CHAPTER XI.

AFTER five and twenty years' continual employment in the public service, with every wish of personal ambition more than gratified, Mr Jefferson returned with great satisfaction to that mode of life which had always been congenial to him, and from which he was resolved never again to be diverted. In answer to a letter of the secretary of State, soon after his resignation, containing an invitation of the president, pressing his return to the public councils, he wrote: No circumstances, my dear sir, will ever more tempt me to engage in any thing public. I thought myself perfectly fixed in this determination when I left Philadelphia, but every day and hour since has added to its inflexibility. It is a great pleasure to me to retain the esteem and approbation of the president, and this forms the only ground of any reluctance at being unable to comply with every wish of his. Pray convey these sentiments and a thousand more to him, which my situation does not permit me to go into.'

In the cultivation of his farm, with which he was at all times enamored, and to which he was now intently devoted, Mr Jefferson was as philosophical and original as in every other department of business. On and around the mountain on which Monticello is situated, was an estate of about 5000 acres owned by him; of which eleven hundred and twenty acres only were under cultivation. A ten years' abandonment of his lands to the ravages of overseers, had brought on them a degree of deterioration, far beyond what he had expected; and he

determined upon the following plan for retrieving them from the wretched condition in which they were found. He divided all his lands under culture, into four farms, and every farm into seven fields of forty acres. Each farm therefore consisted of two hundred and eighty acres. He established a system of rotation in cropping, which embraced seven years; and this was the reason for the division of each farm into seven fields. In the first of these years, wheat was cultivated; in the second, Indian corn; in the third, peas or potatoes; in the fourth, vetches; in the fifth, wheat; and in the sixth and seventh, clover. Thus each of his fields yielded some produce every year, and the rotation of culture, while it prepared the soil for the succeeding crop, increased its produce. Each farm, under the direction of a particular steward or bailiff, was cultivated by four negroes, four negresses, four oxen, and four horses. On each field was constructed a barn sufficiently capacious to hold its produce in grain and forage. A few extracts from his private correspondence, at this period, will show how completely his mind was abstracted from the political world, and absorbed in the occupations and enjoyments of his rural

retreat.

TO JAMES MADISON. 'I long to see you. I am proceeding in my agricultural plans with a slow but sure step. To get under full way will require four or five years. But patience and perseverance will accomplish it. My little essay in red clover, the last year, has had the most encouraging success. I sowed then about forty acres. I have sowed this year about one hundred and twenty, which the rain now falling comes very opportunely on. From one hundred and sixty to two hundred acres, will be my yearly sowing. The seed-box described in the agricultural transactions of New-York, reduces the expense of seeding from six shillings to two shillings and three pence the acre, and does the business better than is possible to be done by the human hand.'

To W. B. GILES.I sincerely congratulate you on

the great prosperities of our two first allies, the French and Dutch. If I could but see them now at peace with the rest of their continent, I should have little doubt of dining with Pichegru in London, next autumn; for I believe I should be tempted to leave my clover for a while, and go and hail the dawn of liberty and republicanism in that island. I shall be rendered very happy by the visit you promise me. The only thing wanting to make me completely so, is the more frequent society of my friends. It is the more wanting, as I am become more firmly fixed to the glebe. If you visit me as a farmer, it must be as a condisciple; for I am but a learner, an eager one indeed, but yet desperate, being too old to learn a new art. However, I am as much delighted and occuI shall talk pied with it, as if I was the greatest adept. with you about it from morning till night, and put you Now on very short allowance as to political aliment. and then a pious ejaculation for the French and Dutch republicans, returning with due dispatch to clover, potatoes, wheat, &c.'

you

To M. PAGE. 'It was not in my power to attend at Fredericksburg according to the kind invitation in your letter, and in that of Mr Ogilvie. The heat of the weather, the business of the farm, to which I have made myself necessary, forbade it; and to give one round reason for all, mature sanus, I have laid Rosinante up my in his stall, before his unfitness for the road shall expose him faltering to the world. But why did not I answer in time? Because, in truth, I am encouraging myself to grow lazy, and I was sure you would ascribe the delay to any thing sooner than a want of affection or respect to you, for this was not among the possible causes. In truth, if any thing could ever induce me to sleep another night out of my own house, it would have been your friendly invitation and my solicitude for the subject of it, the education of our youth. I do most anxiously wish to see the highest degrees of education given to the higher degrees of genius, and to all degrees of it, so much as may enable them to read and understand what is going on in the world, and to keep their part of it going on right for nothing can keep it right but their own vigilant and distrustful superintendence."

With the peaceful operations of agriculture, Mr Jefferson combined another gratification - to wit, the pursuit of science. In compliment to his uncommon passion for philosophy, and his exalted attainments in science, he was about this time appointed president of the American Philosophical Society, the oldest and most distinguished institution in the United States. This honor had been first conferred on Dr Franklin, and afterwards on Rittenhouse, at whose death Mr Jefferson was chosen. His sensibility to this mark of distinction was more profound than he had ever felt on any occasion of political preferment. The suffrage of a body,' said he in reply, which comprehends whatever the American world has of distinction in philosophy and science in general, is the most flattering incident of my life, and that to which I am the most sensible. My satisfaction would be complete, were it not for the consciousness that it is far beyond my titles. I feel no qualification for this distinguished post, but a sincere zeal for all the objects of our institution, and an ardent desire to see knowledge so disseminated through the mass of mankind, that it may, at length, reach even the extremes of society, beggars, and kings.'

He

Of this society he was the pride and ornament. presided over it for a number of years with great efficiency, elevating its character, and extending its operations, by those means which his enlarged acquaintance with science and the literary world enabled him to command. His constant attendance at its meetings, while he resided in Philadelphia, gave them an interest which had not been excited for a number of years. Science, under his auspices, received a fresh impulse, as will appear by consulting the Transactions of that period, which were enriched by many valuable contributions from himself.

But it was impossible for Mr Jefferson utterly to extinguish that inbred republicanism for which he was

so remarkable, or those anxieties for its preservation and purity, which weighed on him so heavily at times. He had left Philadelphia not without some inquietude for the future destinies of the government, yet with a confidence so strong as never permitted him to doubt the final result of the experiment.

Early in the year 1795, the two great parties of the nation became firmly arrayed against each other, on the question of providing a successor to General WashingMr Adams was taken up by the federalists, and Mr Jefferson was undividedly designated as the republican candidate.

ton.

The contest was conducted with great asperity. In fierceness and turbulence of character, in the temper and dispositions of the respective parties, and in the principles which were put in issue, the contest so strongly resembled those of which the present generation have been frequent eye-witnesses and actors, as to render a description unnecessary. The issue is well known. The struggle of the people against the party in power is always an unequal one; and was lost on the present occasion. The majority, however, was inconsiderable. On counting the electoral votes in February, 1797, it appeared there were seventy-one for Mr Adams, and sixty-eight for Mr Jefferson.