that government. Silas Deane, then in France, acting as agent for
procuring military stores,* was joined with us in commission. But such
was the state of my family that I could not leave it, nor could I expose
it to the dangers of the sea, and of capture by the British ships, then
covering the ocean. I saw, too, that the laboring oar was really at
home, where much was to be done, of the most permanent interest,
in new-modelling our governments, and much to defend our fanes and
fire-sides from the desolations of an invading enemy, pressing on our
country in every point. I declined, therefore, and Dr. Lee was appointed
in my place. On the 15th of June, 1781, I had been appointed, with
Mr. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jay, and Mr. Laurens, a Minister
Plenipotentiary for negotiating peace, then expected to be effected
through the mediation of the Empress of Russia. The same reasons obliged
me still to decline; and the negotiation was in fact never entered on.
But, in the autumn of the next year, 1782, Congress receiving assurances
that a general peace would be concluded in the winter and spring, they
renewed my appointment on the 13th of November of that year. I had, two
months before that, lost the cherished companion of my life, in whose
affections, unabated on both sides, I had lived the last ten years in
unchequered happiness. With the public interests, the state of my mind
concurred in recommending the change of scene proposed; and I accepted
the appointment, and left Monticello on the 19th of December, 1782,
for Philadelphia, where I arrived on the 27th. The Minister of France,
Luzerne, offered me a passage in the Romulus frigate, which I accepted;
but she was then lying a few miles below Baltimore, blocked up in the
ice. I remained, therefore, a month in Philadelphia, looking over the
papers in the office of State, in order to possess myself of the general
state of our foreign relations, and then went to Baltimore, to await
the liberation of the frigate from the ice. After waiting there nearly
a month, we received information that a Provisional treaty of peace
had been signed by our Commissioners on the 3rd of September, 1782, to
become absolute, on the conclusion of peace between France and Great
Britain. Considering my proceeding to Europe as now of no utility to the
public, I returned immediately to Philadelphia, to take the orders of
Congress, and was excused by them from further proceeding. I therefore
returned home,