early part of the Revolution, which produced a high degree of mutual respect and esteem between Mr. Adams and myself. Certainly no man was ever truer than he was, in that day, to those principles of rational republicanism which, after the necessity of throwing off our monarchy, dictated all our efforts in the establishment of a new government. And, although he afterwards swerved towards the principles of the English constitution, our friendship did not abate on that account.

"On the day on which we learned in Philadelphia the vote of the city of New York, which it was well known would decide the vote of the State, and that again the vote of the Union, I called on Mr. Adams on some official business. He was very sensibly affected, and accosted me with these words: Well, I understand that you are to beat me in this contest, and I will only say that I will be as faithful a subject as any you will have.' 'Mr. Adams,' said I, 'this is no personal contest between you and me. Two systems of principles on the subject of government divide our fellow-citizens into two parties. With one of these you concur, and I with the other. As we have been longer on the public stage than most of those now living, our names happen to be more generally known. One of these parties, therefore, has put your name at its head, the other mine. Were we both to die to-day, to-morrow two other names would be in the place of ours, without any change in the motion of the machinery. Its motion is from its principle; not from you or myself.' 'I believe you are right,' said he, that we are but passive instruments, and should not suffer this matter to affect our personal dispositions.'

"But he did not long retain this just view of the subject. When the election between Burr and myself was kept in suspense by the Federalists, and they were meditating to place the president of the Senate at the head of the Government, I called on Mr. Adams with a view to have this desperate measure prevented by his negative. He grew warm in an instant, and said, with a vehemence he had not used towards me before, 'Sir, the event

of the election is within your own power. You have only to say you will do justice to the public creditors, maintain the navy, and not disturb those holding offices, and the government will instantly be put into your hands. We know it is the wish of the people it should be so.' 'Mr. Adams,' said I, 'I know not what part of my conduct, in either public or private life, can have authorized a doubt of my fidelity to the public engagements. I

say, however, I will not come into the government by capitula tion. I will not enter on it, but in perfect freedom to follow the dictates of my own judgment.' It was the first time in our lives we had ever parted with any thing like dissatisfaction.

"A little time and reflection effaced in my mind this temporary dissatisfaction with Mr. Adams, and restored me to that just estimate of his virtues and passions, which a long acquaintance had enabled me to fix."

He then goes on to state that he soon conceived the idea of serving Mr. Adams, as he was not rich, by giving him the best office in Massachusetts in the gift of the President, but that he was finally prevented doing this laudable act from a fear that Mr. Adams would reject any thing from him, but more from the opposition raised to the step by the Democratic leaders and advisers. He also refers to his correspondence with Mrs. Adams and its abrupt and fruitless termination, and ended by sending her letters to Dr. Rush for his view of them, and reasserted that nothing should be wanting on his part to further the good doctor's purpose of reconciliation.

On the 5th of December, 1811, he again wrote Dr. Rush as follows:

"I communicated to you the correspondence which had parted Mrs. Adams and myself, in proof that I could not give friendship in exchange for such sentiments as she had recently taken up towards myself, and avowed and maintained in her letters to me. Nothing but a total renunciation of these could admit a reconciliation, and that could be cordial only in proportion as the return to ancient opinions was believed sincere. In these jaundiced sentiments of hers I had associated Mr. Adams, knowing the weight which her opinions had with him, and notwithstanding she declared in her letters that they were not communicated to him.

"A late incident has satisfied me that I wronged him, as well as her, in not yielding entire confidence to this assurance on her part. Two of my neighbors and friends took a tour to the northward during the last summer. In Boston they fell into company

with Mr. Adams, and by his invitation passed a day with him at Braintree. Among many other topics, he adverted to the unprincipled licentiousness of the press against myself, adding, 'I always loved Jefferson, and still love him.'

"This is enough for me. I only needed this knowledge to revive towards him all the affections of the most cordial moments of our lives. . . . I wish, therefore, but for an apposite occasion to express to Mr. Adams my unchanged affections for him. .

"I have thus, my friend, laid open my heart to you, because you were so kind as to take an interest in healing again Revolutionary affections, which have ceased in expression only, but not in their existence."

An opportunity soon presented itself, and full confidence was again restored between these two old men; and at times torrents of letters flowed between them, embracing all topics, but especially religion; and a very jargon of Latin, Greek, and heathen philosophies they made of it. Yet they both called themselves Christians, and quietly, to their own satisfaction, reared the banner of Him whom they called the "man" of model morals, humanity, and eloquence, and gratified themselves by wishing that all young men, especially of this Nation, were Unitarians like unto themselves.

In a first letter to Mr. Adams, dated Monticello, January 21, 1812, he breaks out:

"A letter from you calls up recollections very dear to my mind. It carries me back to the times when, beset with difficulties and dangers, we were fellow-laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is the most valuable to man, his right of selfgovernment. Laboring always at the same oar, with some wave ever ahead, threatening to overwhelm us, and yet passing harmless under our bark, we knew not how, we rode through the storm with heart and hand, and made a happy port. Still we did not expect to be without rubs and difficulties; and we have had them. First the detention of the Western posts, then the coalition of Pilnitz, outlawing our commerce with France, and the British enforcement of the outlawry. In your day, French depredation;

in mine, English, and the Berlin and Milan decrees; now, the English orders of council, and the piracies they authorize. When these shall be over, it will be the impressment of our seamen or something else; and so we have gone on, and so we shall go on, puzzled and prospering beyond example in the history of man. And I do believe we shall continue to grow, to multiply, and prosper until we exhibit an association, powerful, wise, and happy, beyond what has yet been seen by men.

"As for France and England, with all their pre-eminence in science, the one is a den of robbers, and the other of pirates. And if science produces no better fruits than tyranny, murder, rapine, and destitution of national morality, I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest, and estimable, as our neighboring savages are. But whither is senile garrulity leading me? Into politics, of which I have taken final leave. I think little. of it and say less. I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid, and I find myself much the happier. Sometimes, indeed, I look back to former occurrences, in remembrance of our old friends and fellow-laborers, who have fallen before us. Of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, I see now living not more than half a dozen on your side of the Potomac, and on this side myself alone. You and I have been wonderfully spared, and myself with remarkable health, and a considerable activity of body and mind. I am on horseback three or four hours every day; I walk but little, however, a single mile being too much for me."

In June, 1812, war was formally declared against England, and in its progress and that of the political parties at home Mr. Jefferson took the liveliest interest. He was even urged by many of his friends to become the candidate of his party instead of Mr. Madison for another term of the Presidency. But this he would not hear to both on his own and the account of Mr. Madison. He believed Mr. Madison was the best man in the Nation for that office at the time. There seems, too, to have been an attempt during this year to induce him to become Secretary of State in Madison's divided Cabinet, but this he declined on

account of his growing weakness and desire for retirement.

While in France, Yale College had seen fit to confer on him the degree of LL. D. In 1814, he was elected member of the New York Historical Society, the American Antiquarian Society, and the Agronomic Society of Bavaria, and resigned his presidency of the American Philosophical Society, a position he had held for many years. In this year he sold his great library to Congress for $23,950, said to be about one-half of its original cost. The pressing demands upon him for money led him to offer to make this sale to Congress, and that body was finally induced from two considerations to make the purchase, to aid him in his straitened circumstances, and partly to make up for the destruction of the property of the Government at Washington by the British army.

Some of Mr. Jefferson's letters during this war contained most violent attacks upon the Federalists. Few men probably had more ground for severity in handling his party enemies, and especially at that time. did the extreme opponents of the Administration deserve reprehension and detestation. They not only did every possible thing to obstruct the operations of the Government, but in a part of New England were even accused of offering advances toward England, Massachusetts taking the lead, and the "Hartford Convention" of December, 1814, it was believed, favoring a "northern confederacy."

The war terminated favorably to America, and the Hartford movement received the universal contempt and odium of all men of all parties, at all known for their integrity and patriotism, throughout the country,