the exhausted and harrassed state of the country admited.

They met again at Richmond in May, and adjourned to charlottee-ville, near the residence of the subject of this memoir, where they by much exertion formed a house on the twenty-eight of the month. The term of Mr. Jefferson in office expired on the second of June, being the fifth day of the session, and no succession had been appointed, when, on the fourth, an enterprise by Tarleton's cavalry drove them thence, they retreated still farther into the country but finally met and again formed a house at Stanton on the seventh. At this place some members attended, who were not with the others at Richmond at the period of Arnold's incursion; among these we notice the Hon. George Nicholas one of the most upright and certainly the most able men, except two or three, that composed that body, although at that time he was very young. This Gentleman, very honestly no doubt, supposed there had been some remissness in the measures of the governor, on that occasion, and accordingly, moved for an inquiry on the subject, to be made at the ensuing session, which was willingly agreed to by the members who had been at Richmond, as the most, likely means of doing justice, to the character, conduct, and patriotism of Mr. Jefferson. Mr. Nicholas in a friendly, candid, and honorable manner, sent to Mr. Jefferson by a friendly hand, a copy of the topics of inquiry he proposed to investigate; Mr.

Jefferson, with all the frankness imaginable, communicated to Mr. Nicholas the grounds of justification he should set up, in order that he might be prepared to refute the charges unless they were found to be properly founded. That he might be placed on equal ground for meeting the inquiry, one of the representatives of his county resigned his seat, and Mr. Jefferson was unanimously elected a member in his place. Mr. Nicholas, however, before the meeting of the assembly, became better satisfied with what had been done, and did not appear to be willing to bring forward the inquiry; and in a publication by him several years afterwards, he makes honourable acknowledgments of the erroneous views he had formerly entertained on this subject. Mr. Jefferson, therefore, read in his place, the inquiries Mr. Nicholas had proposed to make, and stated his own juatification. The result was honourable indeed to Mr. Jefferson; an immediate and unanimous concurrenc of the house, proposed and handed to Mr. Jefferson the following resolution: "Resolved unamimously, that the sincere thanks of the general assembly, be given to our former governor, Thomas Jefferson for his impartial, upright and attentive administration whilst in office. The assembly wish, in the strongest manner, to declare the high opinion they entertain of Mr. Jefferson ability, rectitude, and integrity, as chief magistrate of this commonwealth, and mean, by thus publicly avowing their opinion, to obviate and to remove all unmerited censure!"

It might have been expected that this honourable testimonial of the legislature would have completely secured the character of Mr. Jefferson from all aspersion. But it is the fate of distinguished virtue, from the noble and exalted elevation which it always holds, to be peculiarly obnoxious to the shafts of malevolence and envy. A thousand ludicrous parodies of these transactions have since been intruded upon the world, among which, that by general Lee, in his memories, is, perhaps, the most distinguished. In this work is an attempt by a person entirely uuacquainted with the circumstances, of the case, to blacken and disgrace the character of a man, whose life, particularly in a political point of view, was spotless purity, and whose only aim was the good of his country. This officer was in a distant state at the time of their occurrence, and seems to have made up his random account altogether from idle rumour.

The enterance of Tarleton into Charlottsville in June, and the consequent flight of Jefferson from Monticello, having furnished themes for censure, a particular recurrence to the facts in this place will not be improper. After the adjournment of the legislature at Richmond in May, the enemy had been greatly argumented by reinforcements under Lord Cornwallis and general Phillips, and had advanced up into the country as far as Elk Island, and the fork of James' River. On learning that the legislator was in session at Charlottsville, they detached Colonel Tarleton, with his legion of horse

to suprise them. He was, however observed, while passing through Louisa, on the evening of the third of June, by a Mr. Joveth, who suspecting his object, set out instantly for charlottsville and being well acquainted with the by-ways of the neighbourhood, passed the encampment of the enemy, and riding all night, arrived, before sunrise of the fourth, at Monticello, with information of what he had seen, and immediately passed on to Charlottsville, to apprise the members of the assembly. The speakers of the two houses, and several of the members, had that night lodged at Monticello. Mr. Jefferson ordered a carrage to be in readiness to carry off his family, who, however, breakfasted at leisure with their guests. Soon after breakfast, and when the visitors had left the house, a neighbour rode up in full speed, with the intelligence that a troop of horse was then ascending the hill. Mr. Jefferson now sent off his family, and after a short delay for some indispensible arrangements, mounted his horse, and taking through the woods, joined them at the house of a friend, where they dined. It would scarcely be believed by any person not acquainted with the fact, that this flight of a single and unarmed man, from a troop of cavalry, whose whole legion too, was within supporting distance, and whose main object was his capture, has been the subject of volumes of reproach, in both prose and poetry, serious and sareastic.

It is no slight proof of the mental energies pos

sessed by Mr. Jefferson, that amidst the tumult and confusion of the year 1781, he could compose such a work as his celebrated "Notes on Virginia." This work, which has passed through a number of editions in this country, and one or two in Europe, has gained him an imperishable laurel as a writer of the first grade in our country. It was undertaken at the particular request of Monsieur de Marbois, the secretary of the French legation in the United States, at the suggestion, it is supposed, of the French Court. In the following year 1782, the "notes" were much enlarged by the author, and in 1784, a few copies were printed at Paris in the French language by Mons. de Marbois, and gratuitously distributed by him among his particular friends. Soon after this a very imperfect translation into the English having appeared in France, Mr. Jefferson, in 1787, favoured the public with the first complete edition in the English language. The author has recorded in this work the celebrated Speech of Logan, an Indian Chief, as a specimen of native eloquence, and, as far as it would go, in disproof of the absurd theory which had been advanced by Mons. Buffon, Raynal, and others.

This speech was, afterwards, about the year 1797, pronounced by the enemies of the author of the notes to be a gross forgery, and the whole transaction connected with it, a base fabrication. “As soon as I found that the story of Logan, could be doubted," observes Mr. Jefierson, in a letter to

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