therein mentioned."

RD. JEFFRIES, Clerk of the Eastern District of Virginia.

CAMBRIDGE: E. W. Metcalf & Company.




PREFACE.

The opinion universally entertained of the extraordinary abilities of
Thomas Jefferson, and the signal evidence given by his country, of a
profound sense of his patriotic services, and of veneration for his
memory, have induced the Editor, who is both his Executor and the
Legatee of his Manuscript Papers, to believe that an extensive
publication from them would be particularly acceptable to the American
people.

The Memoir, contained in the first volume, commences with circumstantial
notices of his earliest life; and is continued to his arrival in New
York, in March, 1790, when he entered on the duties of the Department of
State, of which he had been just appointed Secretary.

From the aspect of the Memoir, it may be presumed that parts of it, at
least, had been written for his own and his family's use only; and in a
style without the finish of his revising pen. There is, however, no part
of it, minute and personal as it may be, which the Reader would wish
to have been passed over by the Editor; whilst not a few parts of that
description will, by some, be regarded with a particular interest.