be engaged in that office. In point of profit it has little to offer, the salary being only five hundred dollars, but it would make you know and be known to characters of influence in the affairs of our country."
Meriwether was down on the Ohio. In two weeks his reply came back from Pittsburg. "I most cordially acquiesce, and with pleasure accept the office, nor were further motives necessary to induce my compliance than that you, sir, should conceive that in the discharge of the duties, I could be serviceable to my country as well as useful to yourself."
As soon as he could wind up his affairs, Captain Lewis, one of the handsomest men in the army, appeared in queue and cocked hat, silk stockings and knee buckles, at the President's house in wide and windy Washington to take up his duties as private secretary.
From his earliest recollection, Meriwether Lewis had known Thomas Jefferson, as Governor in the days of Tarleton's raid, and as a private farmer and neighbour at Monticello. After Meriwether's mother married Captain Marks and moved to Georgia, Jefferson went to France, and his uncle, Colonel Nicholas Lewis, looked after the finances of the great estate at Monticello.
Under the guardianship of that uncle, Meriwether attended the school of Parson Maury, the same school where Jefferson had been fitted for college.
He remembered, too, that day when Jefferson came back from France and all the slaves at Monticello rushed out and drew the carriage up by hand, crowding around, kissing his hands and feet, blubbering, laughing, crying. How the slaves fell back to admire the young ladies that had left as mere children! Martha, a stately girl of seventeen, and little Maria, in her eleventh year, a dazzling vision of beauty. Ahead of everybody ran the gay and sunny Jack Eppes to escort his little sweetheart.
Both daughters were married now, and with families of their own, so more than ever Jefferson depended on Meriwether Lewis. They occupied the same chamber and lived in a degree of intimacy that perhaps has subsisted between no other president and his private secretary.
