Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

P. S. June 18. The motion under debate with the Commons, for
constituting their Assembly, passed yesterday by a majority of
four hundred and odd, against eighty odd. The latter were for it
in substance, but wished some particular amendment. They proceeded
instantly to the subject of taxation. A member who called on me this
moment, gave me a state of the proceedings of yesterday, from memory,
which I enclose you. He left the House a little before the question was
put, because he saw there was no doubt of its passing, and his brother,
who remained till the decision, informed him of it. So that we may
expect, perhaps, in the course of to-morrow, to see whether the
government will interpose with a bold hand, or will begin a negotiation.
But in the mean time, this letter must go off. I will find some other
opportunity, however, of informing you of the issue. T. J.

^^^ [Character of Mr. Necker, accompanying the preceding letter.]

Nature bestowed on Mr. Necker an ardent passion for glory, without, at
the same time, granting him those qualities required for its pursuit by
direct means. The union of a fruitful imagination with a limited talent,
with which she has endowed him, is always incompatible with those
faculties of the mind which qualify their possessor to penetrate, to
combine, and to comprehend all the relations of objects.

He had probably learned in Geneva, his native country, the influence
which riches exercise on the success of ambition, without having
recourse to the school of Paris, where he arrived about the
twenty-eighth year of his age. A personal affair with his brother, in
which the chiefs of the republic conducted themselves unjustly towards
him, the circumstances of which, moreover, exposed him to ridicule,
determined him to forsake his country. On taking his leave, he assured
his mother that he would make a great fortune at Paris. On his arrival,
he engaged himself as clerk, at a salary of six hundred livres, with the
banker Thelusson, a man of extreme harshness in his intercourse with
his dependants. The same cause which obliged other clerks to abandon the
service of Thelusson, determined Necker to continue in it. By submitting
to the brutality of his master with a servile resignation, whilst,
at the same time, he devoted the most unremitting attention to his
business, he recommended himself to his confidence, and was taken into
partnershi