tion of Lettres de Cachet; 4. to extend the liberty of the press; 5. that the states should appropriate the public money; 6. that ministers should be responsible for public expenditures.

While the nation was in this state of feverish expectation on this subject of its political rights, there was a scarcity of bread in the country, owing to the destructive hail-storms of the preceding summer, and a winter whose severity was beyond all example. The government, with its exhausted treasury, was compelled to expend large sums for the mitigation of these distresses in Paris. It had great fires built in the cross streets, at which the people warmed themselves, to avoid perishing with cold. Bread was bought and distributed daily among the labouring class. "So great," says Mr. Jefferson," was its scarcity, that from the highest to the lowest citizen, the bakers were permitted to deal but a scanty allowance per head, even to those who paid for it; and in cards of invitation to dine in the richest houses, the guest was notified to bring his own bread." This scarcity having been foreseen by the government, De Montmorin had requested Mr. Jefferson to give information of it in the United States, and promised that a bounty should be given on their grain imported into France.

This state of things had produced some popular disturbances in the interior of the kingdom, but none in Paris, where it seemed as if the attention of all classes was so absorbed by the one object, the meeting of the states-general, and so confidently looked to that for relief from every suffering, that all present ills were borne in patience. Mr. Jefferson thus describes the sudden alteration of character that had now taken place among the people of France, in a letter to Colonel Humphreys, dated the 18th of March, 1789. "The change in this country since you left it is such as you can form no idea of. The frivolities of conversation have

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 on. 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 legisjative 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 exccu