resistible, I now take the liberty of resigning the office into your hands. Be pleased to accept it with my sincere thanks for all the indulgences which you have been so good as to exercise toward me in the discharge of its duties. Conscious that my need of them has been great, I have still ever found them greater, without any other claim on my part than a firm pursuit of what has appeared to me to be right, and a thorough disdain of all means which were not as open and honorable as their object was pure. I carry into my retirement a lively sense of your goodness, and shall continue gratefully to remember it."

The following was Washington's reply: "Since it has been impossible to prevent you to forego any longer the indulgence of your desire for private life, the event, however anxious I am to avert it, must be submitted to.

"But I cannot suffer you to leave your station without assuring you that the opinion which I had formed of your integrity and talents, and which dictated your original nomination, has been confirmed by the fullest experience, and that both have been eminently displayed in the discharge of your duty."

The place thus made vacant in the cabinet was filled by Mr. Edmund Randolph, whose office of Attorney-general was conferred on Mr. William Bradford, of Pennsylvania.

No one seemed to throw off the toils of office with more delight than Jefferson; or to betake himself with more devotion to the simple occupations of rural life. It was his boast, in a letter to a friend, written some time after his return to Monticello, that he had seen no newspaper since he had left Philadelphia, and he believed he should never take another newspaper of any sort. "I think it is Montaigne," writes he, "who has said that ignorance is the softest pillow on

which a man can rest his head. I am sure it is true as to everything political, and shall endeavor to estrange myself to everything of that character." Yet the very next sentence shows the lurking of the old party feud. "I indulge myself in one political topic only—that is, in declaring to my countrymen the shameless corruption of a portion of the representatives of the first and second Congresses, and their implicit devotion to the treasury.”*

We subjoin his comprehensive character of Washington, the result of long observation and cabinet experience, and written in after years, when there was no temptation to insincere eulogy:

"His integrity was most pure; his justice the most inflexible I have ever known; no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the word, a wise, a good, and a great man."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Debate on Jefferson's Report on Commercial Intercourse-A Naval Force proposed for the Protection of Commerce against Piratical Cruisers-Further Instances of the Audacity of Genet-His Recall-Arrival of his Successor-Irritation-excited by British Captures of American Vessels-Preparations for Defense-Embargo-Intense Excitement at “British Spoliations"-Partisans of France in the ascendant-A Chance for Accommodating Difficulties-Jefferson's Hopes of Reconciliation-The War Cry uppermost-Washington determines to send a Special Envoy to the British Government-Jefferson's Letter to Tench Coxe

PUBLIC affairs were becoming more and more complicated, and events in Europe were full of gloomy portent. * Letter to E. Randolph. Works, iv. 103.

"The news of this evening," writes John Adams to his wife, on the 9th of January, "is that the queen of France is no more. When will savages be satisfied with blood? No prospect of peace in Europe, therefore none of internal harmony in America. We cannot well be in a more disagreeable situation than we are with all Europe, with all Indians, and with all Barbary rovers. Nearly one half of the continent is in constant opposition to the other, and the President's situa tion, which is highly responsible, is very distressing."

Adams speaks of having had two hours' conversation with Washington alone in his cabinet, but intimates that he could not reveal the purport of it, even by a hint; it had satisfied him, however, of Washington's earnest desire to do right; his close application to discover it, and his deliberate and comprehensive view of our affairs with all the world. "The anti-federalists and the Frenchified zealots," adds Adams, "have nothing now to do that I can conceive of but to ruin his character, destroy his peace, and injure his health. He supports all their attacks with firmness, and his health appears to be very good." *

The report of Mr. Jefferson on commercial intercourse was soon taken up in the House, in a committee of the whole. A series of resolutions based on it, and relating to the privileges and restrictions of the commerce of the United States, were introduced by Mr. Madison, and became the subject of a warm and acrimonious debate. The report upheld the policy of turning the course of trade from England to France, by discriminations in favor of the latter; and the resolutions were to the same purport. The idea was to oppose commercial resistance to commercial injury; to enforce

* Life of John Adams, vol. i., p. 461.