now asserted, might, by suspending the exercise of the roya negative on the colonial laws, be used to revive laws that had been long disused, and which every one supposed to have been repealed, made such a spirited remonstrance against this and other offensive acts of the government, that the Governor prorogued the Assembly.

The reigning monarch, James the Second, in a letter to lord Howard, passes a hard censure on these "irregular and tumultuous" proceedings of the House, the members of which, for thus presuming to question the negative voice intrusted to the Governor, he does not hesitate to charge with "disaffected and unquiet dispositions," and with purposely protracting their time on account of their wages, and he therefore directs the Governor to dissolve the Assembly. As the high wages of the members had long been a subject of complaint, the Governor condescended to touch this popular string, by directing the king's letter "to be publicly read in every county court; that the inhabitants and burgesses may be made sensible how displeasing such obstinate proceedings were to his Majesty."

This disagreement continued until 1689, when, on the accession of William and Mary, the liberal principles of the revolution prevailed, and produced a more conciliatory course towards the colonies. From this time until 1764, when the stamp act was proposed, there was no collision between either the crown or its representative and the Assembly, of sufficient importance to attract the notice of historians, except the illegal fee for patents claimed by Governor Dinwiddie in 1754. This the Assembly voted illegal and oppressive." They even sent an agent to England expressly to procure its repeal.

While the rapid growth of Virginia, and the other English provinces of America presented to England strong temptations to draw a revenue from them, and so to restrict their

industry as to prevent their future rivalship with the mother country in commerce or manufactures, the same career of prosperity was continually presenting to the colonies greater power of resistance, and greater inducements to use it. With such inherent motives to discord and repulsion, it was morally impossible that they could permanently continue members of the same government; and, sooner or later, the separation was inevitable. But that great event was undoubtedly hastened by the wavering and ill-digested policy of the ministers of George the Third, who pursued a course by which they attained the benefits neither of firmness nor moderation; and in which, from the time the project of levying a tax in America was formed, every measure taken by the administration was regarded by the colonists, if oppressive, as a proof of their danger, and if conciliatory, as an admission of their strength.

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CHAPTER II.

Birth and parentage of Thomas Jefferson. His Education. Sent to College. Dr. Small. His amusements. Description of his person. His familiar letters to John Page. Governor Fauquier. Studies law under George Wythe. Visits Annapolis and Philadelphia. His character as a lawyer. Patrick Henry. The stamp act. Is elected to the General Assembly. It denies the right of Great Britain to tax the colonies. The members meet at the Raleigh Tavern. Progress of discontents.

THOMAS JEFFERSON was born on the 2nd day of April, 1743, at a place called Shadwell, in what is now the county of Albemarle, but which then constituted a part of the county of Goochland. Though at present very near the centre of population of Virginia, it was at that period almost a frontier settlement; and six years before, when his father first seated himself on it, he found but thrce or four settlers in that part of the country: yet such has been the progress of population, during a single life, that the settlements had extended, at the time of Mr. Jefferson's death, nearly 800 miles farther west.

His family, on the father's side, was, according to tradition, originally Welsh, but the time when it first migrated to America does not appear. It has been traced back no farther than to Mr. Jefferson's grandfather, who lived at Osborne's, in the county of Chesterfield, and who had three Of these, Thomas died young, Field settled on the southern border of the state, and left numerous descendants, and Peter, the father of the subject of this memoir, settled at Shadwell, as has been mentioned. His mother was Jane

sons.

Randolph, of a numerous and wealthy family in Virginia, who, he says, " trace their pedigree far back in England and Scotland," to which, he adds, "let every one ascribe the faith and merit he chooses." He had a brother younger than himself, and six sisters.

He was put to an English school at five years of age, and at nine he was placed under a Mr. Douglas, a Scotch clergyman, at whose school he was instructed in the Latin, Greek, and French languages, until he was thirteen, at which time he lost his father. He then was sent to the school of Mr. Maury, where he continued two years. He acquired from this gentleman, who was a good scholar, a taste for classical learning, which he retained ever afterwards.

Mr. James Maury, the late estimable American consul at Liverpool, and who still survives, is the son of Mr. Jefferson's preceptor, and was his classmate. According to this gentleman, Thomas Jefferson was distinguished at school for diligence and proficiency. He farther says, that whenever young Jefferson was desirous of a holiday, he seemed, from a certain shyness of disposition, averse to soliciting it himself, but would prevail upon some of his school-fellows to make the application; and if it proved successful, he immediately withdrew to some place of quiet, where he remained until he had made himself master of the task set for the class, after which he rejoined his young associates, and entered as heartily as any one into their sports and recreations *. One of these was hunting in a neighbouring mountain, part of the south-west range, which traverses Albemarle, and which

* When Mr. Jefferson, in a letter to Mr. Maury, fifty-seven years afterwards, reproached himself with the habit of procrastination, this companion of his early years must have thought him greatly altered in this particular. But in truth he was not changed, and his self-condemnation only shows that punctual and industrious as he really was, he fell short of the standard he aimed at.

then and many years afterwards abounded with deer, wild turkeys and other game. It was in the pure air of these mountains, and in the exercise of these manly sports, that he acquired that vigour of constitution which his erect carriage and light step exhibited to the last.

At the age of seventeen he was sent to William and Mary, the only college in the colony, where he remained two years; and to the advantages he there enjoyed, he, not without reason, attributes a decisive influence on his character and future destiny. Dr. William Small, who was a native of Scotland, and then professor of mathematics at William and Mary, seems to have added liberal sentiments and urbane manners to a large stock of science, as well as skill in communicating it and won by his pupil's modesty, docility, and love of study, he soon formed for him so strong an attachment as to make him his daily companion. By the same professor he was initiated in the arcana of general science, and more especially instructed in mathematics, ethics, and belles-lettres. The value of such a friend and preceptor to such a pupil is scarcely to be estimated. But for the incidents of so varied a course of instruction, it may be fairly presumed that Mr. Jefferson would not have been the author of the papers which gave him reputation, before he joined the first congress, and without which reputation he would not have been placed on the committee that drew the Declaration of Independence; or, if we can believe that he would nevertheless have been, in the first place, one of the seven delegates from Virginia, and in the next, one of that memorable committee, we may safely say that the Declaration, as well as other papers drawn by him, would have been far less worthy of their elevated purposes, and less an object of pride to the nation, and of honour to their author.

It was probably to that diversity of knowledge with which he was here imbued, and which characterizes the Scotch sys