will forever stain the pages of modern history. I have ever believed that, had there been no queen, there would have been no revolution; no force would have been provoked or exercised.

Like John Knox, in the days of Mary, Queen of Scots, Jefferson could not appreciate the beauty which looked, without pity, on the starving multitude, and listened, without emotion, to the cries of her unfortunate people.

Jefferson looked with contemptuous amazement upon the French court feasting and dancing at Versailles, while the hungry people roared and surged through the streets of Paris.

"Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion creeping nigher

Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly dying fire."

The glamour of royalty did not seem to affect this stern republican, who rejected with scorn the divine right of kings.

In one of his letters he writes thus of the monarchs then occupying the proudest thrones of earth:

"While I was in Europe I often amused myself in contemplating the characters of the then reigning sovereigns of Europe. Louis the Sixteenth was a fool, of my own knowledge, and in despite of the answers made for him at his trial. The King of Spain was a fool, and of Naples the same. They passed their lives in hunting, and despatched two couriers a week over one thousand miles to let each other know what game they had killed the preceding

days. The King of Sardinia was a fool. All these were Bourbons. The Queen of Portugal, Braganza, was an idiot by nature, and so was the King of Denmark. Their sons, as regents, exercised the powers of government. The King of Prussia, successor to Frederick the Great, was a mere hog in body as well as in mind.

"Gustavus of Sweden, and Joseph of Austria, were really crazy, and George of England, you know, was in a straight waistcoat. There remained then none but old Catherine, who had been too lately picked up to have lost her common sense.

"In this state Bonaparte found Europe, and it was the state of the rulers which lost it without a struggle. These animals had become without mind and powerless, and so will every hereditary monarch be after a few generations."

Every fibre of Jefferson's being sympathized with the unfortunate people whose sweat and blood had been wrung from them for centuries, to feed these royal animals, and every hour in Europe added to his hatred of the monarchical system.

In February, 1787, he left Paris, and traveled incognito through the fairest provinces of France, investigating the home life of the people, their houses, food and modes of agriculture.

Besides attending to his diplomatic duties and making commercial treaties with all the principal nations of Europe, Jefferson found time to correspond with leading scientists upon chemistry, astron

VOL. XII-C

omy, geology and natural history. He collected and shipped to the United States seeds and plants of all kinds suitable to our soil and climate, and procured for Buffon, the great naturalist, specimens of the animals and birds peculiar to this continent.

When in France, he wrote and published his celebrated "Notes on Virginia," which attracted universal attention, and passed through several editions.

Whilst making treaties, writing philosophical essays, and watching the revolution, this remarkable man invented an improved plough, which was awarded a medal by the Royal Agricultural Society of the Seine, and was exhibited to William C. Rives, Minister to France in 1853, as "The Prize Plough of Thomas Jefferson;" afterwards he invented the revolving chair, now found in so many offices and households.

Rice was largely consumed in France, and anxious to know why the American article was unable to compete successfully with that raised in Southern Europe, he made a journey across the Alps in 1787, into the rice-growing districts, and being unable to procure some improved seed rice, which he discovered there, on account of laws prohibiting its exportation, he filled the pockets of his coat and overcoat with the best rice, of the best rice-producing district of Italy, and sent it to Charleston. It came to hand safely, was distributed in quantities of ten and twelve grains to planters, and being carefully

tended, furnished South Carolina the best rice in the world.

After five years of unremitting toil for his country and mankind, Jefferson was compelled to give some attention to his private affairs, and left Paris in October, 1789, with his two daughters, expecting to return within a year. On November 17, 1789, he landed safely at Norfolk, and found an invitation from Washington to become Secretary of State.

With reluctance, but acting under a sense of public obligation, he accepted the office, and entered upon its duties.

Accustomed, as Jefferson must have been, to the uncertainty of political events and the mutations of public sentiment, he was profoundly astonished to find that a powerful party had come into existence in the United States, which distrusted the people, and favored a strong, if not monarchical government. At the head of this party was the Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.

It was not possible that harmony, nor any relation except that of antagonism, should exist between Jefferson and Hamilton. They were both men of great ability, positive convictions, and with views utterly irreconcilable as to the government.

Jefferson was the incarnate principle of Democracy, pure and simple, without alloy. Hamilton had no sympathy with the people or popular government.

Notwithstanding the great authority of Wash

ington, and the influence which his character exercised upon all who approached him, there soon occurred an open rupture between the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury.

In February, 1792, Jefferson mentioned to the President his intention to retire from the Cabinet, and, when pressed for his reasons, frankly stated that it was impossible for Colonel Hamilton and himself to continue together in the administration, and that now a proposition had been brought forward, the decision of which must definitely determine "whether we live under a limited or unlimited government.

"To what proposition do you allude?" asked the President.

"To that," replied Jefferson, "in the report of manufactures (by Hamilton), which, under color of giving bounties for the encouragement of particular manufactures, meant to establish the doctrine that the Constitution, in giving power to Congress to provide for the general welfare, permitted Congress to take everything under their charge which they should deem for the public welfare. If this was maintained, then the enumeration of powers in the Constitution does not at all constitute the limits of their authority."

If Jefferson should now revisit the earth he would find the same doctrine advanced even amongst those who claim to be exponents of his principles and teaching.