A look at Query 4 of Notes on the State of Virginia: Mountains

 Mountains loomed large in Jefferson’s thought. Monticello, his mountaintop home, was as unusual in its siting as it is iconic: most planters built homes near rivers, but for Jefferson, the soaring vista trumped practicality. Mountains could be tokens of chaos as well as sources of exaltation, however; his descriptions of the violent natural forces that formed the junction of the Potomac and the Shenandoah at Harpers Ferry, and his discussion (in the following Query) of the Natural Bridge, are classic expressions of Edmund Burke’s idea of the sublime—that which has the power to fascinate and to destroy. 

The Chevalier de Chastellux visits Jefferson at Monticello, 1782

"Let me describe to you a man, not yet forty, tall, and with a mild and pleasing countenance, but whose mind and understanding are ample substitutes for every exterior grace. An American, who without ever having quitted his own country, is at once a musician, skilled in drawing, a geometrician, an astronomer, a natural philosopher, legislator, and statesmen. A senator of America, who sat for two years in that famous Congress which brought about the revolution; and which is never mentioned without respect, though unhappily not without regret: a governor of Virginia, who filled this difficult station during the invasions of Arnold, of Phillips, and of Cornwallis; a philosopher, in voluntary retirement from the world, and public business, because he loves the world, inasmuch only as he could flatter himself with being useful to mankind; and the minds of his countrymen are not yet in a condition either to bear the light, or to suffer contradiction. A mild and amiable wife, charming children, of whose education he himself takes charge, the house to embellish, great provisions to improve, and the arts and sciences to cultivate; these are what remain to Mr. Jefferson, after having played a principal character on the theater of the New World, and which he preferred to the honorable commission of Minister Plenipotentiary in Europe."

Arnold's invasion of Virginia

During the first week of January, Benedict Arnold's troops headed up the James toward Richmond. On January 5, he ordered his troops to spread out to look like a large invasion force. The inhabitants scattered, and the unopposed redcoats captured the new capital (moved from Williamsburg to be safe from invasion at Jefferson's urging). The next day, General Nelson, commander of the militia, launched a counterattack, but it was thwarted by torrential rains that nearly drowned his troops and rendered his guns and ammunition useless. 

After the British moved on from Richmond, Major Richard Claiborne, the deputy quartermaster general, reported: “There is no commander here, nor will anybody be commanded. This leaves what public stores a few of the virtuous inhabitants have collected, exposed to every passenger, and the property of the individuals to the ravages of the Negroes. Both public and private property have been discovered to a considerably quantity, that was secreted clandestinely in and about town; and I am sorry to say that there is a stigma which rests upon the conduct of some of our own men with respect to the pillaging of public and private goods, that does not upon the British troops.”

Jefferson himself came under withering criticism for his unpreparedness and inattentiveness. It was not until January 19 that he convened the Governor's Council, and four days later that he called for the Assembly to convene. For weeks, he issued orders--more like suggestions--calling for the establishment of a battery at Hood's Point, a vital bottleneck on the James that would impede Arnold's ships if fortified. But nothing happened, and the incredulous British were able to pass through at will. Fortunately, however, they were in no rush to reduce the state, and redeployed to Portsmouth to spend the winter.

While the British fortified  Portsmouth, Jefferson had more time to devote to M. Marbois’ Queries. The Frenchman wrote him on February 5 to thank him for undertaking the project. “Hitherto it has been in my power to collect a few materials only," Jefferson apologized on March 4, explaining with supreme understatement that "my present occupations disable me from completing” it. Soon, however, he would “be in a condition which will leave me quite at leisure to take them up,” i.e., when he relinquished the governorship in June.

The lull in the invasion was only temporary, however.  On April 18, Major General William Phillips sailed past Newport News toward Richmond. Exactly a week later, Cornwallis's army crossed into Virginia from the South, and the two forces converged at Petersburg on May 20. Once again, the Virginia Assembly was routed from the capital, intending to reconvene at Charlottesville; but Col. Banastre Tarleton continued in pursuit, taking seven lingering Assembly members prisoner and laying waste Jefferson’s plantation at Elk Hill before sending an officer to Monticello to attempt to seize the governor himself. Warned in the nick of time, Jefferson rode off from his mountaintop home through the back roads to reunite with his family at his property at Poplar Forest some sixty miles to the southwest.