After holding the office of governor for two years, Jefferson resigned, feeling that a military man would give greater satisfaction. Such a one followed him, but with no better success among the half-despairing patriots, destitute of money and supplies. Jefferson, with his sensitive spirit, felt keenly the criticisms of some of the people, saying, "They have inflicted a wound on my spirit which will only be cured by the all-healing grave." He refused to return to public life, and looked forward to happy years of quiet study at Monticello.
How little we know the way which lies before us. We long for sunlight, and perchance have only storms. We love to be as children who must be carried over the swamps and rough places, not knowing that strength of manhood and womanhood comes generally through struggling. The "happy years" at Monticello were already numbered. Another little girl had come to gladden the heart of the man who so loved children, and had quickly taken her departure. And now Martha Jefferson, at thirty-four, the sweet, gentle woman who had lived with him only ten short years, was also going away. She talked with him calmly about the journey; she said she could not die content if she thought their children would have a stepmother. The young governor, without a moment's thought as to his future happiness, taking her hand, solemnly promised that he would never marry again, and he kept his word. It is not known that any person ever entered the place left vacant in his heart by Martha Jefferson's death.
For four months he had watched by her bedside, or had his books so near her that he could work without being separated from her. When she died he fainted, and remained so long insensible that the attendants thought he could never be restored to consciousness. For three weeks he kept his room, ministered to by his little daughter Martha, who wound her arms about his neck, with that inexpressible consolation that only a pure, sweet child-nature can give. She said years later, "I was never a moment from his side. He walked almost incessantly, night and day, only lying down occasionally, when nature was completely exhausted.... When, at last, he left his room, he rode out, and from that time he was on horseback rambling about the mountain, in the least frequented roads, and just as often through the woods. In those melancholy rambles I was his constant companion, a solitary witness to many a burst of grief."
He longed now for a change of scene; Monticello was no more a place of peace and rest. Being elected to Congress, he took his seat in November, 1783. To him we owe, after much heated discussion, the adoption of the present system of dollars and cents, instead of pounds and shillings. In May, 1784, he was appointed minister to France, to join Dr. Franklin and John Adams in negotiating commercial treaties. He sailed in July, taking with him his eldest child, Martha, leaving Mary and an infant daughter with an aunt.
The educated governor and congressman of course found a cordial welcome in Parisian society, for was he not the author of the Declaration of Independence, endeared to all lovers of liberty, in whatever country. He was charmed with French courtesy, thrift, and neatness, but he was always an American in sentiment and affection. He wrote to his young friend, James Monroe, afterwards President: "The pleasure of the trip to Europe will be less than you expect, but the utility greater. It will make you adore your own country,—its soil, its climate, its equality, liberty, laws, people, and manners. How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!" More and more he loved, and believed in, a republic. He wrote to a friend: "If all the evils which can arise among us from the republican form of government, from this day to the day of judgment, could be put into scale against what this country suffers from its monarchical form in a week, or England in a month, the latter would preponderate. No race of kings has ever presented above one man of common-sense in twenty generations. The best they can do is to leave things to their ministers; and what are their ministers but a committee badly chosen?"
Jefferson spent much time in looking up the manufacturing and agricultural interests of the country, and kept four colleges—Harvard, Yale, William and Mary, and the College of Philadelphia—advised of new inventions, new books, and new phases of the approaching Revolution.
He had placed his daughter Martha in a leading school. His letters to her in the midst of his busy life show the beautiful spirit of the man, who was too great ever to rise above his affectional nature. "The more you learn the more I love you," he wrote her; "and I rest the happiness of my life on seeing you beloved by all the world, which you will be sure to be if to a good heart you join those accomplishments so peculiarly pleasing in your sex. Adieu, my dear child; lose no moment in improving your head, nor any opportunity of exercising your heart in benevolence."
His baby-girl, Lucy, died two years after her mother, and now only little Mary was left in America. He could not rest until this child was with him in France. She came, with a breaking heart on leaving the old Virginia home and her aunt. On board the vessel she became so attached to the captain that it was almost impossible to take her from him. She spent some weeks with Mrs. John Adams in London, who wrote: "A finer child I never saw. I grew so fond of her, and she was so much attached to me, that, when Mr. Jefferson sent for her, they were obliged to force the little creature away."
Once in Paris, the affectionate child was placed at school with her sister Martha, to whom Jefferson wrote: "She will become a precious charge upon your hands.... Teach her, above all things, to be good, because without that we can neither be valued by others nor set any value on ourselves. Teach her to be always true; no vice is so mean as the want of truth, and at the same time so useless. Teach her never to be angry; anger only serves to torment ourselves, to divert others, and alienate their esteem."
The love of truth was a strong characteristic of Jefferson's nature, one of the most beautiful characteristics of any life. There is no other foundation-stone so strong and enduring on which to build a granite character as the granite rock of truth. Jefferson wrote to his children and nephews: "If you ever find yourself in any difficulty, and doubt how to extricate yourself, do what is right, and you will find it the easiest way of getting out of the difficulty.... Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself, and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose that, in any possible situation or any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing." Again he wrote: "Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing."