Jefferson, as I have just mentioned, left Paris the last of September. The account given below, of his journey home and reception there, is from the narrative of Martha Jefferson, before quoted:
In returning, he was detained ten days at Havre de Grace, and, after crossing the Channel, ten more at Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, which were spent in visiting different parts of the island, when the weather permitted: among others, Carisbrook Castle, remarkable for the confinement of Charles the First, and also for a well of uncommon depth. We sailed on the 23d of October, 1789, in company with upwards of thirty vessels who had collected there and been detained, as we were, by contrary winds. Colonel Trumbull, who chartered the ship for my father in London, applied to Mr. Pitt to give orders to prevent his baggage from being searched on his arrival, informing Mr. Pitt at the same time that the application was made without his knowledge. The orders to such an effect were accordingly issued, I presume, as he was spared the usual vexation of such a search. The voyage was quick and not unpleasant. When we arrived on the coast there was so thick a mist as to render it impossible to see a pilot, had any of them been out. After beating about three days, the captain, a bold as well as an experienced seaman, determined to run in at a venture, without having seen the Capes. The ship came near running upon what was conjectured to be the Middle Ground, when anchor was cast at ten o'clock P.M. The wind rose, and the vessel drifted down, dragging her anchor, one or more miles. But she had got within the Capes, while a number which had been less bold were blown off the coast, some of them lost, and all kept out three or four weeks longer. We had to beat up against a strong head-wind, which carried away our topsails; and we were very near being run down by a brig coming out of port, which, having the wind in her favor, was almost upon us before we could get out of the way. We escaped, however, with only the loss of a part of our rigging. My father had been so anxious about his public accounts, that he would not trust them to go until he went with them. We arrived at Norfolk in the forenoon, and in two hours after landing, before an article of our baggage was brought ashore, the vessel took fire, and seemed on the point of being reduced to a mere hull. They were in the act of scuttling her, when some abatement in the flames was discovered, and she was finally saved. So great had been the activity of her crew, and of those belonging to other ships in the harbor who came to their aid, that every thing in her was saved. Our trunks, and perhaps also the papers, had been put in our state-rooms, and the doors incidentally closed by the captain. They were so close that the flames did not penetrate; but the powder in a musket in one of them was silently consumed, and the thickness of the travelling-trunks alone saved their contents from the excessive heat. I understood at the time that the state-rooms alone, of all the internal partitions, escaped burning. Norfolk had not recovered from the effects of the war, and we should have found it difficult to obtain rooms but for the politeness of the gentlemen at the hotel (Lindsay's), who were kind enough to give up their own rooms for our accommodation.
There were no stages in those days. We were indebted to the kindness of our friends for horses; and visiting all on the way homeward, and spending more or less time with them all in turn, we reached Monticello on the 23d of December. The negroes discovered the approach of the carriage as soon as it reached Shadwell,[39] and such a scene I never witnessed in my life. They collected in crowds around it, and almost drew it up the mountain by hand. The shouting, etc., had been sufficiently obstreperous before, but the moment it arrived at the top it reached the climax. When the door of the carriage was opened, they received him in their arms and bore him to the house, crowding around and kissing his hands and feet—some blubbering and crying—others laughing. It seemed impossible to satisfy their anxiety to touch and kiss the very earth which bore him. These were the first ebullitions of joy for his return, after a long absence, which they would of course feel; but perhaps it is not out of place here to add that they were at all times very devoted in their attachment to him.
A letter written by Mr. Jefferson to his overseer had been the means of the negroes getting information of their master's return home some days before he arrived. They were wild with joy, and requested to have holiday on the day on which he was expected to reach home. Their request was, of course, granted, and they accordingly assembled at Monticello from Mr. Jefferson's different farms. The old and the young came—women and children—and, growing impatient, they sauntered down the mountain-side and down the road until they met the carriage-and-four at Shadwell, when the welkin rang with their shouts of welcome. Martha Jefferson speaks of their "almost" drawing the carriage by hand up the mountain: her memory in this instance may have failed her, for I have had it from the lips of old family servants who were present as children on the occasion, that the horses were actually "unhitched," and the vehicle drawn by the strong black arms up to the foot of the lawn in front of the door at Monticello. The appearance of the young ladies, before whom they fell back and left the way clear for them to reach the house, filled them with admiration. They had left them when scarcely more than children in the arms, and now returned—Martha a tall and stately-looking girl of seventeen years, and the little Maria, now in her eleventh year, more beautiful and, if possible, more lovable than when, two years before, her beauty and her loveliness had warmed into enthusiasm the reserved but kind-hearted Mrs. Adams.
The father and his two daughters were then at last once more domiciled within the walls of their loved Monticello. How grateful it would have been for him never again to have been called away from home to occupy a public post, the following extract from a letter written by him before leaving Paris will show. He writes to Madison:
You ask me if I would accept any appointment on that side of the water? You know the circumstances which led me from retirement, step by step, and from one nomination to another, up to the present. My object is to return to the same retirement. Whenever, therefore, I quit the present, it will not be to engage in any other office, and most especially any one which would require a constant residence from home.
[CHAPTER IX.]
Letters on the French Revolution.
I have thought it best to throw into one chapter the extracts from Mr. Jefferson's Letters and Memoir which relate to the scenes that he witnessed at the beginning of the Revolution. These are so interesting as almost to make us regret, with himself, that he should have been recalled from France at that most fearfully interesting period of her history. What pictures his pen would have preserved to us of scenes, of many of which he would have been an eye-witness, and how the student of history would revel in his dispatches home, which, like those he has left us, must have abounded in interesting details and sketches of character!