The Portland daily press., 1873-02-19
FERNS $500 PER ANNUM In ADVANCE.
.JeffersOn's Debts.

| Mr. Parton i'm his chapter OF Jefferson 3
life, for the atlantic Monthly for March, a
luding to Jeflerson's resolution to quit the
public service at the end of Washington Z
first term, says:
But why this agonizing desire for retire
ment? Thereby hangs a tale. II we give
| ten reasons II a certain course OF conduct,
there is often an eleventh which we do not
| give; and that unspoken one is apt to be tho
| reason. He could no longer afford to serve
| the public on the terms fixed by Congress.
1t was not merely that his salary did not pay
the cost OF his Philadelphia establishment,
| ncr that his estate was il-managed by over
seers. Anancient debt hung, as he says, "like
a milestone round his neck, Pa debt which
he had twice paid, although not incurred by
him. Upon the death OF his wife's iatner,
twenty years before, he had received property
from h estate worth forty thousand dollars,
but subject to British debt OF thilt teen
thousand. Impatient of debt, he sold a ,fine
farm near Monticello for sum sufficient To
discharge it; but by the time he received the
money. the war OF the Revolution bad bepur,
Virginia invited all men owing money ~
Great Britain to deposit the same in her
treasury, the STATE agreeing to pay it over to
the British creditor after the war. The iden-
tical coin which Jefferson received for hi.
farm he himself carried to the treasury in Z
Williamsburg, where it was Immediately er-
pended in equpping troops r.,.,-., ts,,..,1,,a,,o
The Legislature Of Virginia, however,
thought better of this policy, iescinded the
resolution, and returned the sums received
under it. But jefferson was obliged to take
back his thirteen thousand dollars in depre-
ciated paper, which continued to deprecate
until it was worthless. In fact, the thirteen
thouand dollars just suficed to buy him one
garment; and il riding by that farm, in afier
h. 20
say, laughing, THAT farm once sold loI an
over coat" AT the end of the war, during
which C1rnwallis destroyed more than {
enough of his prop srty to pay this debt he
had, as he remarked, ''to lay his shoulders to
the payment of it third time" in addition
to a considerable debt of his own in
CURED just before the outbreak OF hostilities.
"What the laws of Virginia. he wrote to ,
his creditor in England, care, or may be, will
in no wise influence my conduct. Substan-
tal justice is my object, as decided by rea-1c
son, not by authority or compulsion.o
Ever since the war closed, he bad been stiug-
Cling to reduce these deb s; and, finally,
made an arrangement for paying them OF at
the rate of four hundred pounds sterling
year. How. easy this oughv to have been to
person owning ten thousand acres Cf ex-
cellent land, s'one hundred and fitty-.our
slaves, thirty-four horses, five mules, two
hundred and forty-nine cattle, three hundred q
and ninety hogs. and three sheepp'f But
only two thous md acres of his land were cul-
uvated, nine of his horses were used for the
saddle, and the labor OF his slaves had been, ..
for ten years, directed by overseers. In 1893 81
the greater part of the debt remained to be
discharged, and he saw, whenever he vis-
tied Monticello, such evidences Of "the raw
ages ofoverseers,a as filled him with alarm. p,
He had now son-in-aw to settle,- second d
daughter to establish, mountainous debt to
pay a high office to live up to, and an estate
going to ruin. Behold his eleventh unut-
tered reason for the frenzy which possessed
him to live at home. st1rrlrtr 4isorUIrgf ls7.
He might well desire to see the reign of
overseers brought to an end on his estate.
Reader sremember, perhaps, General Wash
ington's experience with them. How, when
he owned one hundred and one cows, he
was compelled to buy butter for his own
table; aud how after building one OF the best
barns in the country, where thirty men
could conveniently WELD the fail, he could
not prevent his manager from treading out
the grain with herses--so impossible was 1t, %
he says, ssto put the overseers of this country d
ou. of the tr ok they have been accustomed
to walk in.'' He reached home for his an
nual vacation in 1893, about the middle sff1
September, and caught this truly conserva-
tive gentleman in the act. u found tIesd-
ing-yard," wrote the President, "not thirty
feet from the barn door, the wheat again
brought out of the barn, and horses treading By
it out in an open exposure, liable to the vicis-
situdes of weather." With such men to
manage, the General thought the new thresh-
would have brief existence. ~