as he would have preferred to return to Paris. He entered on his duties in the March of 1790, and was the leader of the democratic section of the cabinet in opposition to the federal one led by Hamilton (see Hamilton, Alexander); and the president Washington had no small difficulty in making his divided ministry work. At the close of 1793 Jefferson resigned, and returned to his plantations to occupy himself with study and agriculture; but he could not forget politics, and in his retirement he directed in some measure the councils and operations of the democratic anti-federalists, the party opposed to Washington. In 1796 he was put forward as a candidate for the presidency, but was defeated by the federalist Adams, becoming, however, vice-president of the States. In this position he was the life and soul of the democratic party then disposed to be languid after its defeat, and he reaped the fruits of his exertions when in 1801 he was elected president. He and the notorious Aaron Burr had received an equal number of votes, and the house of representatives, with whom the decision then lay, elected Jefferson. The great event of his first presidency was his negotiation of the purchase of Louisiana, which had been ceded to France by Spain, and which Napoleon thought it would be difficult to preserve during war from the clutches of England. At the expiry of his term of office he was re-elected by a large majority. His second presidency was distinguished by the promptitude and stringency with which he laid, and for a year maintained, an embargo on all outward bound American vessels, when the commerce of the States was threatened with obstruction by Napoleon and the policy of the Berlin and Milan decrees on the one hand, and the right of search claims on the other. Jefferson's firmness educed from Mr. Canning a modification of the policy of Great Britain. At the close of his second presidency Jefferson withdrew definitively into private life, still taking a keen interest, however, both in public and local affairs. Through his exertions the university of Virginia was founded by his native state. His later years were a little clouded by pecuniary difficulties, the result of obligations incurred in behalf of a friend. He applied to the legislature of Virginia to allow him to dispose of his property by lottery, to raise a fund in his necessity. The application was preceded by the composition of a paper entitled "Thoughts on Lotteries," and which contains a brief retrospect of the services which he had rendered to his country, prominent among them being the changes he had effected in the legislation of his native state. An autobiography which he had commenced, and which is printed in his works, stops unfortunately at the close of his residence in Paris. His "Notes on Virginia," drawn up on the eve of his mission to Europe at the request of a member of the French legation in Philadelphia, have been often printed. He died on the 4th of July, 1826, the very day on which, fifty years before, the declaration of independence had been signed, and on the same day died John Adams. It was with Jefferson's election to the presidency that began, as M. Guizot has observed, the long rule of the democratic party in the United States, and to Jefferson's leadership that triumph is mainly due. His "Memoirs, Correspondence, and Papers" were edited by his grandson, T. J. Randolph, in 1829; but it is a collection which was superseded by the publication in 1853 of his "Writings, Official and Private," augmented from MSS. left by Randolph, purchased by congress, published by its order, and edited by H. A. Washington. A Life of Jefferson by Professor Tucker was published in 1837; and another, with contributions from family papers, by Henry S. Randall in 1858.—F. E.
JEFFERY, John, a native of Ipswich, was born in 1647, and educated at Cambridge. His first appointment was to Dennington, near Framlingham. In 1678 he was chosen minister of St. Peter Mancroft in Norwich, "where he was highly respected by Sir Thomas Brown, and Chief-baron Atkyns." In 1687 he became incumbent of Kirton and Falkinham in Suffolk, and in 1694 archdeacon of Norwich. He edited Sir T. Brown's Christian Morals and Dr. Whichcote's Aphorisms and Sermons. He died in 1720; and two volumes of his discourses, with a memoir, were afterwards published.—B. H. C.
JEFFERY, Thomas, a dissenting divine, the author of some good defences of christianity, was born at Exeter about the close of the seventeenth century. After finishing his studies he settled in 1726 at Little Baddow in Essex, but returned to Exeter in 1728, and soon after died from the effects of excessive literary exertion. He wrote "The True Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion;" "A Review of the Controversy between the Author of the Grounds, &c., and his Adversaries;" "Christianity the Perfection of all Religion;" and a sermon entitled "The Divinity of Christ proved from Holy Scripture." Anthony Collins, against whose writings these publications were chiefly directed, acknowledged their excellence, and they were also highly commended by Dr. Kennicott.—G. BL.
JEFFREY, Francis, an eminent Scotch judge and critic, was born at Edinburgh, 23rd October, 1773, and was the son of Mr. George Jeffrey, one of the depute-clerks of the court of session. He was educated at the high school of Edinburgh, where his first master was Mr. Luke Eraser, who in three successive classes had the good fortune to instruct Walter Scott, Jeffrey, and Brougham. From the high school Jeffrey passed in 1787 to Glasgow college, where, under the able training of Professors Young and Jardine, his talents began to develop themselves with great brilliancy; and his essays and criticisms on the exercises of his fellow-students, gave early promise of that critical acumen which was afterwards fully developed in the pages of the Edinburgh Review. His laborious diligence was as conspicuous as his mental acuteness and vigour. "Quick though he undoubtedly was," says his biographer, "no slow mind was ever aided by steadier industry." In September, 1791, Jeffrey went to prosecute his studies at Oxford, which he quitted with great delight after a residence of only nine months, shocked at the dissipation and idleness which then prevailed in that seat of learning. In 1792 on his return to Edinburgh, he entered the Speculative Society, a step which Lord Cockburn says did more for him than any other event in the whole course of his education. It not only trained him to readiness in public speaking, but brought him into close and familiar contact with Sir Walter Scott, Brougham, Homer, the marquis of Lansdowne, Charles and Robert Grant, and other master spirits of the age. He was called to the bar on the 16th of December, 1794. The political state of Scotland at that time held out a very gloomy prospect to a young advocate who had imbibed liberal sentiments, however moderate; especially when, as was the case with Jeffrey, he was destitute of the advantages of high birth and powerful connections. But from the first he courageously avowed and steadily carried out his principles, without regard to fear or favour; though well aware that by adopting this course he excluded himself from all hope of official promotion. His professional progress, too, was for some years very limited. The effect of his talents and industry was counteracted by certain unpopular peculiarities of manner, and by his political opinions, which at that period were in bad odour among both the middle and upper classes of society. "Willing and waiting to work, but idle from want of employment," he had frequent fits of depression and discontent. At one time he had thoughts of abandoning the law and settling in London "as a grub;" and a little later he was anxious to obtain the chair of moral and political science in the college of Calcutta. In the midst of all his discouragements, however, he married in 1801 Miss Catherine Wilson, daughter of Dr. Wilson, professor of church history at St. Andrews, though the lady had no fortune and Jeffrey's professional income did not exceed £100 a year. Mrs. Jeffrey, whom her husband describes as having good sense, good manners, good temper, good hands, and above all, a good heart, soon secured the respect and esteem of all his friends, and made her house and its society very agreeable. In 1804 he had the misfortune to lose his father and brother, together with his amiable partner—a blow which sunk deep into his heart, and made him, he says, "inwardly sick of life." Up to this period—though he had been nine years in practice—his professional income was only £240 a year. Now, however, his prospects began to brighten, and he gradually won his way to the foremost rank in all the courts, civil, criminal, and even ecclesiastical. About the close of the year 1813 Jeffrey married a second time. The object of his choice was an American lady, Miss Charlotte Wilkes, grandniece of the celebrated John Wilkes. In spite of his nervous horror of all travelling by water in every shape, and of the dangers connected with the war then subsisting between the two countries, he crossed the Atlantic to bring home his bride, and remained nearly four months in America, during which he visited a few of the principal cities of the Union. Lord Cockburn says that almost the whole happiness of Jeffrey's future life flowed from his union with Miss Wilkes, and speaks in strong terms of the natural
