knowledge and experience were destined to be of service in another sphere; and Jefferson was appointed to represent his country abroad. In August 1784 he arrived in Paris, to act with Franklin and Adams, already in Europe, as third minister plenipotentiary in France. He received a salary of 9000 dollars. Jefferson was singularly fitted for his position in Paris. He had already imbibed a very strong liking for the nation and people of France, springing both from gratitude to the allies of his country and from the numerous private friendships he had formed with French officers in America; while his intense hatred of Britain was a no less potent recommendation to France. Towards England Jefferson always cherished a hostile feeling, that was almost vindictive. Throughout his entire political career this detestation of everything English inclined him to espouse the interests of France, and strengthened and gave point to his republicanism. During the first twenty years of the new Republic the animosity between the Federals and Republicans might as well be expressed as the difference betwixt the Anglican and the Gallican parties in the State; and thus Jefferson's strong bias was of great importance. It cannot be denied that England's haughty arrogance tended to estrange the feelings of many who failed to distinguish between the ruling party and the mass, of the people; and Jefferson was one of those. His jaundiced feelings colour even his physical views of England. In a letter to Mr. Page he writes from Paris -'I returned but three or four days ago, after a two months' trip to England. I traversed the country much, and own both town and country fell short of my expectations. Comparing it with this, I found a much greater proportion of barrens; a soil in other parts not naturally so

good as this, not better cultivated, but better manured, and therefore more productive. This proceeds from the practice of long leases there and short ones here. The labouring people here are poorer than in England; they pay about one-half of their produce in rent; the English in general, about a third. The gardening in that country is the article in which it surpasses all the earth; I mean their pleasure gardening. This, indeed, went far beyond my ideas. The city of London, though handsomer than Paris, is not so handsome as Philadelphia. Their architecture is in the most wretched style I ever saw, not meaning to except America, where it is bad, nor even Virginia, where it is worse than in any other part of America which I have seen. The mechanical arts in London are carried to a wonderful perfection.' Jefferson had another special quality suiting him to be ambassador in France. His mind had been trained in the classical-scientific school that found especial favour in the eyes of the Parisian philosophes.' Anything claiming to be 'philosophy' was welcomed by the French; and Jefferson's interest in science was a passport to the good graces and intimacy of many of the most influential inhabitants of the capital. Thus we find him carrying on eager discussions with Buffon, the great naturalist, and sending over to America for skeletons and horns of animals to demonstrate his points. His interest in science was apt at times to carry him to great lengths of credulousness; he was too eager to advance in knowledge to be always discriminating in parting truth from fiction. He wrote to

America that an abbé in Paris had overthrown the Newtonian theory of the rainbow; he gave delighted credit to the rumour that seventeen of the lost books of Livy had been

found in an Arabic translation; he received with a strong bias in its favour the theory that the Creek Indians in America were descended from the ancient Carthaginians; and he explained certain geological difficulties by attributing various formations to the property of growing like plants, which he supposed rocks to possess. At a later period, his too hasty belief in the discovery of an enormous salt mountain in Louisiana afforded opportunity for the gibes of his political opponents. But his weakness in this respect was at least amiable; and, as one of his biographers points out, his credulity was largely due to his wish to forward the benefit of the human race; and this wish too often became the father to the thought. But, on the other hand, he was really alive to the great discoveries that were made. He formed a true and lofty idea of the possibilities of chemistry; and it is interesting to read in one of his letters, written about 1786:-'I could write you volumes on the improvements which I find made, and making, here in the arts. One deserves particular notice, because it is simple, great, and likely to have extensive consequences. It is the application of steam as an agent for working grist-mills. . . . I hear you are applying the same agent in America to navigate boats; and I have little doubt but that it will be applied generally to machines, so as to supersede the use of water-ponds, and, of course, to lay open all the streams for navigation. We know that steam is one of the most powerful engines we can employ; and in America fuel is abundant.' The first steamboat that floated was launched on the waters of the Hudson by Robert Fulton in 1808, a little more than twenty years after the above letter was written.

The object of the three plenipotentiaries in Europe was

to conclude commercial treaties with the various nations there; but their mission was premature, and the only satisfactory arrangement was one made with Frederick of Prussia. Too little was as yet known about the new country to inspire confidence at the European courts; and, though its emissaries were treated politely, they obtained little satisfaction. Some years before, Jefferson had prepared certain Notes on Virginia, containing a wonderfully accurate account of his native State. This book he now published in Europe, and probably it helped very materially in spreading truer notions of the American Republic than had before prevailed. In the latter half of 1785 Jefferson was left sole minister in Paris. The French minister of foreign affairs, De Vergennes, remarked to him, referring to the departure of Franklin and Adams, 'I believe, Mr. Jefferson, that you replace Mr. Franklin here?' 'No,' at once replied Jefferson; 'I succeed Franklin; no one could replace him.' Such a courteous reply certainly would not make it less easy for him to obtain some of the popularity which Dr. Franklin had enjoyed in Paris. Jefferson continued American minister in Paris. till 1789, and was thus a witness of the beginnings of the great French Revolution. It may seem to us difficult to conceive how any one placed so advantageously as Jefferson could so totally have failed to understand that great upheaval. He thought that it would be certainly and happily closed in less than a year; and in one of his letters he joyfully exclaimed at a revolution accomplished without the loss of a single life. He afterwards found how far it was from accomplishment when he penned these words; and how far from bloodless it was yet to become.

Mr. Jefferson reached his home at Monticello in Virginia in

December 1789; and was welcomed rapturously by his slaves, who always regarded him with not less love than respect. He hoped to return to Paris when the commotion of the Revolution had passed. He had become very much attached to the mode of life in the French capital, and had formed many valuable friendships. Mr. Tucker thus summarizes Mr. Jefferson's occupation in Paris:- 'Mr. Jefferson's public duties for the remainder of the year 1785, after he was left sole minister for his country, consisted in endeavouring to obtain admission into the ports of France for the great American staples; in his efforts to effect a combination of the European powers against the piratical states [of North Africa]; and what may be regarded as a public duty in taking measures for procuring plans both of a State-house and public prison for his native State, and a fit person to make the statue voted to General Washington. Each of these last commissions seems to have occupied much of his time and attention. In addition to these public services, his letters, published and unpublished, show that he had numerous private commissions to execute, and that he communicated to his correspondents, in different parts of the United States, all that was new or remarkable in the annals of science and literature. The great number and diversity of facts of this character adverted to, show at once the variety of his knowledge and his unceasing desire to add to it. Thus we find him noticing astronomical facts in the Connaissance des Temps to Dr. Styles, the president of Yale College; to others, a mechanical contrivance for propelling boats; speculations on the bones found in the Ohio; and the effects of independence on the character of the Greeks. In his reflections on this last subject his admiration