snort; in little more than ten years, death deprived him of his wife, and left him the sole guardian of two infant daughters, to whose educa THOMAS JEFFERSON. THOMAS JEFFERSON was born on the 2d day of April, 1743, at Shadwell, in Albemarle county, Virginia. His ancestors had emigrated to that province at an early period; their standing in the community was highly respectable, and they lived in circumstances of considerable affluence. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a person much esteemed and well known; he had been one of the commissioners for determining the boundary between Virginia and North Carolina, and at his death he left his son an ample and unembarrassed fortune. THOMAS JEFFERSON was educated at the college of William and Mary, in Williamsburg, and, after distinguishing himself there, by his habits of patience and labor, became a student of law under the well known George Wythe, afterwards chancellor of the state of Virginia. On coming of age, he was admitted to the bar, appointed a justice of the peace for the county in which he lived, and, at the election following, chosen one of its representatives in the provincial legis lature. His mind seems to have been imbued from his earliest youth with the most liberal political sentiments. On one of his seals, engraved about this time, the motto was "Ab eo libertas, à quo spiritus;" and on another, "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." These feelings gained strength from the position of public affairs. From the year 1763, a spirit of opposition to the British government gradually rose in the province, until, in 1769, it assumed the shape of a formal resolution not to import articles from the mother country; this resolution Mr. JEFFERSON signed himself, and promoted with all his influence. On the 1st of January, 1772, he married the daughter of Mr Wayles, an eminent lawyer of Virginia, and, in the amiable and accomplished character of the lady, secured that domestic happiness which his own disposition so well fitted him to enjoy. Its duration, however, was but short; in little more than ten years, death deprived him of his wife, and left him the sole guardian of two infant daughters, to whose educa |