Thomas Jefferson in London, 1786 by Mather Brown

 

John Langdon thanks Jefferson for the present he gave his daughter

December 7, 1785, John Langdon to Jefferson, Portsmouth (NH): “Our dear Bets, begs leave to present you with her grateful thanks, for the great honor you have been pleased to confer on her, in sending such an agreeable present: all Companies who come into the house must be entertained with the sight of her doll, and tumbling Gentleman; and she does not fail to confess her obligations to Governor Jefferson.

  “Mrs. Langdon desires her most kind respects may be made acceptable to you and your agreeable daughter.” [Boyd, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 9:84-85]  

Langdon was the governor of New Hampshire, and wealthiest resident of Portsmouth. Jefferson visited on a side trip on his way to Boston before sailing for his diplomatic post in Paris in 1784. 

Jefferson Looking Westward

Thomas Jefferson, serving in the largely ineffectual Continental Congress in 1784, was made the chairman of a committee created to address the issue of the conflicting trans-Appalachian land claims of the original thirteen colonies. In the final, and arguably the most important, legislative work of his career, his committee launched two seminal proposals in the spring of 1784, both written out in Jefferson’s own hand. The first, generally known as the Ordinance of 1784, was intended to provide a blue print for handling the new country’s western territories. It was passed by the Continental Congress but never went into effect, being replaced in its entirety by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. In the Ordinance of 1784, Jefferson, in his usual precise way, provided for fourteen hypothetical western states. The Ordinance also set forth the principle that new territories would be admitted as states on an equal footing with the existing states, arguably the first time in the history of the world that vassal territory was given this right, so he clearly contemplated that these new states would be co-equal with the original thirteen. In this context the fourteen states proposed to be formed by Jefferson in 1784, which would have included the southern ceded lands as well as the northern, was not that far off from what later occurred, although Jefferson’s precise geometrical boundaries and classically inspired names (like Polypotamia) seem contrived. These debates occurred while the United States was operating under the Articles of Confederation which gave each state a single vote in Congress, so Jefferson’s proposal would have given the Western states more power than the original thirteen. My question is what Jefferson contemplated would happen if those fourteen states had actually been created. Since under the Articles of Confederation each state had a single vote, wouldn’t Jefferson’s scheme have shifted control to these newly conceived western states? Later in that spring of 1784, Jefferson was appointed to a diplomatic post in Paris, where he would remain until 1788, so his proposals had to be worked out and applied by others as the Continental Congress faltered and the Constitution was being negotiated and implemented. The question of the western lands was so vital that when the Continental Congress again took up the question in 1785, it was assigned to a committee with one representative from each of the thirteen colonies. The more practical and nationalistic James Monroe became the moving spirit behind territorial organization after Jefferson left for Paris. He recognized that slavery could not be effectively ended south of the Ohio, and it was he who reduced the ultimate number of Western states that could be formed north of the Ohio by convincing Virginia to alter its act of cession to provide for not less than three nor more than five states to be created there. Jefferson's thinking about western states was undoubtedly affected by negotiations over cession of Virginia's lands north of the Ohio River to the United States, negotiations that were going on that same spring having been drawn out over the prior three years. Joseph Jones (Monroe's uncle and a brilliant lawyer trained in England) was an important moving spirit in these negotiations. I wonder whether all those Virginians were at the time thinking about America more along an east-west axis (rather than the north-south axis we have imposed on them in retrospect) and whether Jefferson himself (in proposing fourteen western states) was actually encouraging a move of the center of gravity westward. Certainly Jefferson himself was fascinated by the West as witnessed by his enthusiasm for the Lewis and Clark expedition. As Prof. Forbes has suggested, it would be interesting to study this issue, and the interaction among these three men, in the Jefferson correspondence and also in the minutes of the House of Delegates.

Too bad the Comte de Buffon never saw THIS!

I don't think my Euro friends realize how goddamned huge Moose are. They're prehistoric megafauna that survived. pic.twitter.com/ki6buJ88h4

— Will McLeod (@WillMcLeod99) September 26, 2015

Gov. Jefferson inquires about impounded wagons and horses

Gov. Jefferson to Gen. Edward Stevens, 15 September 1780: "Among the wagons impressed, for the use of your militia, were two of mine...A wagon-master, who says he was near it, informs me the brigade quarter-master cut out one of my best horses, and made his escape on him, and that he saw my wagoner loosening his own horse to come off, but the enemy's horse were then coming up, and he knows nothing further. He was a negro man, named Phill, lame in one arm and leg. If you will do me the favor to inquire what is become of him, what horses are saved, and to send them to me, I shall be much obliged to you. The horses were not public property, as they were only impressed and not sold. Perhaps your certificate of what is lost, may be necessary for me. The wagon-master told me, that the public money was in my wagon, a circumstance, which, perhaps, may aid your inquiries. After apologizing for the trouble, I beg leave to assure you, that I am, with great sincerity, /your friend and servant, Th: Jefferson

Jefferson wants to quit the Virginia governorship, 1780

Letters like this, to Gen. Edward Stevens on 12 September 1780, show the dismal condition of the Virginia militia during Jefferson's second term:

"Your letters of Aug 27 & 30th are now before me. The subsequent desertions of your militia have taken away the necessity of answering the question of how they shall be armed? On the contrary as there must now be a surplus of arms I am in hopes you will endeavor to reserve them as we have not here a sufficient number...."

The following day, Jefferson expressed his frustration with the job of Virginia governor to Richard Henry Lee:

"The application to the duties of the office I hold so excessive, and the execution of them after all so imperfect, that I have determined to retire from it at the close of the present campaign. I wish a successor to be thought of in time who, to sound Whiggism, can join perseverance in business and an extensive knoledge of the various subjects he must superintend."

Jefferson writes to the Marquis de Chastellux on Notes on the State of Virginia

On April 2, 1782, Major-General François Jean de Beauvoir, Marquis de Chastellux arrived at Monticello for a four-day stay with Jefferson. The French nobleman encountered Jefferson at a crisis point in his life: his governorship had ended in chaos and disgrace the previous June, and although the House of Delegates had absolved Jefferson of any blame, the investigation itself "had inflicted a wound on my spirit which will only be cured by the all-healing grave" (TJ to Monroe, 20 May 1782). His beloved wife Martha was pregnant with their sixth child; her labor was always difficult, and she had not fully recovered from the birth of Lucy Elizabeth, who had died at the age of a year in 1781. Jefferson had relinquished all thought of public service, and had retired to his farm, his family, and his scientific investigations. Henceforward, Thomas Jefferson was a private person.

But Chastellux had rekindled a desire for fame that Jefferson had thought was extinguished. To say that they were compatible would be an understatement; over the next four days they experienced something like a mind-meld. By the time Chastellux made his way down the mountain, he was a confirmed member of the Friends of Mr. Jefferson, a tireless and effective agent in his cause.

One way in which Jefferson solicited Chastellux's assistance was in disseminating and promoting interest in Notes on the State of Virginia, as illustrated in Jefferson's letter of 7 June 1785:

“Dear Sir,—I have been honoured with the receipt of your letter of the 2d instant, and am to thank you, as I do sincerely for the partiality with which you receive the copy of the Notes on my country. As I can answer for the facts therein reported on my own observation and have admitted none on the report of others which were not supported by evidence sufficient to command my own assent, I am not afraid that you should make any extracts you please for the Journal de Physique which come within their plan of publication. The strictures on slavery and on the constitution of Virginia are not of that kind, and they are the parts which I do not wish to have made public, at least till I know whether their publication would do most harm or good. It is possible that in my own country these strictures might produce an irritation which would indispose the people towards the two great objects I have in view, that is the emancipation of their slaves & the settlement of their constitution on a firmer & more permanent basis. If I learn from thence, that they will not produce that effect, I have printed & reserved just copies enough to be able to give one to every young man at the College. It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not to the one now in power, for these great reformations. The other copy delivered at your hotel was for Mons de Buffon. I meant to ask the favour of you to have it sent to him, as I was ignorant how to do it. I have one also for Mons Daubenton; but being utterly unknown to him I cannot take the liberty of presenting it till I can do it through some common acquaintance.