Philadelphia, January 26, 1793.
My Dear Martha,—
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I have for some time past been under an agitation of mind which I scarcely ever experienced before, produced by a check on my purpose of returning home at the close of this session of Congress. My operations at Monticello had been all made to bear upon that point of time, my mind was fixed on it with a fondness which was extreme, the purpose firmly declared to the President, when I became assailed from all quarters with a variety of objections. Among these it was urged that my return just when I had been attacked in the public papers, would injure me in the eyes of the public, who would suppose I either withdrew from investigation, or because I had not tone of mind sufficient to meet slander. The only reward I ever wished on my retirement was to carry with me nothing like a disapprobation of the public. These representations have, for some weeks past, shaken a determination which I had thought the whole world could not have shaken. I have not yet finally made up my mind on the subject, nor changed my declaration to the President. But having perfect reliance in the disinterested friendship of some of those who have counseled and urged it strongly; believing that they can see and judge better a question between the public and myself than I can, I feel a possibility that I may be detained here into the summer. A few days will decide. In the meantime I have permitted my house to be rented after the middle of March, have sold such of my furniture as would not suit Monticello, and am packing up the rest and storing it ready to be shipped off to Richmond as soon as the season of good sea weather comes on. A circumstance which weighs on me next to the weightiest is the trouble which, I foresee, I shall be constrained to ask Mr. Randolph to undertake. Having taken from other pursuits a number of hands to execute several purposes which I had in view this year, I cannot abandon those purposes and lose their labor altogether. I must, therefore, select the most important and least troublesome of them, the execution of my canal, and (without embarrassing him with any details which Clarkson and George are equal to) get him to tell them always what is to be done and how, and to attend to the levelling the bottom; but on this I shall write him particularly if I defer my departure. I have not received the letter which Mr. Carr wrote to me from Richmond, nor any other from him since I left Monticello. My best affections to him, Mr. Randolph and your fireside, and am, with sincere love, my dear Martha, yours.
TO DR. STEWART, OR TO ALL THE GENTLEMEN.
January 31, 1793.
I have had under consideration Mr. Hallet's plans for the capitol, which undoubtedly have a great deal of merit. Doctor Thornton has also given me a view of his. These last came forward under some very advantageous circumstances. The grandeur, simplicity and beauty of the exterior, the propriety with which the apartments are distributed, and economy in the mass of the whole structure, will, I doubt not, give it a preference in your eyes, as it has done in mine and those of several others whom I have consulted. I have, therefore, thought it better to give the Doctor time to finish his plan, and for this purpose to delay until your next meeting a final decision. Some difficulty arises with respect to Mr. Hallet, who you know was in some degree led into his plan by ideas we all expressed to him. This ought not to induce us to prefer it to a better; but while he is liberally rewarded for the time and labor he has expended on it, his feelings should be saved and soothed as much as possible. I leave it to yourselves how best to prepare him for the possibility that the Doctor's plan may be preferred to his. Some ground for this will be furnished you by the occasion you will have for recourse to him as to the interior of the apartments, and the taking of him into service at a fixed allowance; and I understand that his necessities render it material that he should know what his allowance is to be.