A few days before leaving Washington, he wrote to Baron Humboldt:
To Baron Humboldt.
You mention that you had before written other letters to me. Be assured I have never received a single one, or I should not have failed to make my acknowledgments of it. Indeed I have not waited for that, but for the certain information, which I had not, of the place where you might be. Your letter of May 30th first gave me that information. You have wisely located yourself in the focus of the science of Europe. I am held by the cords of love to my family and country, or I should certainly join you. Within a few days I shall now bury myself within the groves of Monticello, and become a mere spectator of the passing events. Of politics I will say nothing, because I would not implicate you by addressing to you the republican ideas of America, deemed horrible heresies by the royalism of Europe.
At the close of a letter written on the 8th of March to Mr. Short, he says: "I write this in the midst of packing and preparing for my departure, of visits of leave, and interruptions of every kind."
In February the Legislature of Virginia had passed an address of farewell to him as a public man. This address, penned by William Wirt, closes thus handsomely:
In the principles on which you have administered the Government, we see only the continuation and maturity of the same virtues and abilities which drew upon you in your youth the resentment of Dunmore. From the first brilliant and happy moment of your resistance to foreign tyranny until the present day, we mark with pleasure and with gratitude the same uniform and consistent character—the same warm and devoted attachment to liberty and the Republic—the same Roman love of your country, her rights, her peace, her honor, her prosperity. How blessed will be the retirement into which you are about to go! How deservedly blessed will it be! For you carry with you the richest of all rewards, the recollection of a life well spent in the service of your country, and proofs the most decisive of the love, the gratitude, the veneration of your countrymen. That your retirement may be as happy as your life has been virtuous and useful; that our youth may see in the blissful close of your days an additional inducement to form themselves on your model, is the devout and earnest prayer of your fellow-citizens who compose the General Assembly of Virginia.
In his reply to this address, Jefferson closes as follows:
In the desire of peace, but in full confidence of safety from our unity, our position, and our resources, I shall retire into the bosom of my native State, endeared to me by every tie which can attach the human heart. The assurances of your approbation, and that my conduct has given satisfaction to my fellow-citizens generally, will be an important ingredient in my future happiness; and that the Supreme Ruler of the universe may have our country under his special care, will be among the latest of my prayers.
The following reply to an address of welcome from the citizens of Albemarle is one of the most beautiful, graceful, and touching productions of his pen:
To the Inhabitants of Albemarle County, in Virginia.