Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Americanism

by Gilbert Chinard

We possess no precise information upon the amount spent by Jefferson nor any account book for that year, but we may surmise that Colonel Walker would not have been so lenient if the total sum had been spent in reprehensible dissipations. Williamsburg boasted of a large bookstore, and in 1775 Dixon and Hunter published a list of more than three hundred titles in their stock. Book lovers are born and not made. Jefferson had never been able to satisfy fully his passion for books, and as the college library offered him only very meager resources, he must have plunged with delight in the bookshop of Williamsburg and bought extravagantly, an expense the estate "could well afford to pay." But the fact remained that what he had learned he had learned by himself, and that college life had not furnished him the guidance and direction he was looking for.

It was at this juncture that Doctor Small, professor of mathematics, was appointed ad interim professor of philosophy and soon developed an interest in the young Virginian. Jefferson himself paid a grateful tribute to the man who just in time rescued him from his frivolous companions and brought back to his mind the serious purpose he had entertained when he entered William and Mary.

It was my good fortune and that probably fixed the destinies of my life, that Doctor William Small of Scotland was then Professor of Mathematics, a man profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication, correct and gentlemanly manners, and an enlarged and liberal mind. He, most happily for me, became soon attached to me, and made me his daily companion when not engaged in the school; and from his conversation I got my first views of the expansion of science, and of the system of things in which we are placed. Fortunately, the philosophical chair became vacant soon after my arrival at college, and he was appointed to fill it per interim: and he was the first who ever gave, in that college, regular lectures in Ethics, Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres.[6]

For Jefferson Doctor Small was the prime awakener and inspirer. Through him the young man was introduced to George Wythe who soon accepted him as a student of law, and through him again he was received by Governor Fauquier.

Such were the first really cultured men with whom Jefferson ever came in contact: William Small, the mathematician and philosopher, would not have been a true Scot if he had not had that passionate love for discussion and logic which seems the innate gift of so many sons of the Highlands. Francis Fauquier, "the ornament and delight of Virginia", generous, liberal, elegant in his manners and requirements, was the son of Doctor Fauquier of Floirac, near Bordeaux, who had worked under Newton in the mint and become a director of the Bank of England. His early biographer Burke, the Virginia historian, has chiefly emphasized his propensity to gaming. But Fauquier was an economist of no mean distinction and had written an important tract on the basis of taxation. He was interested in physics or natural philosophy and had become a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was a student of natural phenomena and sent to the Society the description of a hail-storm in Virginia. Finally, there was George Wythe, whose virtue was of the purest tint, his integrity inflexible, and his justice exact. Last and most important of all his qualities, perhaps, was the characteristic peculiarity mentioned by Jefferson in the sketch he wrote after the death of his old master: "he was firm in his philosophy, and neither troubling, nor perhaps trusting any one with his religion."

Such were the true masters of Thomas Jefferson, and from their conversations around the table, after bottles of port had been brought, he learned more than any student at William and Mary ever acquired in college. It was a rare privilege for a young man of Jefferson's age to be admitted to the "parties carrées", and he must have already given singular promise to have been invited at all into the society of these three luminaries of Virginia. What topics were discussed among them can easily be imagined. Fauquier would speak of old England, the theaters of London, the monuments and works of art, of his colleagues of the Royal Society, or discuss a problem of taxation or a recent meteorological phenomenon. A man of the world, a friend of Admiral Anson whom he had met after his circumnavigation of the globe, a director of the South Sea Company, he would speak of ships, strange lands, and reveal to the young man the existence of a world extending far beyond his native Virginia. Thus was born in Jefferson that ardent desire to travel and most of all to see England which appears in some letters written in the early sixties.

Philosophical and religious subjects perhaps were introduced, although that is rather doubtful, in my opinion. The passage on George Wythe, already quoted, mentions his reticence on religion. Whatever may have been the propensity of Fauquier to gaming, he was never accused by his contemporaries of being a religious libertine. It is also very doubtful whether any of the group would naturally have discussed such subjects, particularly in the presence of a young student whose education had been deeply religious. Finally it must be remembered that in Virginia, as well as in New England, there always existed some "reserved questions", that it was not good form to criticize established institutions and current beliefs. It is quite possible that Fauquier may have lent to Jefferson certain volumes of Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke, but in spite of the contrary opinion expressed by some biographers of Jefferson, it seems very unlikely that any of the three older men should have undertaken to shake the foundations of his faith. The "parties carrées" could not have lasted very long, since William Small went back to Scotland in 1762. But Jefferson's acquaintance with Fauquier and Wythe was continued for many years after the departure of the philosopher and, in both cases, until the death of the older men.

The master of Shadwell had sown his wild oats; he had had his brief flight of dissipation and had reformed; but he had by no means become a hermit. He had not entirely given up attending horse races and fox hunts.

Many a time—he wrote in 1808—have I asked myself, in the enthusiastic moment of the death of a fox, the victory of a favorite horse, the issue of a question eloquently argued at the bar, or in the great councils of the nation. Well, which of these kinds of reputation would I prefer? That of a horse jockey? a fox hunter? an orator? or the finest advocate of my country's rights?[7]