, Newburyport, Portsmouth, towns beginning already to feel the impulse towards the