tion. He had formed a high conception of the
excellence of the New England governments, and
wished to introduce into his native state the local
institutions that had enabled those states to act
with such efficiency during the war. After some
stay at home he entered upon this work at Will-
iamsburg, where, 8 Oct., 1776, a messenger from
congress informed him that he had been elected
joint commissioner, with Franklin and Deane, to
represent the United States at Paris. After three
days of consideration, he resisted the temptation
to go abroad, feeling that his obligations to his
family and his state made it his duty to remain at
home. In reorganizing Virginia, Jefferson and
his friends struck first at the system of entail,
which, after three weeks' earnest debate, was to-
tally destroyed, so that all property in Virginia
was held in fee simple and could be sold for debt.
He next attempted, by a short and simple enact-
ment, to abolish the connection between church
and state. He was able to accomplish but a small
portion of this reform at that session, but the work
was begun, and nine years later the law drawn by
Jefferson, entitled " An Act for establishing Re-
ligious Freedom," completed the severance. This
triumph of equal rights over ancient prejudices
and restriction Jefferson always regarded as one of
his most important contributions to the happiness
of his country. Some of his utterances on this
subject have passed into familiar proverbs : " Gov-
ernment has nothing to do with opinion," " Com-
pulsion makes hypocrites, not converts," " It is
eiTor alone which need* the support of govern-
ment ; truth can stand by itself." It was he who
drew the bill for establishing courts of law in the
state, and for prescribing their powers and meth-
ods. It was he also who caused the removal of
the capital to Richmond. He carried the bill ex-
tirpating the principle of primogeniture. It was
the committee of which he was chairman that
abolished the cruel penalties of the ancient code,
and he made a most earnest attempt to establish a
system of public education in the state. During
two years he and his colleagues, Hamilton, Wythe,
Mason, and Francis Lightfoot Lee, toiled at the
reconstruction of Virginia law, during which they
accomplished all that was then possible, besides
proposing many measures that were passed at a
later day. He could write to Dr. Franklin in
1777 that the people of Virginia had " laid aside
the monarchical and taken up the republican gov-
ernment with as much ease as would have attended
their throwing off an old and putting on a new
suit of clothes." It was Jefferson and his friends
who wrought this salutary change, and they were
able to effect it because, during the first three
years of the war, Virginia was almost exempt
from disturbance. In the spring of 1779, when
Burgoyne's army, as prisoners of war, were en-
camped near Monticello, Jefferson was assiduous
in friendly attentions both to the British and the
Hessians, throwing open his house and grounds to
them, and arranging many agreeable concerts for
their entertainment. A British captain, himself a
good violinist, who played duets with Jefferson at
this time, told the late Gen. John A. Dix, of New
York, that Thomas Jefferson was the best amateur he had ever heard.
In January, 1779, the Virginia legislature elected Jefferson governor of the state, to succeed Patrick Henry, whose third term ended on 1 June. The two years of his governorship proved to be the severest trial of his life. With slender and fast diminishing resources, he had to keep up the Vir- ginia regiments in the army of Washington, and at the same time to send all possible supplies to the support of Gen. Gates in his southern campaign. The western Indians were a source of constant solicitude, and they were held in check by that brave and energetic neighbor of Gov. Jefferson, George Rogers Clarke. The British and Hessian frisoners also had to be supplied and guarded. n the midst of his first anxieties he began the reorganization that he had long desired of the College of William and Mary. Soon, however, his attention was wholly absorbed by the events of the war. On 16 Aug., 1780, occurred the disastrous defeat of Gates at Camden, which destroyed in a day all that Jefferson had toiled to accumulate in warlike material during eight agonizing weeks. On the last day of 1780, Arnold's fleet of twenty- seven sail anchored in Chesapeake bay, and Arnold, with nine hundred men, penetrated as far as Rich* mond; but Jefferson had acted with so much promptitude, and was so ably seconded by the county militia, that the traitor held Richmond but twenty-three hours, and escaped total destruction only through a timely change in the wind, which bore him down the river with extraordinary swift- ness. In five days from the first summons twenty- five hundred militia were in pursuit of Arnold, and hundreds more were coming in every hour. For eighty-four hours Gov. Jefferson was almost con- tinuously in the saddle; and for many months after Arnold's first repulse, not only the governor, but all that Virginia had left of manhood, re- sources, and credit, were absorbed in the contest Four times in the spring of 1781 the legislature of Virginia was obliged to adjourn and fly before the approach or the threat of an enemy. Monticello was captured by a troop of horse, and Jefferson himself narrowly escaped. Cornwallis lived for ten days in the governor's house at Elk Hill, a. hundred miles down the James, where he de- stroyed all the growing crops, burned the barns, carried off the horses, killed the colts, and took away twenty-seven slaves. During the public dis- asters of that time there was the usual disposition among a portion of the people to cast the blame upon the administration, and Jefferson himself was of the opinion that, in such a desperate crisis, it was best that the civil and the military power should be intrusted to the same hand. He therefore declined a re-election to a third term, and induced his friends to support Gen. Thomas Nelson, com- mander-in-chief of the militia, who was elected. The capture of Cornwallis in November, 1781, atoned for all the previous suffering and disaster. A month later Jefferson rose in his place in the legislature and declared his readiness to answer any charges that might be brought against his ad- ministration of the government; but no one re- sponded. After a pause, a member offered a reso- lution thanking him for his impartial, upright, and attentive discharge of his duty, which was passed without a dissenting voice.
On 6 Sept., 1782, Jefferson's wife died, to his unspeakable and lasting sorrow, leaving three daughters, the youngest four months old. During the stupor caused by this event he was elected by a unanimous vote of congress, and, as Madison reports, "without a single adverse remark," plenipotentiary to France, to treat for peace. He gladly accepted ; but, before he sailed, the joyful news came that preliminaries of peace had been agreed to, and he returned to Monticello. In June, 1783, he was elected to congress, and in November took his seat at Annapolis. Here, as chairman of a committee on the currency, he assisted to give us the decimal currency now in use. The happy idea
