CHAPTER XI.

1784 1786.

Jefferson appointed Minister Plenipotentiary-Preparations for Departure-His Voyage -Personal Arrangements in Paris-Action of American Ministers-Jefferson prints his Notes on Virginia-Driven to permit Publication-Commercial Negotiations of 1784Dr. Franklin's return Home-Jefferson Minister to France-Sources of his Popularity there The existing Political Condition of France-The Patriotic Party Jefferson's Standing with it-His Standing with the People and Government-His position between Adams and Franklin-Mr. and Mrs. Adams's Personal Feelings towards him-Progress of Negotiations in 1785-Difficulties with the Barbary States-Adams for Tribute, Jefferson for War-Jefferson's Views on a Navy-On proper Objects of National Industry-On Questions before Congress-On Virginia Matters Subjects of his Correspondence-His Impressions of France-On Advantage of European Education to Americans-His Letter to Peter Carr-Changes his Residence in Paris-His Rooms at Carthusian Monastery-Official Correspondence of 1786-Negotiations with French Government The Farmers-General-Correspondence with Washington-Furnishes matter for Encyclopédie Méthodique-His proposed Remedy for American Overtrading-Views on "Annexation"-A Rumble of the Earthquake-John Ledyard-Jefferson sent for by Mr. Adams-Letter to Martha-Journey to London-Negotiations with Portugal and Barbary States-Offer of Commercial Treaty to England-Jefferson's Presentation at Court His and Mr. Adams's Statements compared-Jefferson's Impressions of England-Visits various Classic Scenes-His Journal-His lack of Sentiment-With Mr. Adams at Stratford-upon-Avon-At Battle-field of Worcester-Jefferson as a Practicalist and Idealist-Occupation on return to France-Another Contest with the Farmers-General-Arranges a League against Barbary States-Why it fell through-View of Europe after another Year's Stay-Corrections to Mr. Soulé's Work on AmericaLafayette's Bust placed in Hôtel de Ville-Jefferson's and Lafayette's Relations-An Unlucky Phrase-Lord Bolingbroke borrowed from-The Order of Bernis-Accident to Jefferson-His Letter to Washington on Cincinnati-His first View of the Govern ment to be formed by Convention of 1787-Other Correspondence-Misunderstanding with Robert Morris-A Day Dream-Made Doctor of Laws-Remarks on Shay's Insurrection-Was Jefferson's Democracy "French Democracy?"

On the 7th day of May (1784), Congress resolved that a Minister Plenipotentiary be appointed to act in conjunction with Mr. Adams and Dr. Franklin, in negotiating treaties of commerce with foreign nations; and Mr. Jefferson received that appointment.

411

112

PLENIPOTENTIARY, ETC.

[CHAP. XI.

He took immediate measures for his departure; and on the 11th of the same month left Annapolis for Philadelphia, for his oldest daughter, whom he determined to carry with him to Europe. His other two daughters, being too young for such a journey,' were left with their maternal aunt, Mrs. Eppes, wife of Francis Eppes, Esquire, of Eppington, Chesterfield county, Virginia.

Having completed his preparations, he set out for Boston, from whence he was to sail, "making it a point" in his way through New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, "of informing himself of the state of the commerce of each." He reached New York the 30th, and, it appears from his pocket account-book, paused there a week, for the above purpose, and then proceeded leisurely through Connecticut and Rhode Island, reaching Boston June 18th. Making a short trip from this point to New Hampshire and Vermont, he returned, and sailed for Europe on the 5th of July, in the merchant ship Ceres, Captain St. Barbe, bound to Cowes, England. The voyage was rapid and pleasant. The account-book just mentioned, contains a minute diary of its events, arranged with the customary exact precision; and his daughter afterwards gave her recollections, in a paper lying before us; but one voyage to Europe is too much like another to make these particulars interesting. Nathaniel Tracy, the owner of the vessel, was a passenger; and everything went off exceedingly pleasantly until the little Martha became so dreadfully sea-sick that she was confined to her bed. On the 24th of July, soundings were reached off the mouth of the British Channel, and two days later the passengers landed at West Cowes. The continued illness of his daughter detained Mr. Jefferson at Portsmouth until the 30th. He then embarked for Havre, and on the 6th of August reached Paris.'

Mary, the second of his surviving children, was six years old, and Lucy Elizabeth, the third, was two years old. The latter died before the close of 1784. The child of sorrow and misfortune, her organization was too frail and too intensely susceptible to last long. Her sensibilities were so precociously acute, that she listened with exquisite pleasure to music-and wept on hearing a false note!

2 Memoir.

3 We think one of the above trifling details (merely where Martha's illness detained him) differs from the statements of the Memoir. We only mention it to say that where we add to his statements, we write from the minute daily record which he kept at the time and the same from which he gleaned the dates and minor facts of his Memoir. After habitually collating his statements, sometimes public and sometimes private-sometimes made near to each other and sometimes a half a century apart-we come with a sort of surprise on even so trivial an error as that above mentioned.

CHAP. XI.]

ARRANGEMENTS IN FRANCE, ETC.

413

He took lodgings at the Hôtel d'Orléans, Rue Petits Augustins, but soon removed to a handsome house in the Cul-de-sac Têtebout, which he furnished and occupied his first year. We may as well here remark, that Colonel David Humphreys, Secretary of Legation, and Mr. Short, his private secretary, were members of his family; and that Martha, after enjoying a proper period of sight seeing, was placed at a convent school, à l'Abbaye Royale de Panthemont, the most fashionable and difficult of access in France.

Immediately after reaching Paris, Mr. Jefferson had called on Dr. Franklin, at Passy, and they had written Mr. Adams, then at the Hague, to join them. He soon did so, and the Ministers drew up the form of a commercial treaty, based on the late instructions of Congress,' to be offered to such nations as should be found ready to treat with them.

One of Mr. Jefferson's early occupations in France, was to superintend the printing of his Notes on Virginia. Before leaving America, various of his friends had solicited copies of the work. To make these in manuscript was out of the question, and he had accordingly inquired the price of printing a few copies, but had found that it would "exceed the importance of the object." Ascertaining that he could get it printed at one-fourth of the American price in France, he ordered two hundred copies. A portion of these were distributed among the learned men of Europe, and a larger number sent to his friends in America; but publication was carefully guarded against, for the following reasons, expressed in a letter to Colonel Monroe (June 17, 1785):

"I have taken measures to prevent its publication. My reason is, that I fear the terms in which I speak of slavery, and of our Constitution, may produce an irritation which will revolt the minds of our countrymen against reformation in these two articles, and thus do more harm than good. I have asked of Mr. Madison to sound this matter as far as he can, and if he thinks it will not produce that effect, I have then copies enough printed to give one to each of the young men at the college, and to my friends in the country."

The same reasons against publication are repeated to various other correspondents; but a European copy, by the death of

Drafted by Jefferson while in that body.

2 Mr. Madison, it appears, replied that the publication would not do the injury apprehended, "but on the contrary, might do some good." (See Jefferson to Wythe, Aug. 13th, 1786.)

414

NOTES ON VIRGINIA PUBLISHED.

[CHAP. XI. its owner, a Mr. Williams, found its way into the hands of a French publisher (M. Barrois), who procured it to be translated into French, and then very coolly sent the manuscript to Mr. Jefferson for correction, "without asking any other permission for the publication." The latter remarks in his Memoir:

"I never had seen so wretched an attempt at translation. Interverted, abridged, mutilated, and often reversing the sense of the original, I found it a blotch of errors, from beginning to end. I corrected some of the most material, and, in that form, it was printed in French. A London bookseller, on seeing the translation, requested me to permit him to print the English original. I thought it best to do so, to let the world see that it was not really so bad as the French translation had made it appear."

This London bookseller was Stockdale, of Piccadilly, and his edition made the work common to English readers on both sides of the Atlantic.

The commercial negotiations of the American ministers made slow progress, and their history is thus carried down through 1784, and, indeed, for some subsequent period, by Mr. Jefferson, in his Memoir:

"In a conference with the Count de Vergennes, it was thought better to leave to legislative regulation, on both sides, such modifications of our commercial intercourse, as would voluntarily flow from amicable dispositions. Without urging, we sounded the ministers of the several European nations, at the court of Versailles, on their dispositions towards mutual commerce, and the expediency of encouraging it by the protection of a treaty. Old Frederic, of Prussia, met us cordially, and without hesitation, and, appointing the Baron de Thulemeyer, his minister at the Hague, to negotiate with us, we communicated to him our projet, which, with little alteration by the King, was soon concluded. Denmark and Tuscany entered also into negotiations with us. Other powers appearing indifferent, we did not think it proper to press them. They seemed, in fact, to know little about us, but as rebels, who had been successful in throwing off the yoke of the mother country. They were ignorant of our commerce, which had been always monopolized by England, and of the exchange of articles, it might offer advantageously to both parties. They were inclined, therefore, to stand aloof, until they could see better what relations might be usefully instituted with us. The negotiations, therefore, begun with Denmark and Tuscany, we protracted designedly, until our powers had expired; and abstained from making new propositions to others having no colonies; because our commerce being an exchange of raw for wrought materials, is a

1 It would seem from letters of Mr. Jefferson's to W. F. Dumas (February 2, 1786), and to Dr. Bancroft (February 26, 1786), that this pirated edition was not published, up to the dates of those letters: and then Mr. Jefferson did not apprehend it would be published, the Abbé Morrelet having stopped it by promising to furnish Barrois with a translation by himself. Whether the pirated edition was afterwards published, or whether Mr. Jefferson accidentally conveys an erroneous impression in the text, we are unable to say.

CHAP. XI.]

APPOINTED MINISTER TO FRANCE.

415

competent price for admission into the colonies of those possessing them; but were we to give it, without price, to others, all would claim it, without price, on the ordinary ground of gentis amicissima."

In January, 1785, Mr. Jefferson received a letter from Mr. Eppes, of Virginia, informing him of the death of his youngest daughter. His reply will be found in the Appendix.'

In the spring of the same year, Dr. Franklin, now old and infirm, obtained his long sought permission to return home, and on the 10th of March, Congress appointed Mr. Jefferson to succeed him as Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of France. Mr. Adams had received a similar commission to the British Court, in February, and left France, in June, to enter upon his duties.

Dr. Franklin bade adieu to Passy, on the 12th of July, and his journey to the coast was accompanied with the attentions of every class of the French people. With all, indeed, he was unboundedly popular. His statesmanship had attracted the admiration of the government, his wisdom that of the philosophers, his learning that of the savans, his wit that of society, his bonhomie that of all Frenchmen. Such a combination of qualities, and such a rivalry in admiration, had swelled the general tide of feeling in his favor to one of enthusiasm.

To fill the place of such a man in the lively, impressible, and sharply discriminating society of France, was not an easy task; and of this Mr. Jefferson was very sensible. But his beginning was good, for it was with a bon-mot, by no means badly turned. "You replace M. Franklin, I hear," said the Count de Vergennes, the celebrated French Minister of Foreign Affairs, to him. "I succeed, no one can replace him," was the prompt reply.

Jefferson's popularity grew apace. He had the advantage of starting with Franklin's mantle on his shoulders. There were a few strong points of similarity in their characters, and their friendship had early reached the pitch even of affection. Jefferson revered Franklin, and Franklin admired and had full confidence in Jefferson. Then, Jefferson started, too, with the unbounded good will and applause of the French officers who had served in America. It was his fortune throughout his whole life, without apparent effort, perhaps more than any other American, besides Washington or Franklin, to win the

1 APPENDIX, No. 7.