articles of the last year, having first taken what corn he wanted; he used, as was to be expected, all my stock of cattle, sheep, and hogs, for the sustenance of his army, and carried off all the horses capable of service; of those too young for service he cut the throats; and he burned all the fences on the plantation, so as to leave it an absolute waste. He carried off also about thirty slaves. Had this been to give them freedom he would have done right; but it was to consign them to inevitable death, from the small pox and putrid fever then raging in his camp. This I knew afterwards to be the fate of twentyseven of them: I never had news of the remaining three, but presumed they shared the same fate. When I say that Lord Cornwallis did all this, I do not mean that he carried about the torch in his own hands, but that it was all done under his eye; the situation of the house in which he was, commanding a view of every part of the plantation, so that he must have seen every fire. I relate these things on my own knowledge, in a great degree; as I was on the ground soon after he left it. He treated the rest of the neighbourhood somewhat in the same style, but not with that spirit of total extermination with which he seemed to rage over my possessions. Wherever he went the dwelling-houses were plundered of every thing which could be carried off. Lord Cornwallis's character in England would forbid the belief that he shared in the plunder; but that his table was served with the plate thus pillaged from private houses can be proved by many hundred eye-witnesses.'-Vol. ii. p. 336.

On the 6th of June, 1783, he was appointed by the Legislature of Virginia a delegate to Congress, which was then sitting at Annapolis; and was one of the delegates who ratified the definitive treaty of peace which was signed at Paris on the 3rd of September, 1783, and ratified in Congress, without a dissenting voice, on the 14th of January, 1784.

On the 7th of May following, he was appointed a minister plenipotentiary, in addition to Mr. Adams and Dr. Franklin, for negociating treaties of commerce with foreign nations. He arrived at Paris in August, accompanied by Dr. Franklin from Passy, and being shortly afterwards joined by Mr. Adams from the Hague. He remained in Europe till October, 1789, and witnessed the origin of the French Revolution, respecting which his correspondence gives much interesting and authentic detail, and much valuable opinion; and his observations are recapitulated in his unfinished Memoir. In this Memoir, begun, be it remembered, in 1821, he winds up this portion of his subject thus:

Here I discontinue my relation of the French Revolution. The minuteness with which I have so far given its details, is disproportioned to the general scale of my narrative. But I have thought it justified, by the interest which the whole world must take in this Revolution. As yet we are but in the first chapter of its history. The appeal to

the rights of man, which had been made in the United States, was taken up by France, first of the European nations. From her the spirit has spread over those of the South. The tyrants of the North have allied indeed against it, but it is irresistible. Their opposition will only multiply its millions of human victims; their own satellites will catch it, and the condition of man through the civilized world, will be finally and greatly ameliorated. This is a wonderful instance of great events from small causes. So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes and consequences in this world, that a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed, in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants.'-Vol. i. p. 90.

Jefferson returned to America at the end of 1789, on a temporary leave of absence; but he had scarcely landed in America, when he received from General Washington (then President) the appointment of Secretary of State, which prevented his intended return to Paris. Much as the cessation of his invaluable testimony to the progressive events of the French Revolution is to be lamented, it is still evident that his proper sphere of action was in America. His residence in Europe had served, by the contrasts which were continually before his eyes in the condition of the people, to confirm him in the love of the young institutions of his own country; and his presence in America was essential to the existence of those institutions. Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, a staunch federalist, carried through many measures which Jefferson cordially disapproved; amongst others a tax on home-distilled spirits, which laid the foundation of an Excise, produced dissatisfaction and open resistance, and had nearly broken up the Union. Hamilton's object was, to strengthen the hands of the general government, to give it sufficient strength to do right in spite of the people.

'At a cabinet dinner in April, 1791, Adams having said of the .British Constitution, "Purge that Constitution of its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of representation, and it would be the most perfect Constitution ever devised by the wit of man;" Hamilton paused, and said, "Purge it of its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of representation, and it would become an impracticable government: as it stands at present, with all its supposed defects, it is the most perfect government which ever existed." "And this," says Jefferson, "was assuredly the exact line which separated the political creed of these two gentlemen. Adams was for two hereditary branches and an honest elective one; Hamilton for an hereditary king, with a House of Lords and Commons corrupted to his will, and standing between him and the people."'-Vol iv. p. 461,

Certainly of all the men that ever set about establishing a "firm of Corrupter-General and Company" on the other side of

the Atlantic, Hamilton was one of the most zealous and efficient. Proceeding on the principle, that man could be governed by one of two motives only, force or sinister interest, and that force in the • United States was out of the question, he adapted his financial schemes to the securing of a majority in Congress. The act for paying off at par the certificates of debt given in the latter part of the Revolution, was one of these schemes. Many of these certificates had been sold by the original holders at two shillings in the pound. As soon as the passing of the act was foreseen by Hamilton and his friends, expresses were sent all over the Union to purchase up the certificates, before the holders, in the more distant places especially, could possibly know that Congress had provided for their redemption at par. "Immense sums were thus filched from the poor and ignorant, and fortunes accumulated by those who had themselves been poor enough before. Men thus enriched by the dexterity of a leader, would follow of course the chief who was leading them to fortune, and become the zealous instruments of his enterprises."

Another of Hamilton's fiscal manoeuvres was the Assumption. The debts contracted, and the money expended, by the separate States during the war, was pretended to have been for general purposes; the amount, not being ascertainable, was guessed to be twenty millions; the fair distribution of these twenty millions among the several States was the subject of another guess; and those who, in the midst of all this guessing, guessed that the partisans of the Treasury got the largest share of the spoil, were not the least correct guessers on the occasion.

Hamilton did not, and could not, corrupt a majority of the Congress; but his purchased partizans turned the balance which the honest men of both parties had held nearly in equipoise. His next scheme was the Bank of the United States at Philadelphia, which, till the seat of government was removed to Washington, gave the Treasury great and permanent influence in the appointment and re-appointment of members of both Houses as Directors.

General Washington did not understand these devices, and Jefferson, to whom they were abhorrent, determined to withdraw from all political connection with their authors and supporters. He would allow of no compromise with the first steps of despotism; he would give the General Government no power which theState Government could exercise; he would have the General Government strong to execute the national will, and impotent to coerce it; he would furnish it with no means of corruption, or of intimidation, or of delusion. He was less dismayed by the temporary excesses of the French Revolution, than fixed in his

abhorrence of the inflictions of unrestrained power which had preceded and caused it. Washington vainly endeavoured to reconcile Jefferson and Hamilton, to induce them to draw together for the advancement of public business. It was impossible; their principles were wide as the poles asunder. Jefferson resigned his office on the 31st of December, 1793.

"This gentleman," says the biographer of General Washington, "withdrew from his political station at a moment when he stood particularly high in the esteem of his countrymen. His fixed opposition to the financial_schemes which had been proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury, and approved by the legislative and executive departments of the government; his ardent and undisguised attachment to the revolutionary party in France; the dispositions which he was declared to possess in regard to Great Britain, and the popularity of his opinions respecting the constitution of the United States, had devoted to him that immense party, whose sentiments were supposed to comport with his, on most or all of these interesting subjects.

"To the opposite party he had of course become particularly unacceptable; but the publication of his correspondence with M. Genet, dissipated much of the prejudice which had been excited against him. He had in that correspondence maintained, with great ability, the opinions embraced by the federalists on those points of difference which had arisen between the two republics, and which, having become universally the subjects of discussion, had in some measure displaced those topics on which parties had previously divided. The partiality for France that was conspicuous through the whole of it, detracted nothing from its merit in the opinion of the friends of the administration, because, however decided might be their determination to support their own government in a controversy with any nation whatever, they felt all the partialities for that republic which the correspondence expressed. The hostility of his enemies therefore was, for a time, considerably lessened, without a corresponding diminution of the attachment of his friends. In office it would have been impracticable long to preserve these dispositions; and it would have been difficult to maintain that ascendancy which he held over the minds of those who had supported, and probably would continue to support, every pretension of the French republic, without departing from principles and measures which he had openly and ably defended."See Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. v. page 406.

Jefferson resided in retirement at his seat, Monticello, on his paternal estate in Virginia, from the beginning of 1794, till the Spring of 1797, when John Adams was elected President and

Jefferson Vice-President, for four years, from the 4th of March. We may remind our readers incidentally, that the first President and Vice-President of the United States were general Washington and John Adams, who were elected for four years, from the 4th of March, 1789, and re-elected for four years, from the 4th of March, 1793.

The office of Vice-President did not impose much public duty on its holder, and consequently did not much interrupt the domestic retirement of Jefferson, who, differing decidedly from the President, on almost all essential points of politics, abstained as much as possible from interference in the business of government.

The federalists (as the advocates for a strong General Government were called), made great strides towards Anglicising the American constitution during the Presidency of Adams. Amongst other blessings, they established a Libellaw, making all printed matter that did not please them, seditious and blasphemous. They were for a strong hand over every thing, the press included. It is futile to say of them, as some of their advocates do, that they were as true republicans as their opponents, and had no intention to introduce either monarchy or aristocracy. It is sufficient for us to be convinced that the tendency of their measures was to introduce one or both of them. If they had brought about such a result, it would have been no satisfaction to the friends of liberty to be assured, that the authors of the mischief were men of honesty and honour, who had gone further than they intended. Hell is paved with good intentions; but heaven forbid that any portion of the pavement should be made of the liberties of America.

Now came the Presidential elections of 1800. The republicans, thoughout the States, felt the necessity of arousing themselves to restore and preserve the purity of their constitution. The federalists, on the other hand, redoubled their exertions to maintain the ground they had gained, and the excesses committed by the French people on breaking the chains of centuries, had terrified many well-meaning persons into the federal ranks. The comparative strength of the parties was doubtful; and had not the high moral and political character of Jefferson presented itself as a rallying point for the republicans, the triumph of the federalists would have been secure. It is impossible to read the events and opinions of that time, without perceiving that never were the best interests of mankind in more imminent danger. This election was not like one of ours, a mere contest of nick-names: it was really and truly a contest for civil and religious liberty, against the principles of despotism,