Part I. Diary of a Six Weeks' Tour in 1698 in Holland and Flanders. Part II. The Story of the Mary Galley, 1704-1710 This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1927. Owing to technical constraints it has not been possible to reproduce "Map 4: Charts of the Essex and Kentish Coasts about the Estuary of the Thames, drawn by Thomas Bowrey to illustrate his voyages in his yacht, the Duck, 1690-1701" which appeared in the first edition of the work.
The Retirement Series documents Jefferson's written legacy between his return to private life on 4 March 1809 and his death on 4 July 1826. During this period Jefferson founded the University of Virginia and sold his extraordinary library to the nation, but his greatest legacy from these years is the astonishing depth and breadth of his correspondence with statesmen, inventors, scientists, philosophers, and ordinary citizens on topics spanning virtually every field of human endeavor.--From publisher description.
A definitive scholarly edition of the correspondence and papers of Thomas Jefferson Jefferson sends his annual message to Congress. He submits the peace treaty with Tripoli, but ratification takes months as the Senate asks for supporting documentation and Congress considers the request of Ahmad Qaramanli for compensation. The president desires action to make Spain negotiate outstanding issues and urges defensive preparations in the event of armed conflict. Congress appropriates $2 million for the purchase of Florida and approves the appointment of James Bowdoin and John Armstrong as commissioners to negotiate. New restrictive measures by Great Britain that threaten to choke off American trade with the West Indies spark memorials by merchants in seaport cities. After Congress passes an act outlawing trade with Haiti for a year, Timothy Pickering decries the administration’s “spaniel servility” to France. Representatives of the Cherokee, Potawatomi, Sac, Fox, Osage, Missouri, Kansas, Otoe, Iowa, Pawnee, and Sioux nations come to Washington. South American revolutionary Francisco de Miranda travels in the United States, secretly collecting men and materials for a projected uprising in Venezuela. Tunisian envoy Sulayman Melmelli is in Washington. Jefferson’s daughter Martha Randolph and her family make an extended visit to the capital, during which his newest grandchild, James Madison Randolph, is born in the President’s House.
The 618 documents in this volume span 1 September 1819 to 31 May 1820. Jefferson suffers from a “colic,” recovery from which requires extensive rest and medication. He spends much time dealing with the immediate effects of the $20,000 addition to his debts resulting from his endorsement of notes for the bankrupt Wilson Cary Nicholas. Jefferson begins to correspond with his carpenter, the enslaved John Hemmings, as Hemmings undertakes maintenance and construction work at Poplar Forest. Jefferson and his allies in the state legislature obtain authorization for a $60,000 loan for the fledgling University of Virginia, the need for which becomes painfully clear when university workmen complain that they have not been paid during seven months of construction work. In the spring of 1820, following congressional discussion leading to the Missouri Compromise, Jefferson writes that the debate, “like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror,” and that with regard to slavery, Americans have “the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.”
This volume finds Thomas Jefferson grappling with problems arising from the radicalization of the French Revolution in Europe and the polarization of domestic politics in the United States. The overthrow of the French monarchy leads the Secretary of State to suspend debt payments to that nation and to formulate a diplomatic recognition policy that will long guide American diplomacy. After an abortive effort to initiate negotiations with the British minister in Philadelphia on the execution of the Treaty of Paris, Jefferson deflects a British proposal to establish a neutral Indian barrier state in the Northwest Territory. As he awaits the start of negotiations on major diplomatic issues with Spain, he deals with a Spanish effort to incite hostilities between the Southern Indians and the United States. The conflict between Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton reaches a new stage when the Secretary of the Treasury brings the cabinet struggle into full public view with four series of pseudonymous newspaper attacks on Jefferson. In letters to President Washington, Jefferson insists that Hamiltonian policies pose a fundamental threat to American republicanism, and in other documents he sets forth remedies for the defects he sees in Hamilton's system. During this period he also finds time to investigate the ravages of the Hessian fly on American wheat and to make plans to remodel Monticello.
During the thirteen months covered by this volume, Thomas Jefferson spent more than half of his time in Philadelphia serving as vice president under President John Adams and presiding over a Senate that was dominated by his political opponents, the Federalists. Debates in Congress took place against a backdrop of bitter partisan rivalry, characterized most famously by the near-brawl on the floor of the House between Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold. Congress and the nation waited, in a "state of extraordinary suspense," for dispatches from the American envoys in France. When the accounts of the XYZ Affair became public, the nation prepared for war. Two days after the Alien Friends Act was signed into law Jefferson left for Monticello, stopping at Montpelier to convey the latest news to James Madison. Disheartened and frustrated by the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jefferson penned the famous resolutions adopted in November by the Kentucky legislature. He kept his authorship a secret, however, seeking to avoid any appearance of "rashness" by Republicans. This endeavor reflected his struggle to make sense of the political direction of the nation in times he could neither comprehend nor accept. Jefferson continued to engage in scientific pursuits and fulfill his role as a promoter of American science and learning. He was reelected to the presidency of the American Philosophical Society, to which he presented his paper on the moldboard plow. He corresponded on American Indian languages, astronomy, and the Anglo-Saxon language. He longed for Monticello, and, as Jefferson had learned before, his property fell into neglect when he was away on public business. Renovations to the house slowed, supplies for the nailery were disrupted, and he had to arrange for the sale of his crops through intermediaries. With the prices of wheat low, he was drawn back into financial dependence on tobacco.
The definitive edition of Thomas Jefferson's papers from the end of his presidency until his death continues with Volume Two, which covers the period from 16 November 1809 to 11 August 1810. Both incoming and outgoing letters are included, totaling 518 documents printed in full. General themes include Jefferson's financial troubles, which eventually led him to loan himself a large sum of money he was managing for Tadeusz Kosciuszko; his preparations to face a lawsuit stemming from his decision as president to remove Edward Livingston from a valuable property in New Orleans; other legal complications involving his landholdings and the settlement of estates he had inherited long before; his plans to breed merino sheep and share them gratis with his fellow Virginians; and his ongoing interest in the Republican party's success. Highlights include a long list of books on agriculture that Jefferson probably compiled to guide the Library of Congress in its purchases; descriptions of inventions by Robert Fulton and more obscure figures such as the New Orleans engineer Godefroi Du Jareau; Jefferson's draft letter criticizing the Quakers as unpatriotic, much of which he later deleted; the letter in which he ordered a set of silver tumblers that have become known as the Jefferson Cups; and an important treatise on taxation by the distinguished French political economist Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours, published here for the first time.
