England. To effect this design, they resorted to every means that offered. the pulpit, the pen, the press, and political harangues. At length, Jefferson had the satisfaction of taking part in the democratic Convention at Williamsburg, in Virginia, the first ever assembled in America, where he wrote and presented instructions for the congressional delegates, entitled "A Summary View of the Rights of British America," which was republished by the whigs in the British Parliament. The bold stand taken in this pamphlet, brought down on Jefferson the vengeance of the British ministers, and a bill of attainder for high treason was commenced against him in the British Parliament, which, however, was never brought to maturity; and had it been so, it could never have been served upon him, without a posse comitatus of one hundred thousand soldiers.

In the year 1774, the royal government in the colonies. may be said to have ceased, and the American assemblies to have succeeded to the inheritance of power, of which they had hitherto been unjustly deprived. Since she could no longer hope for success in overt acts of tyranny, England had recourse to the arts of finesse and diplomatic skill. The conciliatory proposition of Lord North was now sent to each colony, allowing the Americans the privilege of taxing themselves, provided that the amount of their contributions was satisfactory to England. So shallow a device could not have been supposed, by candid and sensible men, to have the most distant prospect of success with the majority of the people, but was probably intended. merely to create a division, and overthrow the confederation. On this ground Jefferson took his stand'; and in the answer which he was appointed to prepare, he clearly and decidedly announced the determination of Virginia to accept no proposition which was not made to the General' Congress.

But now the hour of trial had come. September 5, 1774, Congress had assembled in Philadelphia. A resolution, moved by Patrick Henry, declaring the expediency of putting the colonies in a state of defence, was before them. The wary and the prudent shrank from the dreadful leap; the bold and far-sighted rushed at once into the Rubicon.

Long and vehement was the contest; but nothing could resist the power of Henry, Jefferson, the Lees, the Pages, and Mason. The Rubicon was passed - the resolution was adopted. And now the principle that sustained America in the shock with Britain's power, was pointedly displayed; the minority, to a man, united with the majority, and boldly put their names to the resolution.

Jefferson was appointed to draw the Declaration of Independence. The draught was reported June 28th, ordered to lie on the table till July 2, when it was subjected to a most tremendous ordeal in the debate that followed; but after many alterations it passed. Thirty-seven years afterwards, Mr. Jefferson declared that Mr. Adams was the pillar of its support on the floor of Congress, its ablest advocate and defender against the multifarious assaults it encountered.

In a memorandum made by Jefferson relative to the alterations and omissions, he says, “The clause reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren, also, I believe, felt a little tender under those censures; for, though the people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others."

The congressional term for which Jefferson was elected, expired in August, 1776, and he was reelected, but soon resigned his seat to take a place in the legislature of Virginia, where he believed that he could be more useful. He was here the author of a bill abolishing entailments, and of one securing religious liberty; a bill for emancipating slaves born after its enactment, which was defeated in his absence, a bill to abolish capital punishment, except in extreme cases; and a bill establishing literary institutions.

In 1779, Jefferson was chosen governor of Virginia, where he was distinguished for his firmness in opposition to the cruelty practised by the British on the Americans who fell into their power. To repress these cruelties, he had recourse to retaliation upon a man named Hamilton, and

on his associates, who had exercised great enormities, and were therefore deemed proper objects of retaliation. This measure was believed to have been advantageous to American prisoners in the power of the British, and accordingly severities were soon relaxed. In 1781, Mr. Jefferson, from a belief that the interests of the states required a governor whose military experience would enable him to lead the forces of the state, resigned in favor of Governor Nelson. Shortly after his resignation, Cornwallis, having learned that the Assembly was in session at Charlottesville, detached Colonel Tarleton at the head of his corps, to seize Mr. Jefferson. When about ten miles from Charlottesville, Tarleton sent a small troop to Monticello, and with the rest of his corps rode to Charlottesville. The alarm was

given about sunrise; the speakers of the two houses hastened from Monticello, where they had slept the previous night, hastily rode to Charlottesville, adjourned the Assembly, and made their escape. Jefferson placed his wife and children in a carriage, and sent them to the house of Colonel Carter, on a neighboring mountain, and remained at his own house, waiting until his horse should be shod, when word was brought that the British troops were already at the foot of the hill on which his mansion stood. Upon hearing this, he mounted his horse, and fled into the woods, with whose avenues he was perfectly acquainted, and soon afterwards joined his family. Tarleton, chagrined at his disappointment, burned all the barns of Jefferson, containing his last year's crop, carried off all the cattle, sheep, swine, &c., and some of his horses, cut the throats of the rest, and burned all the fences on his plantation, reducing it to a barren waste.

In 1783, Mr. Jefferson was elected to Congress, where, as in former times, he was to be found on those committees that particularly required ability, integrity, and patriotism. He proposed and carried the measure effecting a change in the denomination of the currency, and introducing the decimal system. He opposed the formation of the Society of the Cincinnati, and the multiplication of ambissadors to foreign powers, in order to contract with them entangling alliances.

In 1789, he was appointed minister plenipotentiary to

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France, to succeed Dr. Franklin. About this time, the claims of the Barbary pirates, to which the greater part of the European powers had acceded, were firmly resisted by Mr. Jefferson, in the spirit of the maxim uttered by him on that occasion Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute." He opposed the formation of a treaty of commerce with Spain, requiring us to surrender to that power, for twenty or thirty years, the navigation of the Mississippi. While he was in France, besides attending to the ordinary duties of his embassy, his active mind was continually employed in devising plans for the improvement of the condition of the human species. From Nice, he thus writes to Lafayette: "I am constantly roving about to see what I have never seen before, and shall never see again. In the great cities, I go to see what travellers think alone worthy of being seen; but I make a job of it, and generally gulp it all down in a day. On the other hand, I am never satiated with rambling through the fields and farms, examining the culture and cultivators with a degree of curiosity which makes some take me to be a fool, and others to be much wiser than I am. From the first olive fields of Pierrelatte, to the orangeries of Hieres, it has been continued rapture to me. I have often wished for you. I think you have not made this journey. It is a pleasure you have to come, and an improvement to be added to the many you have already made. It will be a great comfort to you to know, from your own inspection. the condition of all the provinces of your own country, and it will be interesting to them, at some future day, to be known to you. This is, perhaps, the only moment of your life, in which you can acquire that knowledge. And to do it most effectually, you must be absolutely incognito; you must ferret the people out of their hovels, as I have done, look into their kettles, eat their bread, loll on their beds under pretence of resting yourself, but in fact to find if they are soft. You will feel a sublime pleasure, in the course of this investigation, and a sublime one hereafter, when you shall be able to apply your knowledge to the soft. ening of their beds, or the throwing a morsel of meat into their kettle of vegetables.”

Mr. Jefferson introduced into the south the cultivation

of upland rice, which enables the planter to dispense with the flowings of land, so destructive to human life. He negotiated for the introduction of our whale oil and tobacco into French ports; recommended the culture of the fig, olive, and mulberry, in the United States; communicated the art of stereotyping, then recently invented, and strove to introduce a taste for sculpture, music, and archi

tecture.

In the progress and success of the French revolution he took a deep interest, and was often consulted by Lafayette and the other leaders in their most difficult emergencies. He one day received a note from Lafayette, informing him that the latter, with six or seven other persons, would dine with him on a certain day. Accordingly, on the day appointed, Lafayette arrived with six or seven of the principal leaders of the different parties, that were then contending for the supremacy. After the cloth was removed, they calmnly entered upon the discussion of the most important principles of government, established certain points, on which they might all agree, and thus, in some degree, softened the asperity of party feeling which had before prevailed. The next day, Mr. Jefferson sent to the minister, Montmorin, a full explanation of the occurrence, with which, however, the latter was fully acquainted.

In 1789, soon after his return from Paris, he received from Washington the appointment of secretary of state. In the performance of the duties of his office, he conducted the controversy with Spain to a successful termination; in a correspondence relating to our difference with England on the subject of impressment, he drove Mr. Hammond, the English minister, from the field by the force of his argument; repressed the violation of our neutrality, committed by Genet, the French minister, and obtained his recall by the French government. In 1793, he resigned his office, and retired to Monticello, with the intention of entering no more into public life. But in 1797, he was chosen vice-president, in which capacity he served until 1891, when he became president of the United States.

On his induction into office, he sedulously avoided all