very often, and he was a member of several highly important committees. Being obliged however to return to Virginia, he was during his absence, appointed, in conjunction with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Deane, a commissioner to the court of France, for the purpose of arranging with that nation a measure, now become of vital necessity, the formation of treaties of alliance and commerce. But owing at once to the state of his health, the situation of his family, and the embarrassed position of public affairs, especially in his own state, he was convinced that to remain in America, would be more useful than to go abroad, and in a letter to congress of the eleventh of October, declined the appointment.

From this period, during the remainder of the revolutionary war, Mr. Jefferson devoted himself mainly to the service of his own state. In June he had been a third time, elected a delegate to congress, but in October following, he resigned his situation in that body, and was succeeded by Benjamin Harrison. The object which now chiefly engaged him was the improvement of the civil government of Virginia. In May preceding, immediately on the disorganization of the colonial government, the convention assembled at Richmond, had turned their attention to the formation of a new plan of government; and with a haste, which bespeaks rather the ardour of a zealous and oppressed people, for the assertion of their own rights, than the calm deliberation that should attend an act, in which their future welfare was so deeply involved, they adopted their constitution in the following month. Mr. Jefferson was at this time.

absent in Philadelphia, a delegate to congress; foreseeing the inevitable result of the contest between the colonies and the mother country, he had for a long while devoted much reflection and research, to maturing a plan for a new government, and had already formed one, on the purest principles of republicanism. This draught he transmitted to the convention; but unfortunately, the one that they had hastily framed, had received a final vote, on the day it reached Richmond. The debate had already been ardent and protracted, the members were wearied and exhausted, and after making a few alterations, and adopting entire the masterly declaration of rights which Mr. Jefferson had prefixed, it was thought expedient for the present, to adhere to the original plan, imperfect as on all hands it was acknowledged to be.

The extremes of right and wrong are said very closely to approach each other. An incident in the political history of Virginia, does not invalidate this maxim. In June, this constitution had been adopted, breathing in every article the most vehement spirit of equal rights, and established on the downfall of arbitrary rule. In the following December, a serious proposition was made to establish a dictator, "invested with every power legislative, executive and judiciary, civil and military, of life and of death, over our persons and over our propertics." To the wise and good of every party, such a scheme could not but appear as absurd as it was dangerous. In Mr. Jefferson it found a ready and successful opponent at the time, and he has devoted to its consideration and censure, a few pages of his later works.

A wiser plan was adopted to relieve the state from its difficulties, by a careful revision of its laws. A commission was appointed for this purpose, consisting of Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, George Mason and Thomas Ludwell Lee, who employed themselves zealously in their task, from the commencement of the year 1777, to the middle of 1779. In that period it is said, their industry and zeal prepared no less than one hundred and twenty-six bills, from which are derived all the most liberal features of the existing laws of the commonwealth. The method they pursued was marked with prudence and intelligence. It is thus described by Mr. Jefferson himself.

"The plan of the revisal was this. The common law of England, by which is meant, that part of the English law which was anterior to the date of the oldest statutes extant, is made the basis of the work. It was thought dangerous to attempt to reduce it to a text: it was therefore left to be collected from the usual monuments of it. Necessary alterations in that, and so much of the whole body of the British statutes, and of acts of assembly, as were thought proper to be retained, were digested into a hundred and twenty-six new acts, in which simplicity of style was aimed at, as far as was safe."

In the account which Mr. Jefferson has given, of this revisal of the laws of Virginia, he has with the modesty of true greatness, suppressed every word which could indicate his own participation in an employment, so highly honourable. But it is the duty of those who record the actions of the great, to point out that which

their own modesty would conceal. It should be mentioned, that in addition to the prominent and laborious part which Mr. Jefferson took in the general revision, Virginia owes to his enlightened mind alone, the most important and beneficial changes in her code. The laws forbidding the future importation of slaves; converting estates tail into fees simple; annulling the rights of primogeniture; establishing schools for general education; sanctioning the right of expatriation; and confirming the rights of freedom in religious opinion, were all introduced by him, and were adopted at the time they were first proposed, or at a subsequent period; and, in addition to these, he brought forward a law proportioning crimes and punishments, which was afterwards passed under a different modification.

To enter into the details of these laws, would lead us from the objects, as it would far exceed the limits of this slight sketch; yet to the lawyer and the politician, they may be recommended as containing many an invaluable lesson in legal and political science, and to those who have been accustomed to view this great statesman rather as the author of ingenious theories, than a lawgiver skilled in the practical details of government, and the useful application of laws to the great exigencies of civil society, they will speak more, than the most laboured panegyric.

Nor was it in public duties alone that Mr. Jefferson was employed; with a zeal alike honourable and useful, he devoted his attention to the personal welfare of those of the enemy, whom the chances of war had placed

VOL. VII.-F

within his reach. It will be recollected, that Congress had deemed it prudent to retain in America, the troops who had surrendered at Saratoga, until an authentic ratification of the convention, entered into by the British general, should be obtained from his government. In the mean time it was thought expedient, to remove them into the interior of the country, and Charlottesville in Virginia was selected, as the place of their destination.

There they arrived early in the year 1779. The winter was uncommonly severe; the barracks unfinished for want of labourers; no sufficient stores of bread laid in; and the roads rendered impassable by the inclemency of the weather, and the number of wagons which had lately traversed them. Mr. Jefferson, aided by Mr. Hawkins the commissary general, and the benevolent dispositions of his fellow citizens, adopted every plan to alleviate the distresses of the troops, and to soften as much as possible the hardships of captivity. Their efforts were attended with success. The officers who were able to command money, rented houses and small farms in the neighbourhood, while the soldiers enlarged the barracks and improved their accommodations, so as in a short time to form a little community, flourishing and happy. These arrangements had scarcely been completed, when in consequence of some powers lodged in them by congress, the governor and council of Virginia determined to remove the prisoners to another part of the state; this intention was heard by the captives themselves with distress, and by those amongst