The next day—wrote Jefferson—we met in the Apollo of the Raleigh Tavern, formed ourselves into a voluntary convention, drew up articles of association against the use of any merchandise imported from Great Britain, signed and recommended them to the people, repaired to our several counties, and were re-elected without any other exception than of the very few who had declined to follow our proceedings.[23]
A spirit of discontent was abroad and had spread throughout the colonies, but it was neither disloyalty nor rebellion. Easily satisfied with this gesture, which for many remained a mere gesture, the Virginians paid little attention to public affairs during the next two years. In the words of Jefferson "nothing of particular excitement occurring for a considerable time, our countrymen seemed to fall into a state of insensibility and inaction." His private life was more eventful. The first of February, 1770, the house at Shadwell in which he lived with his mother, his brother and his unmarried sisters, was burnt to the ground, and with it every paper he had and almost every book.
On reasonable estimate—he wrote to Page—I calculate the cost of the books burned to have been £200 sterling. Would to God it had been the money, then it had never cost me a sigh. To make the loss more sensible, it fell principally on my books of Common law, of which I have but one left, at that time lent out. Of papers too of every kind I am utterly destitute. All of these whether public or private, of business or of amusement, have perished in the flames.
The disaster had not been quite so complete as Jefferson indicates. His "Commonplace Book" was saved, his account books, garden books and many memoranda and family papers escaped the flames and were discovered again in 1851 at the bottom of an old trunk.[24] Even as far as books were concerned, the loss was not altogether irretrievable. Jefferson wrote at once to Skipwith for a catalogue of books, sent orders to London, and two years later he could proudly enter in a diary not yet published that his library consisted on August 1, 1773, of twelve hundred and fifty books, not including volumes of music or "his books in Williamsburg." A very substantial store of printed matter for the time.
Another event of quite a different order took place in his life. Jefferson had lost a home, but he was building another, soon to be ready for occupancy, on the hill of Monticello, and he already knew that the house would not be left long without a mistress. On the third day of December, 1771, he filled out a formal application for a marriage license in the court of Charles City County and on the first of January he was married to Martha Skelton, widow of Bathurst Skelton, and daughter of John Wayles, then twenty-three years old. John Wayles of "The Forest" was a lawyer with a large practice, a man of worth if not of eminence, a boon companion welcomed in every society, who had amassed quite a large fortune. His daughter Martha, a true type of Virginia girl, of medium height and well-formed figure, had been well educated and possessed all the social accomplishments of the time. She danced gracefully, played the harpsichord and the spinet, was well read and, above all, was a very efficient housekeeper, for she knew how to manage the slaves and care for them in their illnesses, knew how to keep accounts and to arrange for a reception. If the family tradition is true, she was receptive to music, for Jefferson had won out over two rivals because of his talent on the violin and his ability to sing duets. It was a mariage de raison, to be sure, and two years later Jefferson noted with undisguised satisfaction that, following the death of his father-in-law, the portion that came to Martha was equal to his own patrimony and consequently "doubled the ease of our circumstances." But it was also a marriage of love, not without romantic color, with a wedding trip from Charles City to Monticello through a snowstorm, and a late arrival at night in the cold new house. Jefferson did not take any of his friends into his confidence and did not celebrate his connubial bliss; but at the very end of the pages given to Milton in his "Literary Bible", as an afterthought and a recantation from his misogynism, are found the following lines copied, we may surmise, during his honeymoon:
Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles
Wanted, nor youthful dalliance, as beseems
Fair couple, linkt in happy league
Alone as they....[25]
Belinda had been forgotten, and the young woman-hater had found his fair conqueror.
But death again took its toll and cast its cloud over Monticello. With Page, Dabney Carr, Jefferson's fellow student at William and Mary, had been his closest friend. Carr, a frequent visitor at Shadwell, had married in 1764 Jefferson's sister Martha. Not a wealthy man, he was described by his brother-in-law as living in a very small house, with a table, half a dozen chairs, and one or two servants, but the happiest man in the universe.[26] He died when hardly thirty and Jefferson had him buried beneath the shade of their favorite tree at Monticello under which they had so often read, dreamed and discussed; and such was the origin of the little cemetery in which Jefferson was to bury so many of his dear ones before he joined them himself in his last sleep. For Carr he went to his "Literary Bible", as he himself felt unable to write a fitting tribute, and copied from Mallet's "Excursion" an inscription to nail on the tree, by the grave of the friend "who of all men living loved him most."
Honored by the Royal Government and made by Botetourt "Lieutenant of the County of Albemarle, and Chief Commander of all His Majesty's Militia, Horse and Foot in the said county of Albemarle"; honored also by his Alma Mater and appointed by the President of William and Mary "Surveyor of Albemarle County",[27] a member of the Assembly, one of the richest landowners of his county, one of the most successful lawyers of Virginia, happily married, busy with his estate, his books, his violin, his law practice, Jefferson could look forward to a long, quiet and moderate life, the ideal life of a farmer, a gentleman and a scholar. For a man who took his duties seriously it was by no means an existence of idleness, in nowise to be compared with the life of an English gentleman farmer. Every planter was to some extent a captain, and every plantation was to a large extent self-sufficient and self-supporting. In the case of Jefferson, who had recently increased his domain, difficulties and new problems requiring inventiveness, resourcefulness and ingenuity arose every day. Slaves had to be taught new trades and trained, the wilderness had to be reclaimed. Thus were developed qualities of leadership and qualities of class pride. A young planter related to the best families of the colony felt that he belonged to a ruling class, above which could only exist the remote power of the British Parliament and the majesty of the king represented by a governor who never really belonged, and who in spite of his exalted position, always remained a stranger.
An English tourist, Burnaby, traveling in Virginia in 1760, had already noted signs of impatience and restlessness among the colonists of Virginia. "They are haughty," he wrote, "and jealous of their liberties; impatient of restraint and can scarcely bear the thought of being controlled by superior power. Many of them consider the Colonies as independent states, not connected with Great Britain otherwise than by having the same common King."[28]