given way entirely to politics. Men, women and children talk nothing else and all, you know, talk a great deal. The press groans with daily productions, which, in point of boldness, make an Englishman stare, who hitherto has thought himself the boldest of men. A complete revolution in this government has, within the space of two years (for it began with the Notables of 1787), been effected merely by the force of public opinion, aided indeed by the want of money, which the dissipations of the court had brought And this revolution has not cost a single life, unless we charge to it a little riot lately in Bretagne, which began about the price of bread, became afterwards political, and ended in the loss of four or five lives."

If foreign officers sometimes had cause to complain of the United States, it must also be confessed that the former occasionally magnified their services, and overrated their claims to remuneration. A remarkable instance of this occurred in the case of a Monsieur Klein, who asked compensation for public services rendered to the United States during the war, and who prevailed on Madame Neckar to espouse his cause. According to Mr. Jefferson, he and two other Germans, in the year 1788, proposed to enlist a body of men from among the German prisoners, taken with General Burgoyne at Saratoga, on condition that Klein should be lieutenant-colonel, and his two associates captains in the American service: they were allowed three months to do this. At the end of ten months they had enlisted twenty-four men, and all of these, except five, had deserted. Congress, therefore, put an end to the project in June, 1779, by informing Monsieur Klein they had no further use for his services, and giving him a year's pay and subsistence to bring him to Europe. He, however, stayed three years and a half, as he says, to solicit what was due to him; but Mr. Jefferson presumes, " in hopes of finding some opening

for further employment." Madame Neckar is further told, that if he has not a certificate of what was allowed him, he must have received the money, and if he has the certificate, Mr. Jefferson will represent his claim, and will ensure its meeting with justice; and lastly, that his object is to be received into the Hospital of Invalids, and having no just title to admission, wishes to found a claim on his American commission and American grievances.

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CHAPTER XII.

Further opinions on the Federal Constitution. Mr. Madison's and Mr. Jefferson's respective views on Declarations of Rights. Discoveries and improvements in Science. Progress of the French Revolution. Mr. Jefferson submits a Bill of Rights to La Fayette. Visits Versailles almost daily. Connexion of Lake Erie with the Ohio.Views of the French Revolution. Titular distinctions in the United States. The doctrine that one generation cannot bind another. Mr. Madison's views on this subject. Further objections to the doctrine. State of parties in Paris. His mode of passing his time there.Leaves France. Stops at the Isle of Wight. Arrival at Norfolk.— His papers narrowly escape conflagration. Return to Monticello. Reception by his slaves. Appointed Secretary of State. Marriage of his eldest daughter. Sets out for New York. Interview with Dr. Franklin.

1789-1790.

IN March of that year, about the time that the new constitution of the United States was about to be subjected to the test of experiment, Mr. Jefferson gave a full exposition of his views of it in a letter to Judge Hopkinson, of Pennsylvania. It seems that the judge had written to Mr. Jefferson that he was regarded as an anti-federalist, as the opposers of the constitution were now denominated. Mr. Jefferson thus states how far he agreed with the two parties: "I am not a federalist, because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven without a party, I would not go

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there at all. Therefore I protest to you, I am not of the party of federalists. But I am much farther from that of the antifederalists. I approved, from the first moment, of the great mass of what is in the new constitution: the consolidation of the government; the organization into executive, legislative, and judiciary; the subdivision of the legislative; the happy compromise of interests between the great and the little states, by the different manner of voting in the different houses; the voting by persons instead of states; the qualified negative on laws given to the executive; which, however, I should have liked better if associated with the judiciary also, as in New York; and the power of taxation. I thought, at first, that the latter might have been limited. A little reflection soon convinced me it ought not to be.— What I disapproved from the first moment also, was the want of a bill of rights, to guard liberty against the legis ative as well as executive branches of government: that is to say, to secure freedom in religion; freedom of the press; freedom from monopolies; freedom from unlawful imprisonment; freedom from a permanent military, and a trial by jury, in all cases determinable by the laws of the land. I disapproved also the perpetual re-eligibility of the president. To these points of disapprobation I adhere.”— He then states, that although he had wished that the nine first conventions might accept the constitution, as that number was sufficient for it to go into operation, and the four last reject it, as the means of obtaining amendments, yet he rather preferred the plan pursued by Massachusetts, which adopted the constitution, and at the same time recommended amendments.

On the subject of the re-eligibility of the president, he says: "Since the thing is established, I would wish it not to be altered during the life of our great leader, whose execu

tive talents are superior to those, I believe, of any man in the world, and who, alone by the authority of his name, and the confidence reposed in his perfect integrity, is fully qualified to put the new government so under way, as to secure it against the efforts of opposition. But having derived from our error all the good there was in it, I hope we shall correct it the moment we can no longer have the same name at the helm." He thus notices his practice of openly avowing his sentiments, a virtue which he often carried beyond the verge of prudence, and for the exercise of which he occasionally incurred the censure both of friends and enemies; from one, for the opinions themselves, and from the other, for his unguarded frankness in avowing them. "I never had an opinion in politics or religion which I was afraid to own. A costive reserve on these subjects might have procured me more esteem from some people, but less from myself. My great wish is, to go on in a strict and silent performance of my duty; to avoid attracting notice, and to keep my name out of newspapers, because I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise. The attaching circumstance of my present office is, that I can do its duties unseen by those for whom they are done."

We have seen that one of Mr. Jefferson's objections to the new constitution was, that it was not accompanied with a Declaration of Rights. Mr. Madison, though, on the whole, friendly to such declarations, did not attach the same importance to them as Mr. Jefferson. His views on the subject arc fully disclosed in a letter to Mr. Jefferson, dated in October, 1788, and they are so marked by that deep sagacity and dispassionate wisdom which have ever characterized his political speculations, that they are here given at length, with the permission of the venerable author, in the following