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.

George Nicholas specifies the charges against Gov. Jefferson

George Nicholas to TJ, July 31, 1781: “By the resolution of the House of Delegates an enquiry is to be made into the conduct of the executive for the last twelve months. No particular instance of misconduct was specified. They seemed to think and I am still of opinion that the persons entrusted with the administration ought to be ready to give an account of the whole and of every part of it.
  You consider me in a wrong point of view when you speak of me as an accuser. As a freeman and the representative of free Men I considered it as both my right and duty to call upon the executive to account for our numberless miscarriages and losses so far as they were concerned in or might have prevented them. In doing this I had no private pique to gratify….
  At your request I will mention such things as strike me at present as want[ing] explanation and if any thing shall hereafter occur I will inform you by letter.
  The total want of opposition to Arnold on his first expedition to Richmond.
  The dissolution of a considerable body of militia on our Southern frontier at the time of Green’s retreat for want of orders from the executive.
  The want of timely orders to the counties of Amherst Augusta &c. after the adjournment of the Assembly from Richmond.
  The great loss that the country has sustained in arms &c. exclusive of those destroyed by the enemy.
  The rejection of an offer made by Cols. Campbell Christian and McDowell to raise regiments for the Southern Service.” [PTJ 7:105-106]

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. 

Watson analyzes Jefferson's personality

IBM's Watson supercomputer has been applied to a new horizon after wiping out human chess players and Jeopardy champs: psychology. Insert a passage of writing into the newly-debuted Personality Insights demo and the All-Wise will analyze your personality.

I stuck in the text of Query 2, "Rivers," from Notes. Here is Watson's interpretation of Jefferson's personality:

You are heartfelt, tranquil and skeptical.

You are adventurous: you are eager to experience new things. You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. And you are imaginative: you have a wild imagination.

Experiences that give a sense of well-being hold some appeal to you.

You consider independence to guide a large part of what you do: you like to set your own goals to decide how to best achieve them. You are relatively unconcerned with helping others: you think people can handle their own business without interference.

*Compared to most people who participated in our surveys.

The data breakdown is even more interesting, and, I have to say, resonates with my understanding of Jefferson:

There are a lot of data here that seem wildly inconsistent and contradictory: for example, "Emotionality" at 2%, while "Sympathy" is 100%; "Adventurousness" at 100% and "Excitement seeking" at 0%. It may be surprising to find the need for "Liberty" at 3%. You can find your own. At any rate, it's worth studying. 

Hey, if the darn machine can beat Ken Jennings...

Jefferson responds to George Nicholas's call to account for his administration

Jefferson to George Nicholas, 28 July 1781:
“Sir,
"I am informed that a resolution on your motion passed the House of Delegates requiring me to render account of some part of my administration, without specifying the act to be accounted for. As I suppose that this was done under the impression of some particular instance or instances of ill conduct, and that it could not be intended first, to stab a reputation by a general suggestion under a bare expectation that facts might be afterwards hunted up to bolster it, I hope you will not think me improper in asking the favor of you to specify to me the unfortunate passages in my conduct which you mean to adduce against me, that I may be enabled to prepare to yield obedience to the House while facts are fresh in my memory and witnesses and documents are in existence.
I am Sir
Your most obedt. Servt."

A look at Query 3 of Notes on the State of Virginia: Seaports

Query 3 is the shortest in the book:

"Qu. 3. a notice of the best seaports of the state, & how big are the vessels they
can receive?
            "Having no ports but our rivers and creeks, this query has been answered under the preceding one (Rivers)."

This is a misleadingly curt statement, since Hampton Roads is one of the largest natural harbors in the world, and Norfolk was Virginia’s largest and most promising city. The chief focus of Jefferson’s discussion of Virginia’s rivers, however, is their connection to the western back country; the eastern seaboard is of little interest to him. This is perhaps a  majority view in Virginia, but not a unanimous one; and it put him profoundly at odds with mercantile New England and the Middle Atlantic.

A look at Query 2 of Notes on the State of Virginia: Rivers

“2. Rivers”
The word “river” appears 170 times in Notes, more than any other noun. Indeed, rivers are central to Jefferson’s imperial view of Virginia. It is in this section that the state reclaims the expansiveness shorn from it in the recitation of limits in Query 1. If once all roads led to Rome, all rivers flow from Virginia. Jefferson follows the course of rivers no longer within Virginia’s borders, from Lake Michigan via the Mississippi to “the mines of Charcas, Zaccatecas & Potosi” and Mexico City. In Jefferson’s hands, nearly all of North America is in effect recast as Greater Virginia. For Jefferson, as for many of his fellow “countrymen,” the rivers are Virginia’s highways to the future, and connecting them with the great waterways of the West an essential part of its destiny. More immediately important as one of the functions of Notes, Jefferson is linking Virginia to the entire North American continent in the minds of his readers.

A look at Query 1 of Notes on the State of Virginia: The Boundaries of Virginia

“In the beginning,” asserted William Byrd II, “all America was Virginia.” In this first chapter, Jefferson delineates a State of Virginia that is far and away the largest territory of the United States, encompassing Kentucky (a part of Virginia until 1790) and West Virginia (made a state in 1863). By itself, this undivided Virginia is “one third larger than the islands of Great Britain and Ireland,” and comprises two-fifths of the entire American Republic. Though a seaboard state, Jefferson’s Virginia is essentially a land of the west: “of 121525 square miles,…79650,” or more than 65 per cent, “lie westward of the Allegany mountains.” Jefferson’s account of Virginia’s borders acknowledges the state’s cession of its claims northwest of the Ohio River, completed on 1 March 1784; but his discussion of its features (especially its rivers) frequently extends to the state’s pre-cession borders (and beyond). This first Query is devoted to delimiting the boundaries of the state; much of the rest of Notes proceeds to blur those borders.

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."

Jefferson overlooking Harpers Ferry, 25 October 1783

The passage of the Potomac, through the Blue Ridge, is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature. You stand on a very high point of land. On your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain a hundred miles to seek a vent. On your left approaches the Potomac, seeking a passage also.

Harpers Ferry, watercolor by William Roberts c. 1807.
Jefferson had a lithograph of this painting.

The same view today, approximate time of year Jefferson visited.

In the moment of their junction, they rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pass off to the sea. The first glance at this scene hurries our senses into the opinion, that this earth has been created in time; that the mountains were formed first; that the rivers began to flow afterwards; that, in this place particularly, they have been dammed up by the Blue Ridge of mountains, and have formed an ocean which filled the whole valley; that, continuing to rise, they have at length broken over at this spot, and have torn the mountain down from its summit to its base. The piles of rock on each hand, but particularly on the Shenandoah, the evident marks of their disrupture and avulsion from their beds by the most powerful agents of nature, corroborate the impression. But the distant finishing, which Nature has given to the picture, is of a very different character. It is a true contrast to the foreground. It is as placid and delightful as that is wild and tremendous. For, the mountain being cloven asunder, she presents to your eye, through the cleft, a small catch of smooth blue horizon, at an infinite distance in the plain country, inviting you, as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around, to pass through the breach, and participate of the calm below. Here the eye ultimately composes itself; and that way, too, the road happens actually to lead. You cross the Potomac above its junction, pass along its side through the base of the mountain for three miles, its terrible precipices hanging in fragments over you, and within about twenty miles reach Fredericktown, and the fine country round that. This scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic. Yet here, as in the neighborhood of the Natural Bridge, are people who have passed their lives within half a dozen miles, and have never been to survey these monuments of a war between rivers and mountains, which must have shaken the earth itself to its centre.

Jefferson severs ties to Charles Williamos

This letter--perhaps the angriest Jefferson ever sent--is interesting because he will later assert that Williamos' copy of Notes on the State of Virginia got into the hands of an unscrupulous French publisher after Williamos' death--which does not seem to be the case.

TJ to Charles Williamos, 7-7-1785:

“SIR

The inclosed letter will inform you how much reason I have to be dissatisfied with the liberty you have taken with my name. Did the humiliating light in which you have represented me concern me as an individual only, I should be disposed to neglect it, and to spare myself the pain of the present letter. But in my present situation my conduct and character is interesting to the nation whose servant I am. I have no right therefore to neglect this transaction The man upon whom the pecuniary injury falls has applied to me for a certificate that you were not authorized by me in what you did, of which he means to avail himself with the Police I have desired him to apply to you, with an assurance that if he did not obtain immediate satisfaction, I would give him the certificate desired. To remove the foundation of such an abuse hereafter I must pray a discontinuance of all further intercourse between us. I find this the more necessary as an opinion has got abroad, I know not how, that you are invested with some public character from the United States. It is not proper that their reputation should be staked on the conduct of any person with whom they have not really entrusted it I have, as was my duty, contradicted this opinion, on every proper occasion, by assuring those who had entertained it that you had not received this mark of confidence from our new republic and that you could not as yet be a citizen of it, as you had visited it only for two or three months since the peace, and were still as I had understood an officer on half pay in the British service, a condition inconsistent with the abjuration of allegiance to any foreign power which is necessary on becoming an American citizen. I rely on your concurrence in setting the public opinion to rights on this subject; and if I have been misinformed as to the circumstance of your being still on British pay I shall be glad to be set to rights myself.

I am Sir

Your humble servt.,” 

Oran-ootan

"The first difference which strikes us is that of colour....And is this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races? Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immoveable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference of them as uniformly as is the preference of the Oran-ootan for the black women over those of his own species." Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), 252-253

Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, Paris, 14 January 1789

"How have you weathered this rigorous season, my dear friend? Surely it was never so cold before. To me who am an animal of a warm climate, a mere Oran-ootan, it has been a severe trial."

What happened on July 4?

Well, not this:

Jefferson met the young American painter John Trumbull in London in 1786 and invited him to visit him in Paris. He arrived that summer and took up Jefferson's invitation to stay with him at his lodgings. Jefferson was much impressed with Trumbull's first two studies for a series of paintings of great events of the Revolution: the Battle of Bunker Hill and the death of General Montgomery at the Battle of Quebec. He suggested another theme for Trumbull: the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It compressed into a single dramatic moment a process that in fact took place, a signature at a time, through most of the summer of 1776, as members of Congress found the time to put their signatures to the document. The original painting was given by Trumbull as one of the founding works of the Yale Art Gallery, where it is to this day.

Leadup to July 4, part 3

Why did John Adams believe Jefferson was the right person to write the Declaration of Independence? Why did he insist that "a Virginian should be at the head of this business," and not a New Englander?

The second question is relatively easy to answer. Adams and his fellow New Englanders descended from a Puritan stock that had been in more or less constant revolt against church and crown since the 1610s, and had already fought two revolutions--in the 1640s, and in 1688. To the rest of the states, Massachusetts in particular was pugnacious, intolerant, and chronically rebellious. It was their incapability of living within the Anglican establishment that brought them to America in the first place. It passed as a truism with these zealous folk that "resistance to tyranny is obedience to God."

The southern states, by contrast, were far more lax about religious practice and belief, but they adhered to the Established Church--that is to say, the Church of England. To them, King George III was not merely the head of the state, but the head of the Church as well; and rebellion against his rule could look very much like rebellion against God.

There was really only one way that loyal Anglicans could be persuaded to take up arms against their King: they must be made to feel that, like his Stuart predecessors, he had placed himself in opposition to the true Church and to God. And that, paradoxically enough, is where Jefferson came in.

(To be continued)

Leadup to July 4, part 2

Between May 27 and mid-June, Jefferson attended sessions of Congress, but gave most of his attention to his plans for the Virginia Constitution, his thoughts drifting southward to Williamsburg--and to Monticello, where his wife Patsy was suffering through a debilitating pregnancy.

On June 7, however, the focus shifted decisively to Congress. Jefferson's colleague, Richard Henry Lee, acted on instructions from the Virginia Assembly to introduce a resolution of independence. The members appointed a drafting committee to produce an instrument of independence. This included its  most passionate advocate, John Adams; the colonies' most famous figure, Benjamin Franklin; Robert Livingston, scion of one of New York's most powerful political clans; the sensible, phlegmatic Connecticut statesman, Roger Sherman, and Jefferson. His appointment was somewhat surprising: he was the youngest member of the committee, and the least experienced in continental affairs. But he had gained substantial recognition for his powerful pamphlet, A Summary View of the Rights of British Americans, which laid out a thoughtful theoretical case for American self-government. Moreover, he had already manifested the quality that many who met him would comment on: a compelling charisma that drew men to him, and made them feel part of something larger than themselves.

John Adams was not a humble man.  But weeks of jousting with more timid and more skeptical congressmen at Philadelphia had given the canny, crusty New Englander a clear understanding of his liabilities as a spokesman for independence, as well as his strengths.  This is why he knew that the tall, taciturn, red-headed Virginian should be the one to draft the language of the Declaration.  He outlined the causes that impelled him to such a conclusion: “Reason first—You are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second—I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third—You can write ten times better than I can.”

Adams's first reason requires some investigation. He did not need to place a Virginian figurehead as the drafter of the document for purposes of sectional balance or appearances; Washington's appointment as General in Chief had accomplished this. And anyway, outside of Congress, few would know, and fewer would care, what particular individual had penned the first draft of the Declaration, or what state he hailed from. Why, then, was it important to place a Virginian "at the head of this business?"

Leadup to July 4, part 1

On 14 May, 1776, Thomas Jefferson returned in Philadelphia to resume his duties as a member of the Continental Congress for Virginia. He did so reluctantly, since it required absenting himself from the Virginia constitutional convention, which he considered much more urgent. Nine days later, he moved to a new residence, the house of Jacob Graff, a bricklayer, on the corner of Market and 7th street, which at this time was several blocks from the center of town, located by itself in the middle of a field. Once settled, he took up what he viewed as his most important task: drafting a constitution for his country--Virginia. 

Jefferson explains why the Virginia legislature failed to pass a gradual emancipation law

26 June 1786: Jefferson writes Jean Nicolas Démeunier to ask him to edit the entry on Virginia in the Encyclopédie:    “M. de Meusnier, where he mentions that the slave-law has been passed in Virginia, without the clause of emancipation, is pleased to mention that neither Mr. Wythe nor Mr. Jefferson were present to make the proposition they had meditated; from which people, who do not give themselves the trouble to reflect or enquire, might conclude hastily that their absence was the cause why the proposition was not made; & of course that there were not in the assembly persons of virtue & firmness enough to propose the clause for emancipation. This supposition would not be true. There were persons there who wanted neither the virtue to propose, nor talents to enforce the proposition had they seen that the disposition of the legislature was ripe for it. These worthy characters would feel themselves wounded, degraded, & discouraged by this idea. Mr. Jefferson would therefore be obliged to M. de Meusnier to mention it in some such manner as this. "Of the two commissioners who had concerted the amendatory clause for the gradual emancipation of slaves Mr. Wythe could not be present as being a member of the judiciary department, and Mr. Jefferson was absent on the legation to France. But there wanted not in that assembly men of virtue enough to propose, & talents to vindicate this clause. But they saw that the moment of doing it with success was not yet arrived, and that an unsuccessful effort, as too often happens, would only rivet still closer the chains of bondage, and retard the moment of delivery to this oppressed description of men. What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose power supported him thro' his trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose. But we must await with patience the workings of an overruling providence, & hope that that is preparing the deliverance of these, our suffering brethren. When the measure of their tears shall be full, when their groans shall have involved heaven itself in darkness, doubtless a god of justice will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing light & liberality among their oppressors, or at length by his exterminating thunder, manifest his attention to the things of this world, and that they are not left to the guidance of a blind fatality." 

Jefferson's answers to the charges of the Virginia Assembly

"1st Objection-- That General Washington's information was, that an embarkation was taking place, destined for this state.

"Answer-- His information was, that it was destined for the southward, as was given out at New York. Had similar informations from General Washington and Congress been considered as sufficient ground at all times for calling the militia into the field, there would have been a standing army of militia kept up; because there has never been a time, since the invasion expected in December 1777, but what we have had those intimations hanging over our heads. The truth is, that General Washington always considered as his duty to convey every rumor of an embarkation; but we (for some time past, at least) never thought anything but actual invasion should induce us to the expense and harassment of calling the militia into the field; except in the case of December 1779, when it was thought proper to do this in order to convince the French of our disposition to protect their ships. Inattention to this necessary economy, in the beginning, went far towards that ruin of our finances which followed.

"2d Objection-- Where were the post-riders established last summer?

"Answer-- They were established at Continental expense, to convey speedy information to Congress of the arrival of the French fleet, then expected here. When that arrived at Rhode Island, these expenses were discontinued. They were again established on the invasion in October, and discontinued when that ceased. And again on the first intimation of the invasion of December. But it will be asked, why were they not established on General Washington's letters? Because those letters were no more than we had received upon many former occasions, and would have led to a perpetual establishment of postriders.

"3d Objection-- If a proper number of men had been put into motion on Monday, for the relief of the lower country, and ordered to march to Williamsburg, that they would at least have been in the neighborhood of Richmond on Thursday. "Answer-- The order could not be till Tuesday, because we then received our first certain information. Half the militia of the counties round about Richmond were then ordered out, and the whole of them on the fourth, and ordered not to wait to come in a body, but in detachments as they could assemble. Yet were there not on Friday more than two hundred collected, and they were principally of the town of Richmond.

"4th Objection-- That we had not signals.

"Answer-- This, though a favorite plan of some gentlemen, and perhaps a practicable one, has hitherto been thought too difficult.

"5th Objection-- That we had not look-outs.

"Answer-- There had been no cause to order look-outs more than has been ever existing. This is only in fact asking why we do not always keep look-outs.

"6th Objection-- That we had not heavy artillery on traveling carriages.

"Answer-- The gentlemen who acted as members of the Board of War a twelve-month can answer this question, by giving the character of the artificers whom, during that time, they could never get to mount the heavy artillery. The same reason prevented their being mounted from May 1780 to December. We have even been unable to get those heavy cannon moved from Cumberland by the whole energy of government. A like difficulty which occurred in the removal of those at South Quay, in their day, will convince them of the possibility of this.

"7th Objection-- That there was not a body of militia thrown into Portsmouth, the Great Bridge, and Suffolk.

"Answer-- In the summer of 1780, we asked the favor of General Nelson, to call together the county lieutenants of the lower counties, and concert the general measures which should be taken for instant opposition, on any invasion, until aid could be ordered by the Executive; and the county lieutenants were ordered to obey his call; he did so the first moment, to wit, on Saturday, December the 31, at eight o'clock, A.M., of our receiving information of the appearance of a fleet in the bay. We asked the favor of General Nelson to go down, which he did, with full powers to call together the militia of any counties he thought proper, to call on the keepers of any public arms or stores, and to adopt for the instant such measures as exigencies required, till we could be better informed.

"Query-- Why were not General Nelson, and the brave officers with him, particularly mentioned?

"Answer-- What should have been said of them? The enemy did not land, nor give them an opportunity of doing what nobody doubts they would have done; that is, something worthy of being minutely recited.

"Query-- Why publish Arnold's letter without General Nelson's answer?

"Answer-- Ask the printer. He got neither from the Executive.

"Objection-- As to the calling out a few militia, and that late.

"Answer-- It is denied that they were few or late. Four thousand and seven hundred men (the number required by Baron Steuben) were called out the moment an invasion was known to have taken place, that is on Tuesday, January 2.

"Objection-- The abandonment of York and Portsmouth fortifications.

"Answer-- How can they be kept without regulars, on the large scale on which they were formed? Would it be approved of to harass the militia with garrisoning them?"

From Marie Kimball, Jefferson, War and Peace, 1776 to 1784, 248-250.

Jefferson learns he is being investigated by the Virginia House of Delegates for misconduct

Archibald Cary

Archibald Cary to Jefferson, 19 June 1781: “You must have heard that Nelson is your successor [as Governor].” Russia and Austria have offered to mediate between the US and Britain.  “At length the Assembly are giving Ample Powers to the Executive. The Bill for that purpose stands for a Committee of the Senate this day and will Pass. It is what that body have long Wished. A Bill has Passed both Houses for establishing Martial Law 20 Miles round both Armys.”

“So Much for Assembly but I must give you one more peice of News respecting your Self. An Address was ready to be offered the Senate to you. What Can you think Stopt it? George Nicholas made a Motion in the Delegates House for an Inquire into your Conduct, a Catalogue of omissions, and other Misconduct. I have not Seen the Particulars. Your Friends Confident an Inquire would do you Honor Seconded the Motion. I presume you will be Serv’d with the order. As this Step was Taken I persuaided Winston not to make his Motion; I had heard something of this Kind was to be brought on the Carpit, and If I know you, it will Give you no pain.” PTJ 7:96-97  

Va. House of Delegates, 6.18.1781

“The Speaker laid before the House a letter from the Honorable Major General Marquis La Fayette, respecting the present state and movements of the army under his command, which was read and ordered to lie on the table.
  “The Speaker laid before the House a letter from John Walker, Esq; respecting his endeavors for the removal and security of certain public stores, which was read, and ordered to be referred to the Committee of the whole House on the state of the Commonwealth.”(Journal 1781, p. 31)

6.18.1781: Monroe to Jefferson

Monroe to TJ, Fredericksburg:  “I hope…that neither yourself nor Mrs. Jefferson have sustaind injury from these obtrusions of the enemy. In former I advis’d you I would not stay at home in the present state of the country and should be happy to bear some post in her defence. For that purpose I sate out to join the Marquis’s army to act in any line either himself or Council would employ me in."

Escape from Monticello: the damage done

Fawn Brodie (An Intimate History, p. 146) has succinctly described Jefferson’s retreat from Monticello and its effect on his future career:

His behavior was cool, and could certainly be described as brave, but the flight over Carter’s Mountain was eventually turned by Jefferson’s enemies into a legend of military ineptness and cowardice. The fact that everyone in the Virginia civil government was fleeing—“Governor, council, everybody scampering,” in the words of Betsey Ambler—did not serve to spare Jefferson abuse in his presidential years.  And the charge of cowardice, like an evil shadow, would follow him throughout his life. 

It is impossible to overstate the damage that this period, with its many trials, failures, tragedies, and humiliations, inflicted on Jefferson's psyche.  The Virginia assembly’s final report in December exonerating him, and their resolution of thanks, did not remove the sting. "It is unfortunate for our peace that unmerited abuse wounds,” he wrote later, “while unmerited praise has not the power to heal."  

Ex-Governor Jefferson under fire

For several days after regrouping in Staunton after Tarleton's attack on Charlottesville, the Virginia Assembly continued fruitlessly to issue resolutions to the governor, not realizing that he had relinquished the seat on June 1. On June 12, after electing his successor, the House also voted to conduct “an inquiry into the conduct of the Executive for the past twelve months” to account for the “numberless miscarriages and losses” Virginia had suffered during his administration. This was a particularly insensitive phrase to one whose wife had experienced miscarriages and who had recently lost their third child.

On June 19, Jefferson's friend Archibald Cary, the Speaker of the Senate, caught him up on events in the Virginia legislature. "You must have heard that Nelson is your successor," he reported. Moreover, the House had voted to give "Ample Powers to the Executive"--in other words, to empower a dictator--and the Senate was likely to concur. At last, Cary came to the real point:

So Much for Assembly but I must give you one more peice of News respecting your Self.,,,George Nicholas made a Motion in the Delegates House for an Inquire into your Conduct, a Catalogue of omissions, and other Misconduct. I have not Seen the Particulars. Your Friends Confident an Inquire would do you Honor Seconded the Motion. I presume you will be Serv’d with the order....I had heard something of this Kind was to be brought on the Carpit, and If I know you, it will Give you no pain.

Cary clearly did not know Jefferson. He was stricken by the news, utterly and permanently mortified.  For the rest of his life, he would recall the Assembly's action--which he attributed to the machinations of Patrick Henry--with bitterness and shame.

6/12/ 1781: Richard H. Lee urges Congress to send General Washington to VA "with Dictatorial power"

Richard Henry Lee to the Virginia Delegates in Congress, Chantilly:  

“Dear Gentlemen

 "I am not informed who of our Delegates remain at Congress and therefore this letter is addressed to you whom I have good reason to suppose are yet there. The unhappy crisis of our countrys fate demands the closest attention of all her sons, and calls for the united wisdom and strongest exertions of all others who may be affected by our ruin. I suppose you have been informed of the junction of the enemies forces on James river and of many of their subsequent movements—that they have quickly mounted a very formidable Cavalry by seising on all the fine horses in that part of our country where they most abound to the number of 5 or 600. Being thus provided, and greatly superior in numbers and quality of troops to the Marquis, they moved as if intending to cross the Country to Fredericksburg. Our army keeping at a prudent distance advanced upon their left or western flank. The Marquis proceeding forward in daily expectation of being joined by Gen. Waynes long, very long delayed force, approached Rappahanock above Falmouth, when the enemy halted their main body in the forks of Pomunkey, and detatched 500 Cavalry with an Infantryman behind each to Charlottesville where our unformed Assembly was collecting by adjournment from Richmond. The two houses were not compleated, and Mr. Jefferson had resigned his office and retired, as some of our dispersed Delegates report, when the enemy entered Charlottesville this day sennight and dispersed the whole taking Mr. Digges the Lieutenant Governor prisoner and some Delegates, Mr. Lyons the Judge and many others…[90] You will then judge of the situation of thiscountry, without either executive or Legislative authority, every thing in the greatest possible confusion, the enemy far superior in force to that with the Marquis, and practicing every thing that force and fraud can contrive. I do give it to you gentlemen as my serious opinion, uninfluenced by vain apprehension, that if immediate and powerful interposition does not take place, commensurate to the certain danger, that all the country below the Mountains will be in the power of the enemy in a few months. It is true that we have in Virginia a number of Men much greater than the enemies force, but it is also true that their dispersed, unarmed, and unadvised condition; without government and without system of any kind, renders them an easy prey to the combined force and concerted system of our enemies….In the popularity, the judgement, and the experience of Gen. Washington we can alone find the remedy. Let Congress send him immediately to Virginia, and as the head of the Fœderal Union let them possess the General with Dictatorial power until the general Assembly can be convened…. Both antient and modern times furnish precedents to justify this procedure, but if they did not, the present necessity not only justifies but absolutely demands the measure.” PTJ 7:91-92

The manuscript of Notes in person

I had the extraordinary privilege this morning of working with the original manuscript of Notes on the State of Virginia, in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The Jefferson scholar Douglas Wilson examined the watermarks of the base pages of the manuscript, and listed the eight different marks he found. My purpose was to inspect the paper on which Jefferson's inserts--his "Post-It Notes," so to speak--were written, for the same purpose. (More later on why this is significant.)

It quickly became evident why Wilson had not analyzed the watermarks of the inserts: they almost never appear on the small slips of paper Jefferson employed for them.

Here's an exception: note the fleur-de-lys (lower left)
from the watermark of J. Honig & Zoonen, a well-known
Dutch manufacturer. Notes mss., p. 19, tab 1. MHS

I was able to extract some valuable information about the paper, but the most powerful revelation about the pages was how small they were, and how small and precise Jefferson's handwriting is on them. Because the MHS scans are of such high resolution, I can hone in on a sentence or a word and fill the screen of my 32-inch monitor--or connect my laptop to my 42" television if I need to zoom in closer to decipher a crossed-out phrase. So I'm used to viewing the mss at a high magnification. In person, however, the script is small, and the interlineations are tiny--much smaller, and just as precise, as the fine print in a credit card contract.

Notes mss., p. 16. MHS

The MHS's scan of Notes is here.

Retreat to Poplar Forest

          Jefferson considered his governorship to have ended on June 1, but when he fled from Monticello the next day, the Assembly, now convened in the western town of Staunton, had not been able to elect a successor. Nor was it able to until June 12, when it followed Jefferson’s recommendation and elected militia commander Thomas Nelson, Jr., investing him with both the military and civil leadership, and thus the authority Jefferson had lacked. Technically, then, Virginia had been without a head for ten days, and because Jefferson declined to join the Assembly when it regrouped in Staunton, many members considered that he had deserted his post at the time of his state’s greatest danger.
          For his part, Jefferson seemed to have vanished. For two weeks after his arrival at Poplar Forest, he drafted not a single letter. Even more extraordinary, he did not enter a single entry in his memorandum book, his daily accounting of expenses that provides the most complete record of his activities and whereabouts. Then, after a notation on June 30 of a payment of £600 to a Dr. Brown for two visits, two more weeks of silence.  Later he explained these days of isolation as recuperation from a fall from his horse, which may well be true; but it is equally certain that he passed through an agony of shame, humiliation, and self-reproach that would haunt him for a lifetime.
        Jefferson did more during these six weeks at Poplar Forest than just nurse his injuries, physical and psychic; it was here that he drafted the main part of his answers to the queries of M. Marbois about Virginia, the supremely-troubled, unmanageable country that he had failed so conspicuously to govern. “The subjects are all treated imperfectly; some scarcely touched on,” he would attest six years later in his introduction to the published version. “To apologize for this by developing the time and place of the circumstances of their composition, would be to open wounds which have already bled enough." In this passage at least, we can trust that Jefferson was being completely candid.
Jefferson buffs imagine him and his family in the charming octagonal country house, a kind of mini-Monticello, which he designed and built at the site. It would be hard to conceive of a more perfect writer’s retreat. But that beautiful Palladian dwelling would not be constructed for another quarter century. The estate in 1781 was bare of buildings besides the slave quarters and one or perhaps two overseers’ cabins. The Jefferson family took up residence in one of these for the better part of two months.
        The replies to Marbois’ Queries provided Jefferson with an opportunity to reimpose order on a world over which he had lost control, and which had cut him to the quick. It evidently had begun to serve this purpose even before he left office. Famous for his imperturbability, Jefferson displayed an uncanny degree of detachment from the several crises surrounding him during his work on the Notes. Scholars have indulgently recounted the evident eagerness and enthusiasm with which Jefferson turned to the task of compiling facts about his home state for the French diplomat. It is disconcerting, however, to realize that these absorbing researches were conducted while that state was under invasion, and its governor under attack for his inattention.

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. 

Governor Jefferson begins work on Notes on the State of Virginia while the British invade

Jefferson embarked on his response to the queries of M. François Barbé-Marbois, the secretary to the French legation in Philadelphia, in November of 1780, while a fleet of British warships lay at anchor at Hampton Roads, with 5000 Redcoats under General Alexander Leslie ready to strike and the state almost entirely without defenses. Virginia, with its strategic position, rich fields, and hundreds of thousands of potentially rebellious slaves, was a ripe target for invasion. With thousands of miles of coastline and a network of rivers penetrating deep into the country, Virginia’s only hope of safety, Jefferson knew, was a strong naval defense.  This, however, had proved “unsuccessful beyond all my fears.”

June 1, 1781: Visit of Jean Baptiste Ducoigne, chief of the Kaskaskias, to Monticello

On Friday, June 1, 1781, Jefferson welcomed Jean Baptiste Ducoigne, chief of the Kaskaskias, to his mountaintop home at Monticello. Here is part of the text of his address to Ducoigne:

We, like you, are Americans, born in the same land, and having the same interests….You find us, brother, engaged in war with a powerful nation. Our forefathers were Englishmen, inhabitants of a little island beyond the great water, and, being distressed for land, they came and settled here. As long as we were young and weak, the English whom we had left behind, made us carry all our wealth to their country, to enrich them; and, not satisfied with this, they at length began to say we were their slaves, and should do whatever they ordered us. We were now grown up and felt ourselves strong; we knew we were free as they were, that [60] we came here of our own accord and not at their biddance, and were determined to be free as long as we should exist. For this reason, they made war on us. They have now waged that war six years, and have not yet won more land from us than will serve to bury the warriors they have lost. Your old father, the King of France, has joined us in the war, and done many good things for us. We are bound forever to love him, and wish you to love him, brother, because he is a good and true friend to us. The Spaniards have also joined us, and other powerful nations are now entering into the war to punish the robberies and violences the English have committed on them. The English stand alone, without a friend so support them, hated by all mankind, because they are proud and unjust. This quarrel, when it first began, was a family quarrel between us and the English, who were then our brothers. We, therefore, did not wish you to engage in it at all… 

The end of Jefferson's governorship, June 1-12, 1781

The original version of Notes on the State of Virginia was composed during the most difficult period of Jefferson's life, 1780-1782. The first two weeks of June, 1781, marked the chaotic close of his administration as governor, his family's desperate escape from Monticello from the raiding party of Col. Banastre Tarleton, and the Virginia House of Delegates' call for an investigation of his conduct over the previous year. "Jefferson's Country" will commemorate those painful days in a series of posts.

Charles Thomson, Secretary of Congress

The first person to whom Jefferson showed the original version of Notes on the State of Virginia after François Barbé-Marbois, the secretary to the French legation, for whom they were written, was Charles Thomson. Thomson was an intriguing figure for Jefferson to confide in. The tall Scotch-Irishman, some fourteen years older than Jefferson, had served as secretary for the Delaware Indians, who adopted him into the tribe and gave him the name “Man of Truth.” As secretary of Congress, his name became a byword for veracity: “When a man reported anything in the way of news, which seemed to be doubted, he sought to confirm it by saying, ‘It’s as true as if Charles Thomson’s name was to it.’” (Life of Ashbel Green, V.D.M., 48.)

May 29, 1781: Va House of Delegates demands that Jefferson call out the militia

With the state under attack by the British, the House of Delegates calls on Gov. Jefferson to activate the militia: “Resolved, That the Governor be desired immediately, and with all possible expedition, to order into service such a number of Militia as will enable the Commander of the army to oppose the enemy with effect, and that they bring with them such arms and ammunition as they can procure.

“Resolved, That the Governor be desired to order into service from time to time, the necessary members of Militia to relieve such as may be on duty, so as to make the service as little burthensome as possible to our fellow-citizens at large.” (Virginia House of Delegates Journal 1781 p. 5)

Washington: "Unless Congress...act[s] with more energy...our case is lost."

On May 31, 1780, General Washington wrote Joseph Jones, Virginia congressional representative and James Monroe's uncle, about his fears of the weakness of the American government: 

“Certain I am, unless Congress speak in a more decisive tone, unless they are vested with powers by the several States competent to the great purposes of war, or assume them as matter of right, and they and the States respectively act with more energy than they have hitherto done, that our case is lost. We can no longer drudge on in the old way. By ill timing the adoption of measures, by delays in the execution of them, or by unwarrantable jealousies, we incur enormous expenses and derive no benefit from them. One State will comply with a requisition of Congress ; another neglects to do it; a third executes it by halves ; and all differ either in the manner, the matter, or so much in point of time, that we are always working up hill ; and, while such a system as the present one or rather want of one prevails, we shall ever be unable to apply our strength or resources to any advantage.

"This, my dear Sir, is plain language to a member of Congress; but it is the language of truth and friendship. It is the result of long thinking, close application, and strict observation. I see one head gradually changing into thirteen.” 

Welcome to Jefferson's Country

This blog will look at one of the most important periods in Thomas Jefferson's life, during which he wrote and published one of the most important books in American history: Notes on the State of Virginia. The year 2015 is the 230th anniversary of its first private printing in Paris; the 230th anniversary of its formal publication will take place in 2017. I intend to prepare the first annotated edition of Notes made from Jefferson's original manuscript.