e motive, after
much pressing, to take a part in the new government, and get it under
way. That were he to continue longer, it might give room to say, that
having tasted the sweets of office, he could not do without them: that
he really felt himself growing old, his bodily health less firm, his
memory, always bad, becoming worse, and perhaps the other faculties of
his mind showing a decay to others of which he was insensible himself;
that this apprehension particularly oppressed him: that he found,
moreover, his activity lessened, business therefore more irksome,
and tranquillity and retirement become an irresistible passion. That,
however he felt himself obliged, for these reasons, to retire from the
government, yet he should consider it as unfortunate, if that should
bring on the retirement of the great officers of the government,
and that this might produce a shock on the public mind of dangerous
consequence.

I told him that no man had ever had less desire of entering into public
offices than myself; that the circumstance of a perilous war, which
brought every thing into danger, and called for all the services
which every citizen could render, had induced me to undertake the
administration of the government of Virginia; that I had both before
and after refused repeated appointments of Congress to go abroad in that
sort of office, which, if I had consulted my own gratification, would
always have been the most agreeable to me; that at the end of two
years, I resigned the government of Virginia, and retired with a firm
resolution never more to appear in public life; that a domestic loss,
however, happened, and made me fancy that absence and a change of
scene for a time might be expedient for me; that I therefore accepted
a foreign appointment, limited to two years; that at the close of that,
Doctor Franklin having left France, I was appointed to supply his place,
which I had accepted, and though I continued in it three or four years,
it was under the constant idea of remaining only a year or two longer;
that the revolution in France coming on, I had so interested myself
in the event of that, that when obliged to bring my family home, I had
still an idea of returning and awaiting the close of that, to fix the
era of my final retirement; that on my arrival here I found he had
appointed me to my present office; that he knew I had not come into
it without some reluctance; that it was, on my part, a sacrifice of
inclinatio