Mrs. John Adams, who had seen the residences of royalty in Europe, Buckingham Palace, Versailles, and the Tuileries, gives an amusing account of their entrance upon the splendors of the "White House." In trying to find Washington from Baltimore, they got lost in the woods. After driving for some time, bewildered in forest paths, they chanced to come upon a black man, whom they hired to guide them through the forest. "The house," she writes, "is upon a grand and superb scale, requiring about thirty servants to attend, and keep the apartments in proper order, and perform the necessary business of the house and stables. The lighting the apartments, from the kitchen to parlors and chambers, is a tax indeed; and the fires we are obliged to keep, to secure us from daily agues, is another very cheering comfort. To assist us in this great castle, and render less attendance necessary, bells are wholly wanting, not a single one being hung through the whole house; and promises are all you can obtain. This is so great an inconvenience, that I know not what to do or how to do. If they will put me up some bells, and let me have wood enough to keep fires, I design to be pleased. I could content myself almost anywhere three months; but, surrounded with forests, can you believe that wood is not to be had, because people cannot be found to cut and cart it?"

The four years of Mr. Jefferson's Vice-Presidency passed joylessly away, while the storm of partisan strife between Federalist and Republican was ever growing hotter. Gen. Hamilton, who was a great power in those days, became as much alienated from Mr. Adams as from Mr. Jefferson. There was a split in the Federal party. A new presidential election came on. Mr. Jefferson was chosen President; and Aaron Burr, Vice-President.

The news of the election of Jefferson was received in most parts of the Union with the liveliest demonstrations of joy. He was the leader of the successful and rapidly increasing party. His friends were found in every city and village in our land. They had been taught to believe that the triumph of the opposite party would be the triumph of aristocratic privilege and of civil and religious despotism. On the other hand, many of the Federalists turned pale when the tidings reached them that Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States. Both the pulpit and the press had taught them that he was the incarnation of all evil, — an infidel, an atheist, a scoffer of all things sacred, a Jacobin, breath

ing threatenings and slaughter. There is no exaggeration in this statement, strong as it is.

The following is an extract from Jefferson's inaugural. Nobler words were never uttered by one assuming power. That he was sincere in the utterance, and that the measures of his administration were in conformity with the principles here laid down, nearly every man will now admit.

"About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties. which comprehend every thing dear and valuable to you, it is proper that you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our government, and consequently those which ought to shape its administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations.

"Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all of their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheetanchor of our peace at home, and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people, a mild and safe corrective of abuses, which are topped by the sword of revolution where peace able remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which there is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, — our best reliance in peace, and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burdened; the honest payment of our debts, and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce. as its handmaid; the diffusion of information, and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press; freedom of person, under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected, — these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation."

He closes with the following words: "And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity!"

Jefferson was exceedingly simple in his taste, having a morbid dislike of all that court etiquette which had disgusted him so much in Europe. Washington rode to the halls of Congress in state, drawn by six cream-colored horses. For some unexplained reason, on the morning of his inauguration, Jefferson rode on horseback to the Capitol in a dress of plain cloth, without guard or servant, dismounted without assistance, and fastened the bridle of his horse to the fence. This certainly looks like the affectation of simplicity. It may be suggested, in excuse, that Mr. Jefferson had allowed his mind to become so thoroughly imbued with the conviction that our government was drifting towards monarchy and aristocracy, that he felt bound, in his official character, to set the example of extreme democratic simplicity.

In this spirit he abolished levees, which, though he did not so intend it, was a movement in an aristocratic direction; for the levee threw the presidential mansion open to the most humble of the people. By its abolition, none could enter the White House but those who were specially invited. The invitations to dine were no longer given in the name of the "President of the United States," as Washington and Adams had given them, but in the name of "Thomas Jefferson." His views upon this subject may be inferred from the following remarks which he made upon the character of Washington. After speaking of him in the highest terms of eulogy, as one of the greatest and best men this world. has ever known, he writes,

"I do believe that Gen. Washington had not a firm confidence in the durability of our government. He was naturally distrustful of men, and inclined to gloomy apprehensions; and I was ever persuaded that a belief that we must at length end in something like a British Constitution had some weight in his adoption of the ceremonies of levees, birthdays, pompous meetings with Congress, and other forms of the same character, calculated to prepare us gradually for a change which he believed possible, and to let it come on with as little shock as might be to the public mind."

Mr. Jefferson and his eldest grandson were one day riding in a carriage together. They met a slave, who respectfully took off

his hat, and bowed. The President, according to his invariable ustom, returned the salutation by raising his hat. The young man paid no attention to the negro's act of civility. Mr. Jefferson, after a few moments' pause, turned a reproachful eye to him, and said, "Thomas, do you permit a slave to be more of a gentleman than yourself?"

On another occasion, he was riding on horseback, accompanied by two young men, from Monticello to Charlottesville. They found Moore's Creek so swollen by a sudden shower, that the water was up to the saddle-girths. A man, with a saddle on his shoulders, was standing upon the bank. He looked at the young men as they rode through the stream, and said nothing; but, turning to Mr. Jefferson, hé asked permission to mount the croup behind him to be carried across. The President reined his horse up to a stone, and carried the man across. The countryman then dismounted, and trudged along the dusty road. Soon a party in the rear, who had witnessed the operation, came up. One inquired, "What made you let the young men pass, and ask the old gentleman to carry you over the creek?" The backwoodsman replied, in the broad patois of his region, "Wal, if you want to know, I'll tell you. I reckon a man carries 'Yes' or 'No' in his face. The young chaps' faces said 'No;' the old 'un's, 'Yes.'"-"It isn't every one," the other replied, "that would have asked the President of the United States for a ride behind him." "What," said the man, "you don't say that was Tom Jefferson, do you?" Then, pausing a moment, he added, "Wal, he's a fine old fellow, any way. What will Polly say when I tell her I have rid behind Jefferson? She'll say I voted for the right man."

The political principles of the Jeffersonian party now swept the country, and Mr. Jefferson swayed an influence which was never exceeded by Washington himself. Louisiana, under which name was then included the whole territory west of the Mississippi to the Pacific, was purchased of France, under his administration, in the year 1803, for fifteen millions of dollars. He was now smitten by another domestic grief. In the year 1804, his beautiful daughter Maria, whom he so tenderly loved, sank into the grave, leaving her babe behind her. His eldest daughter, Martha, says, speaking of her father's suffering under this terrible grief,

"I found him with the Bible in his hands. He, who has been so often and so harshly accused of unbelief,-he, in his hour of

intense affliction, sought and found consolation in the sacred volume. The comforter was there for his true heart and devout spirit, even though his faith might not be what the world calls orthodox."

Mr. Jefferson writes, in response to a letter of condolence from a friend, "My loss is great indeed. Others may lose of their abundance; but I, of my want, have lost even the half of all I had. My evening prospects now hang on the slender thread of a single life. Perhaps I may be destined to see even this last chord of parental affection broken. The hope with which I had looked forward to the moment, when, resigning public cares to younger hands, I was to retire to that domestic comfort from which the last great step is to be taken, is fearfully blighted.

"We have, however, the traveller's consolation. Every step shortens the distance we have to go. The end of our journey is in sight, the bed whereon we are to rest and to rise in the midst of the friends we have lost. 'We sorrow not, then, as others who have no hope,' but look forward to the day which joins us to the great majority. But, whatever is to be our destiny, wisdom as well as duty dictates that we should acquiesce in the will of Him whose it is to give and take away, and be content in the enjoyment of those who are still permitted to be with us."

Another presidential election came in 1804. Mr. Jefferson was re-elected President with wonderful unanimity; and George Clinton, Vice-President. Jefferson was sixty-two years of age, when, on the 4th of March, 1805, he entered upon his second term of office. Our relations with England were daily becoming more complicated from the British demand of the right to stop any of our ships, whether belonging to either the commercial or naval marine, and to take from them any sailors whom they felt disposed to claim as British subjects. The United-States frigate "Chesapeake," of thirty-eight guns, was fired upon, on the 22d of June, 1807, by the British man-of-war "Leopard," of fifty-six guns; and after a loss of three men killed and ten wounded, including Com. Barron, the "Chesapeake," which was not in a condition to return a single shot, surrendered. Four men were then taken by the British officer from the frigate, three of whom were Americans. This outrage, which occurred but a few leagues out from Hampton Roads, created intense excitement. The President despatched a vessel to England to demand reparation for the insult; while, at