The life and times of Thomas Jefferson

Dedication

BECAUSE HE HAS CONSECRATED HIS WEALTH, TALENT, AND ENERGIES TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH THE MASSES OF OUR PEOPLE LIVE; BECAUSE HE HAS SHOWN AN EARNEST, FEARLESS, AND CONSISTENT INTEREST IN THE CAUSE OF THE WEAK AND OPPRESSED ; BECAUSE HE IS TO-DAY WORKING WITH SPLENDID ABILITY ALONG THE SAME LINES WHICH MR, JEFFERSON MARKED OUT A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO

WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST

Ml

Preface

By far the greater number of books treating of American history and biography have been written by Northern men. Southern men of the Old Regime were not much given to the writing of books, and when the man of New England strode forward, pen in hand, nominated himself custodian of our national archives and began to compile the record, nobody seriously contested the oflSce, This being so, it happened almost inevitably that New England got handsome treatment in our national histories. Tended by the reverential hands of her own sons, her historical graves have been kept very green indeed. The microscope, applied to every historical scene and character in New England, has let no excellence escape its magnifying power. This was very natural. The New England author, by the sheer strength of environment, education, heredity, inborn prejudice, and preference, saw everything from a New England point of view, and as it appeared to him so he colored the record.

Nobody denies that New England deserved good treatment in our histories. Her record is one of glory, and her sons have the right to be proud of

vii

^IFE AND TIMES OF JEFFERSON

it. No patriotic American would want to detract from her merit, even if he could. None could do so, even if he would. But, at the same time, the history of New England is not the history of the whole Union.

The criticism which can be leveled justly at so many of the alleged histories of our country is that they are not national. They tell, with fulness and power, the story of New England; but too often they ignore the South and the West. Very frequently they are cruelly unjust both to the South and the West.

This is to be deplored. It can not be to the permanent best interests of our common country that any section thereof should be misrepresented. All true patriots must realize the vital importance of harmonious relations between North and South, East and West. Any book whose tendency is to inflame section against section, and to leave in the minds of the people a rankling sense of wrong, is a dangerous book.

I can conceive of nothing more ominous of future trouble than the continued grow^th of purely sectional literature. As long as Northern authors " write at " the South, and Southern authors " write back at " the North, we are cultivating perilous conditions. Upon the fertile seed-bed of sectional prejudice and jealousy such books are broadcasting the seed of strife whose harvest will be gathered in

viii

PREFACE

the years to come. Surely it is possible to tell the story of our Republic as we would write that of France or England. What American author would think of the sectional divisions in France, or Germany, if he were engaged in compiling the record of either? How absurd it would be to warp such a narrative to please a local prejudice!

Yet American history suffers from precisely this

method of treatment. Some Northern histories are

so offensive to the South that no Southern man can

"ead them. Some Southern books are equally

offensive to our brethren of the North.

In The Life and Times of Jefferson I have made an earnest effort to deal fairly with the man, the facts, the times, the different sections — his friends and his enemies.

I have tried to give New England her just dues — which are great. And I have likewise tried to do justice to the South, whose fair proportion of the toil and the glory is too frequently denied.

Without detracting from the one section, I have endeavored to exalt the other. Instead of taking away a single one of the treasures of our national history, my purpose has been to bring neglected additions to the casket. No accepted national hero has been ignored, but I have endeavored to show that there are others whose names deserve a greater prominence than they have always enjoyed.

In other words, my effort has been to make the

ix

Chapter I Page

Yorktown founded — Jefferson's ancestry — His youth and education —The Indian chief — The " old regime " in Virginia — The Virginian gentleman of the " old school" — William and Mary College — Dr. Small — Governor Fauquier — Fiddling, dancing, and studying — Jefferson graduates and reads law — Personal appearance and habits — His friendships — Dabney Carr, the Jonathan of the David — A dream and what came of it . . . . 1

Chapter II

Origins of Revolutionary War — " Protection " run mad— Current events — Attempt to found a republic in Louisiana — Pontiac on the war-path — Plays a wonderful ball-game and wins an English fort 27

Chapter III

England passes the Stamp Act — North Carolina leads a revolt — Patrick Henry — James Otis — Henry's great speech — Jefferson present — Jefferson a lawyer — Those minute, voluminous diaries — Lawyers' fees then and now — Webster, Pinckney, Wirt, Randolph 39

Chapter IV

Jefferson elected to State Legislature— Lord Botetourt the new governor— Jefferson gets a gentle rebuke — Patriotic resolutions passed — Botetourt disbands the rebels — Meeting at the tavern — Boycott resolutions — ^The author pays attention in a friendly way to William Eleroy Curtis — Jefferson and slavery — Shadwell burned — Monticello begun ....... 60

xiii

Chapter V Pa

The North Carolina Regulators — Battle of Great Alamance Creek — Woodrow Wilson's book

Chapter VI

Jefferson in love — Marries a handsome widow, who is supposed to be rich— Happy married life at Monticello— The fatal British debt 87

Chapter VII

Rum and the slave trade — Navigation Acts enforced — The burning of the Gaspee — Richard Henry Lee proposes Committee of Correspondence — Dabney Carr lays corner-stone of the Republic — His death — Tea duties and tea ships — Charleston, Boston — Tea parties at both places — Virginia burgesses — Jefferson an extremist — Boston — General Congress— Burning of the Peggy Stewart — Dunraore's Indian War — Logan's speech .... 94

Chapter VIII

Jefferson at Monticello — His passion for building and improving — Violin practise — Old-time music and dancing — John Randolpli, the royalist— Parts with his celebrated violin and goes into exile 113

Chapter IX

Continental Congress— Jefferson heads Committee of Safety- Patrick Henry—" We must fight ! "—George Washington heads military — Dunmore and the powder — Henry as a rebel leader — North's Conciliatory Proposition — Jefferson in Congress— Bnnker Hill — Growth of independent spirit — Washington, Sam Adams, Wesley, Franklin, Richard Henry Lee— Lord Dunmore takes to the ships 123

Chapter X

The Colony of Georgia— Conditions there— Indian wars— Weak, but did her part— Provisional Congress— Bullock made Chief Magistrate— Royal governor driven out— Lachlan Mcintosh- Joseph Habersham ......... 133

xiv

Chapter XI Page

Patrick Henry Commander-in-chief in Virginia — Dunmore's ravages — Fight at Great Bridge — Falmouth and Norfolk destroyed — Paine's Common Sense — North Carolina leads for independence — Virginia — Thomas Nelson, George Mason, Eichard Henry Lee — American triumph at Fort Sullivan — Moultrie, the fearless — Sergeant Jasper — Sergeant McDaniel . . . 140

CHAPTER XII New England "histories" provincial — George Washington — Sketch

of his career — Made General-in-chief ..... 14G

Chapter XIII

Congress feels popular impulse — Independence declared — Cornelius Harnet— Mecklenburg Resolutions — Jefferson writes the Declaration — How it was received 157

Chapter XIV

France stealthily offers friendship — Money given on the sly — Silas Deane — Beaumarchais — Jefferson as a reformer in Virginia — Divorces Church from State — Entails and primogeniture abolished — The old English home — The true spirit of democracy . 165

Chapter XV

Religious persecution — Tithes — Barbarous law — Jefferson for toleration — for emancipation — for state education— Family matters — Saratoga prisoners — Fiddling and amusing themselves at Monticello 177

Chapter XVI

Jefferson elected Governor of Virginia — John Page — Panoramic view of Revolutionary War—Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill — March to Canada— Long Island— Nathan Hale— White Plains — Lafayette — Trenton — Arnold— Paine — Washington . . 185

XV

Chapter XVII Page

Paul Jones — His daring cruise — His marvelous victory over the

Serapis 193

Chapter XVIII War In The South

Benedict Arnold's raid to Richmond— War in Southern States —

Heroic leaders— Unrecorded battles and victories . . . 203

CHAPTER XIX king's mountain The ride of the Southern Volunteers to King's Mountain — Decisive

victory 207

CHAPTER XX yorktown

Electrical influence of King's Mountain — The Cowpens— John Eager Howard, Williams, Washington, Daniel Morgan — Lord Cornwallis and General Greene — The great chase — The tables turned — Battle at Guilford Court-House— Cornwallis in Virginia — Takes position at Yorktown — Is hemmed in — John Laurens and French aid — " The work is done " .... 212

CHAPTER XXI

THE SOUTH IN THE WAR

Thomas Nelson— British debts— The Southern States during the war —Some comparisons— The famous proposition of Governor Rutledge 217

CHAPTER XXII

The Northvrestern border-George Rogers Clark— March to Kaskaskia— Vincennes— The "Hannibal of the West "—Fort Jefferson

CHAPTER XXTII

IN RETIREMENT

Jefferson's troubles— Blamed for British inroads— Threat of impeachment—Death of his daughter— Death of his wife— Retires from public life — Writes Notes on Virginia ....

xvi

CHAPTEIi XXIV

IN CONGRESS

PAGE

Congress nominates Jefferson as minister to France — Does not serve

— Elected to Congress — Services on committees . . . 237

CHAPTER XXV

MINISTER TO FRANCE

Jefferson accepts foreign mission— Goes to France — Services and occupation there — Goes to London — Coldly received — Tours England . . 2-11

CHAPTEII XXVI

THE BARBARY PIRATES

Negotiations with Barbary powers — Truth of that situation explained

— Washington's letters to Mohammedan rulers .... 247

CHAPTER XXVII

Jefferson's official labors — Results — Unofficial work — Usefulness —

Breaks wrist and quits fiddling ....... 255

CHAPTER XXVIII

Travels in France — Studies conditions of the people — His wrath against the tyrants who abused their power— The King, the noble, the priest, and the victims — Beginnings of French Revolution — Jefferson and the reformers ...... 262

CHAPTER XXIX

Jefferson and his daughters — The convent— Jefferson and Adams at

Amsterdam— Travels on the Rhine — Returns to Monticello . 270

CHAPTER XXX

DEMOCRACY IN VIROTNIA

Origins of American institutions— Puritan and Cavalier— Settlement of Virnrinia— John Smith and democracy -General Courts in London— Jamestown Assembly of 1619— Home rule demanded —Virginia's treaty with Cromwell— Nathaniel Bacon . . 277

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CHAPTER XXXI

PAOi;

First step toward organizing the Republic — Congress seeks help — Indians pacified — Canadian Catholics solicited — France — Covert methods — Paine — Franklin 283

CHAPTER XXXII

ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION

Articles of Confederation — Internal struggles — Shay's Rebellion — Steps toward Constitutional Convention — Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Jay — Edmund Randolph 290

CHAPTER XXXIII

Hamilton's plan of Constitution — Plan of Randolph — Compromises — Patrick Henry — Jay's treaty with Spain — Debate in Virginia Convention — Fateful letters that were delayed — An agreement between sovereign States ...... 297

CHAPTER XXXIV

Jefferson called to Washington's Cabinet — Hamilton and his policy — His class legislation and its purpose — Dupes Jefferson on assumption — Antagonism between the two .... 310

CHAPTER XXXV

Straining for an English alliance— Genet and his mission — Two sides to that — Misrepresentations — Hamilton's hard ingratitude and his injustice to France — Newspaper warfare — Freneau — Jefferson stands to his friends in spite of Washington and Hamilton — Resigns — Criticism answered— The cotton gin . . . 322

CHAPTER XXXVI

Jefferson at home — Dilapidation at Monticello — Martha Jefferson marries — Manner of life at Monticello^Jefferson as inventor — Mazzei letter — Tribute to Washington ..... 340 xviii

CHAPTER XXXVII

PAGE

John Adams elected President — Inherited difficulties — Troubles with France — Gallant James Monroe — Thomas Paine in prison — Jay's treaty with England — Talleyrand and the X. Y. Z. matter — British outrages — War fever against France — Dr. Logan as peacemaker — Adams foils Hamilton, and there is no war . . , 350

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Federalism rampant — Alien and Sedition laws — Jefferson and Madison — Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions — Edmund Randolph's opinion— Jefferson as Vice-President — Was he timid, weak, and vacillating, as Messrs. Lodge and Roosevelt have agreed that he was? — His work his vindication ...... 362

CHAPTER XXXIX

Party feeling — Hamilton's confession — John Adams — Career of Matthew Lyon — New York goes against Federalists — Cabinet changes — Oliver Wolcott — Aaron Burr — "Midnight Appointments " — John Adams's isolation — He quits the field . . . 370

CHAPTER XL

THE JEFFERSON AND BURR CONTEST

The electoral system — Tie between Jefferson and Burr — The contest—Hamilton's part in it — Bayard— Political standards — Some comparisons— What was Burr's reputation at that time ? . . 382

CHAPTER XLI

Crisis pending— Talk of fighting— Who decided the contest in favor of Jefferson?— Decisive motives — Lyon, Morris, Hamilton, and Bayard--Jefferson inaugurated— Changes democratic manners — Reforms Federal judiciary — Undemocratic .... 394

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CHAPTER XLII

PAGE

Jefferson a far-seeing statesman — George McDuffie — Daniel Webster — The Western wilderness — Jefferson and the Louisiana territory — Napoleon — Livingston — Monroe — The Miranda scheme — Louisiana purchase outside the Constitution — New England threatens secession — Lewis and Clarke's expedition — Blaine — Roosevelt — The U. S. ship-of-war George Washington compelled to fly the " pirate" flag and to bear " piratical" despatches — Jefferson's vigor 408

CHAPTER XLIII

Character sketch of John Randolph, of Roanoke — His "royal"

ancestry, eccentric character, and meteoric career . . . 420

CHAPTER XLIV

John Adams as Vice-President — Thomas Jefferson as Vice-President — Aaron Burr as Vice-President — His farewell address to the Senate — Hamilton stranded — Is killed by Burr — Morris's opinion of Hamilton 430

CHAPTER XLV

BRITISH AGGRESSIONS. — THE EMBARGO

Electoral law changed — France and England at war — Neutral commerce antagonized — Great Britain's outrageous treatment of the United States — The Embargo— Force Bill — New England prospers — Washington's mistake in policy — Results — Roosevelt's denunciation of Jefferson - Andrew Jackson — Battle of New Orleans 430

CHAPTER XLVI

Burr adrift — Turns conspirator — What was his scheme? — Wilkinson betrays Burr — Collapse of the plot — Burr tried for treason — Treated as a martyr ; and is saved by John Marshall — Jefferson declines third term— Announces a principle — Jefferson and his detractors — Results of his Administration ..... 447

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CHAPTER XLVII

PAGE

JeflFerson's devotion to his daughters — Martha alone remains as he goes into retirement — Jefferson's finances — Heavily cumbered with debt — Lavish hospitality — Everybody goes to Monticello — "Company" eats Jefferson out of house and home— He runs away to escape the nuisance — Has spent a lifetime and a fortune building a house for miscellaneous visitors to live in . . 459

CHAPTER XLVIII

THE WAU OF 1812

Federalist historians and their misrepresentations— Treason in New England— General Hull at Detroit — Bladensburg— AVashington sacked — Baltimore saved — Croghan at Fort Stephenson — Colonel William Cone, of Georgia— Roosevelt and the Rough Riders — Mr. Madison's troubles— Jefferson founds the Navy which wins glory in the War of 1812 470

CHAPTER XLIX

Jefferson's religious convictions — A Deist — Perhaps a Unitarian — Rejects dogma of Trinity — Regards Christ as a reformer, a good man, who was put to death because he threatened the status quo of his own day — Jefferson's interest in the young — His counsels— Champion of education — Founds University of Virginia 481

CHAPTER L

Europe after the downfall of Napoleon — The Holy Alliance — How the Monroe Doctrine came to be proclaimed — Views on finance — State rights and the tariff — Other political opinions . . 490

CHAPTER LI

LAST DATS AND DEATH

Later Years — Reconciliation with Adams — Debts — Visit of Lafayette

—Death 504

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Appendix

Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson as President of the United

States, March 4, 1801 519

INDEX . . 625

XXI 1

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING

PAGE

Thomas JkpperSON Frontispiece

MoNTicELLO, Jefferson's Home near Charlottesville, Va. 70

The Drawing-room at Monticello 130

The House in Philadelphia in which Jefferson Wrote the Declaration of Independence . .160

Francis Marion 204

John Laurens 214

Thomas Sumter 286

Isaac Shelby 342

Jefferson's Arrival at the White House . . . 398

Andrew Jackson 448

The University op Virginia 486

THE LIFE AND TIMES OP THOMAS JEFFERSON

Chapter I

In the year 1G91, buying and selling in Virginia had to be done in markets established by law. A further act of the Legislature created ports of entry and clearing; and all goods and products brought into the colony, or sent out, were liable to forfeiture if they did not pass through these ports.

Under this Act for Ports of 1691, a fifty-acre field, belonging to Benjamin Read, was laid off into eighty-five lots; and this was the beginning of historic Yorktown.

A list of the original lot buyers shows the names of Governor Francis Nicholson, Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., Duddley Digges, and Thomas Jefferson.

The father of this part-founder of Yorktown had emigrated from near Mount Snowdon, in Wales, and had represented Flower de Hundred in the first legislative assembly of white men which ever convened on the American continent — the Jamestown Assemblv of 1619.

2 ^ 1

Captain Thomas Jefferson of Osborne's, on the James, was the grandson of John Jefferson, the burgess of 1619; and a younger son of this Captain Thomas Jefferson Avas Peter, the father of Thomas Jefferson, of Monticello.

In those days, lands and slaves were entailed upon the oldest son; and nothing less than an act of the Legislature could bring the propertj^ upon the market.

Peter Jefferson being a younger son, the family home descended to the older brother, who remained at Osborne's, while Peter himself went forth into the world to win his own way to fortune.

To this fact alone seems to be due the impression that Peter Jefferson was a man of inferior social position. Biographers, having no eyes for the head of the family at Osborne's, follow Peter as he survej^s land, locates state grants, fights Indians, and makes a new home on the western border; and they get the idea that the Jeffersons were not people of the first class.

There is no evidence whatever to support the assertion.

Peter Jefferson had practically the same education as George Washington, adopted the business of land surveying as Washington did, and married, like Washington, a lady of the highest social rank.

While he got no immense fortune by her, as Washington won with the Widow Custis, he proved himself not the less a nobleman in that he married where he could expect nothing save the beautiful young girl he loved.

And, after all, Jane Randolph brought to her spouse the richer dowry, for she bore him children.

The suggestion so often made that Washington and Jefferson gained social recognition by marriage is an idle one. They were cadets of their houses, but in respectability their position was as good as that held by anybody.

Wealth was not the trade-mark of a gentleman in Colonial Virginia; and much of what has been written about the social gulf which separated the smaller landowners from the " Tobacco Lords " is sheer nonsense. Sturdy yeomen of the neighborhood entered the stately homes of the Nelsons, Pages, Byrds, or Carters on easy terms of equality; and they were not in the slightest degree abashed by the marble mantelpieces, the grand stairways, or the brave display of plate on the sideboards.

There is an instance on record which represents a Frenchman of the nobility coming to a Virginia inn and asking to have his meals served in his room. The landlord, who was as much of a gentleman as any Boiling, Blair, or Cary, told the foreign aristocrat that he must eat at the common table where everybody else ate, or drive on. The haughty duke drove on.

Such roaring blades as Patrick Henry, whose father was one of the small landowners, was just as welcome at the mansion of a Colonel Nathan Dandridge, to frolic away the Christmas — fiddling, dancing, telling funny stories — as the son of the proudest nabob.

The line of admitted equality was drawn at manual labor, where, of course, it never ought to be drawn. But this false standard was not so entirely due to negro slavery as many writers claim. There was no slave system in Europe; and yet in England, France, and Germany, the citizen whose condition compelled him to earn his daily bread in the sweat of his face was held to be the social inferior of the man who ate the bread earned in the sweat of somebody else's face.

A degrading standard? Of course it was; but it did not originate in the southern colonies, and its origin had no connection with negro slavery.

In our mother-country of Great Britain, whose boast it was that no slave could breathe her air and remain a slave, a cadet of the highest house in the land — Pembroke, Percy, Douglas, or Howard — • would have lost caste had he earned his living as God had said he should. This false principle upon which European society was organized came over here with our ancestors; was, in fact, one strong motive for the introduction of negro slavery, and to a very considerable extent is the unwritten social law at this day.

Rail-splitters, tenants of log-cabins, shoemakers, canal-boat drivers, map pedlers, wood-cutters, fur traders, and plowboys are strong on the hustings; but if society ever forgives them at all, it is because the Statute of Limitations has made their crime of manual labor stale, and there is a certainty that the offense will not be repeated.

Peter Jefferson lived on the very borders of civilization. He had gone West and patented a thousand acres of land in the wilderness on the Rivanna, at a time when the Indian trails were still warm in the woods, and when the adjoining county was thronged with savages. In addition to his one thousand acres of land he secured four hundred acres from the adjoining tract of his friend, William Randolph — a gift which was jovially disguised as a sale whose consideration was " Henry Weathersbourne's biggest bowl of arrack punch." Upon this smaller tract he built a strong, comfortable dwelling, which had four rooms on the first floor and several more in the attic.

Having cleared away parts of the forest, and turned wilderness into plowed fields, he went back to the old settlements for his bride.

This was Jane Randolph, the daughter of Isham Randolph, of Dungeness, Adjutant-General of Virginia.

There were no prouder people than these Randolphs; and they were educated, refined, and hospitable. They owned innumerable acres of land, fine houses, hordes of slaves, and traced their li-aeage back to the Earls of Murray in Scotland.

Dungeness was one of the stateliest homes on the James; and it is said that a hundred slaves served in and about the mansion.

From this grand home Peter Jefferson married Jane Randolph in 1738, and took her to his wilderness cottage, which he named Shadwell, in honor of the London parish in which she was born.

Peter Jefferson, a man of powerful physique and strong mind, seems to speedily have become the representative man of his part of the State. He was a justice at the time when the jurisdiction of the office enabled the court to practically control many of the civil affairs of the county; he was a colonel at a time when the position made him the military chief of his county.

The colonial authorities appointed him one of the commissioners to run the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina; and he assisted in the making of the second map of the colony — the first having been that made by John Smith. He also represented his county in the House of Burgesses.

A rugged, masterful figure, a character whose strength and integrity no one doubted, Peter Jefferson was trusted by the whites, and followed when war was to be waged against the Indians; and the red men sought his advice and protection when they needed leniency or justice from the whites.

To administer a dead man's large estate honestly and well is a test of virtue and skill whose severity numbers many a victim; Peter Jefferson was tried by even the fire of this ordeal and came forth pure gold. He broke up his own home, moved his family to Tuckahoe, and for seven years managed the estate of Colonel William Randolph, his early friend and benefactor, who had named him executor of his property and guardian of his son. For these laborious services Mr. Jefferson made no charge beyond the support of himself and family while executing the trust.

Not much given to books was this hardy pioneer, for his education had been slight, and his life of toil and struggle had left him few opportunities for study; but he carried several standard works with him into the wilderness, and of his Shakespeare, Addison, Pope, and Swift he was an appreciative reader. Doddridge's Sermons was a book which he rated as " more precious than gold; the best legacy I can leave my children," for Mr. Jefferson was a stanch Church of England man, served in the vestry, and had his children baptized in the faith.

This earnest, honest, active, progressive man was cut off in his prime — dying of sudden illness August 17, 1757, in his fiftieth year.

Thomas Jefferson, of whose life and times we write, was the third child at Shadwell and was born April 2, 1743, O. S.

He was the first son, and his proud father began to train him from infancy for a career of usefulness. The boy was taught at home as well as at school, and was made to take regular phy^cal exercise in the open air; he learned to manage a horse under the saddle, and a boat on the river. He was encouraged to hunt with dog and gun, to dance at country balls, and to enter into the plays and games of the young.

Peter Jefferson not only had implicit faith in Doddridge's Sermons, but he had a profound appreciation of the value of a thorough education. He wanted his boy taught Latin, Greek, and French, as well as English; and he showed him how to keep accounts, instructing him in the clear, legible, careful penmanship which became famous, and selected the books which he should read.

Had he been specially set apart and consecrated to a great life-work, the lad could not have been more systematically developed. He heard his father read from the poems of Pope, the Spectator of Addison, and the dramas of Shakespeare. He had the benefit of parental guidance in getting his lessons by the fireside at night. He listened to his father's sound advice; the wise, strong man, deeply experienced in actual life, gave form and direction to the ideas of the boy. The lad was eleven years old when George Washington, away off in the woods of the Ohio, fired the shot which convulsed the world and began wars which cost the lives of a million men. He was twelve years old when the French and Indians annihilated Braddock and came down upon the Virginia frontier with torch and tomahawk; at which time his father, as colonel of the militia, led it against the red men in Augusta, the adjoining county.

The Indians exercised a fascination over young Thomas Jefferson, and he ever remained a friend to that hardly used race. He heard their chiefs at his father's hearth and realized the profound patjios of their fate. He heard the Cherokee chief, Ontassit6, as he stood in the glory of the full moon, make his farewell speech to his tribesmen on the night before he sailed for England. This dramatic scene — the brilliant moonlight, the silent audience of savages, the tall form of the chief, the heartmoving tones of his voice — always remained in Mr. Jefferson's memory as perfect as a picture.

The savage whom Mr. Jefferson called Ontassit^ is, in other books, named Oconostata, and it may interest the reader to know more about him.

When he reached London he received marked attentions from King George II and Queen Caroline.

The king shook hands with him, and drank Hollands with him at the royal table in the palace of

St. James. The ships, the troops, the arsenals, the great London crowds, were all shown to him in order that his mind might be deeply impressed with the power of the English people. Queen Caroline introduced the chief to the ladies of her court, drove him about the parks, and completely captivated the handsome, manly Oconostata. He returned home a warm friend of the English, and so remained throughout his life.

It was he who leased to the whites, under Sevier and Robertson, the lands of the Watauga, the settlement which was the beginning of Tennessee. But when he realized that this was only a beginning, and that the demands of the settlers had no limits, he opposed further cessions with all his eloquence — vainly.