afterwards, that I had hitherto never spoken
to him on the subject of the post-office, not knowing whether it was
considered as a revenue law, or a law for the general accommodation of
the citizens: that the law just passed seemed to have removed the doubt,
by declaring that the whole profits of the office should be applied to
extending the posts, and that even the past profits should be refunded
by the Treasury for the same purpose: that I therefore conceived it was
now in the department of the Secretary of State: that I thought it would
be advantageous so to declare it for another reason, to wit, that the
department of the Treasury possessed already such an influence as
to swallow up the whole executive powers, and that even the future
Presidents (not supported by the weight of character which himself
possessed) would not be able to make head against this department. That
in urging this measure I had certainly no personal interest, since, if
I was supposed to have any appetite for power, yet, as my career would
certainly be exactly as short as his own, the intervening time was too
short to be an object. My real wish was to avail the public of every
occasion, during the residue of the President's period, to place things
on a safe footing. He was now called on to attend his company, and he
desired me to come and breakfast with him the next morning.

February the 29th. I did so; and after breakfast we retired to his
room, and I unfolded my plan for the post-office, and after such
an approbation of it as he usually permitted himself on the first
presentment of any idea, and desiring me to commit it to writing, he,
during that pause of conversation which follows a business closed, said,
in an affectionate tone, that he had felt much concern at an expression
which dropped from me yesterday, and which marked my intention of
retiring when he should. That as to himself, many motives obliged him to
it. He had, through the whole course of the war, and most particularly
at the close of it, uniformly declared his resolution to retire from
public affairs, and never to act in any public office; that he had
retired under that firm resolution: that the government however, which
had been formed, being found evidently too inefficacious, and it being
supposed that his aid was of some consequence towards bringing the
people to consent to one of sufficient efficacy for their own good, he
consented to come into the convention, and on the sam