free communication between the executives of the general go vernment and the states. He considers the federal party a "completely vanquished, and never more to take the field under their own banners." "They will now," he says, "reserve themselves to profit by the schisms among republicans, and to earn favours from minorities, whom they will enable to triumph over their more numerous antagonists." His prediction has so far received the confirmation of nearly thirty years. He excuses himself from making a tour to the north, as he had been invited to do, and modestly discriminating between General Washington and himself, adds, "I confess that I am not reconciled to the idea of a chief magistrate parading himself through the several states, as an object of public gaze, and in quest of an applause, which, to be valuable, should be purely voluntary." He intimates, however, that he might make a visit to Boston or Portsmouth after his term of office had expired, but he had made up no opinion on it.

In June he sent his grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, to Philadelphia to study some branches of science not advantageously taught in any other part of the United States. Botany, natural history, and anatomy, and perhaps surgery, but not medicine, and recommended him to the attention of Dr. Wistar. He then gives his reasons for excluding medicine, and presents general views on the subject at great length, but indicating a very limited confidence in the precepts of the science. He admits that the character of some diseases and their remedies are well understood; but urges that the forms of disease and the symptoms indicating them are as various as the elements of the human body; that combinations of these symptoms, too, are so diversified, that some of them are of too rare occurrence to establish a definite disease, and to an unknown disease there cannot be a known remedy. In these cases, he says, it would be wise to trust to nature, or do nothing more than would be necessary to keep alive hope in the patient, but that the presumptuous tyro proceeds, and substitutes presumption for knowledge. He thus sketches the course of such an adventurer: "From the scanty field of what is known, he launches into the bound

less region of what is unknown. He establishes for his guide some fanciful theory of corpuscular attraction, of chemical agency, of mechanical powers, of stimuli, of irritability accumulated or exhausted, of depletion by the lancet, or repletion by mercury, or some other ingenious dream, which lets him into all nature's secrets at short hand. On the principle which he thus assumes, he forms his table of nosology, arrays his diseases into families, and extends his curative treatment, by analogy, to all the cases he has thus arbitrarily marshalled together." He says that he has "lived to see the disciples of Hoffman, Boerhave, Stahl, Cullen, and Brown, succeed one another like the shifting figures of a magic lanthorn, and their fancies like the dresses of the annual doll-babies from Paris, becoming from their novelty, the vogue of the day, and yielding to the next novelty of their ephemeral favour. The patient, treated on the fashionable theory, sometimes gets well in spite of the medicine. The medicine therefore restored him, and the young doctor receives new courage to proceed in his bold experiments on the lives of his fellow creatures." He justly remarks that the only sure foundations of medicine are an intimate knowledge of the human body, and observation on the effect of medicinal substances, and therefore "the anatomical and clinical schools are those in which the young physician should be formed. If he enters with innocence that of the theory of medicine, it is scarcely possible he should come out untainted with error. His mind must be strong indeed, if, rising above juvenile credulity, it can maintain a wise infidelity against the authority of his instructors, and the bewitching delusions of their theories." The whole letter is very well written, is a fine specimen of popular reasoning on a scientific subject, and it is believed that there are few of its particular propositions to which the liberal minded and truly scientific physician would not readily assent, though he may not concur in its conclusions.

He had a very decided, perhaps extravagant opinion, of the mischiefs done by the rash and inexperienced votaries of medicine in the United States, and he often spoke of it, sometimes in the same strong terms of denunciation used in this letter, and

sometimes in a tone of playful raillery. Of this character was the following story, which most of his acquaintance, in the last years of his life, must have heard him tell more than once. While he was vice-president, and when Dr. Rush's eloquence had given such a currency to the practice of blood-letting, he stopt at a house of entertainment, where he learnt from the landlady that she had just returned from the funeral of a youth of great promise. After descanting on his virtues and the universal regret his death had produced, she added, "but we have the consolation to know that every thing was done for him that could have been-he was bled six and twenty times."

In the increased party heat at Richmond, occasioned by Burr's trial, it was rumoured that the collector, Major Gibbon, who had entertained some of his associates, was to be removed. Mr. Jefferson's old friend, John Page, who, at the expiration of his office of governor, had accepted the office of commissioner of loans, and then resided in Richmond, addressed Mr. Jefferson a letter on the subject of Major Gibbon.* In his answer, the president states the principles on which he had acted in making appointments and removals: That he had never removed a man merely because he was a federalist: had never wished them to give a vote at an election but according to their own wishes. But if they employed the patronage and influence of their offices against the government and its measures, he had then removed them.

On the 20th of the same month, in speaking to William Duane, the editor of the Aurora, of the probability of war with Great Britain, he thus takes occasion to make a very favoura ble mention of the emperor Alexander: "A more virtuous man, I believe, does not exist, nor one who is more enthusiastically devoted to better the condition of mankind. He will, probably, one day fall a victim to it, as a monarch of that principle does

*It was of this gentleman, when some application had been made for his removal, that Mr. Jefferson, setting off his gallantry at Stony Point against his political heresies, remarked, that so far from removing him from office, he would "divide his last hoecake with him."

not suit a Russian noblesse. He has taken a peculiar affection to this country and its government, of which he has given me public, as well as personal proofs. Our nation being like his, habitually neutral, our interests as to neutral rights, and our sentiments agree. And whenever conferences for peace shall take place, we are assured of a friend in him." He adds, "1 have gone into this subject, because I am confident that Russia (while her present monarch lives) is the most cordially friendly to us of any power on earth, will go furthest to serve us, and is most worthy of conciliation."

This opinion of the late emperor, in accordance with that of his contemporaries, has, it is believed, received the confirming verdict of posterity.

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CHAPTER XI.

The President's Message to Congress. The attack on the Chesapeake, and measures of the administration. Proceedings of Congress. The President sends a confidential Message to Congress, and recommends an embargo-adopted by Congress. Communicates proceedings in Burr's trial. John Smith, Senator from Ohio. Correspondence between Mr. Monroe and Mr. Canning on the affair of the Chesapeake. Arrival of Mr. Rose from England. Correspondence between him and the Secretary of State. Party views. British orders in council. Milan Decree. Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe rival candidates for the presidency. Mr. Jefferson's course. His correspondence with Mr. Monroe. British orders in Council and French Decrees. Report of Committee of Congress. Effects of the Embargo. Its policy considered. Policy of the administration.

1807-1808.

He

The tenth Congress assembled on the 25th of October, 1807, and on the following day the president sent to both Houses his opening message. He began by adverting to the reasons which had occasioned this early summons of the legislature. speaks of the injuries which had led to the extraordinary mission to London, and briefly notices the treaty the ministers had been induced to make against their instructions, and the general character of the objections to it, which had induced his prompt rejection of it. That the ministers had been therefore instructed to renew their negotiations, and whilst we were awaiting the result, the frigate Chesapeake was attacked by