be
an obstacle to this proposition. I was informed, and I think it was
by your brother, that you wished to retire from it, and were only
restrained by the fear that a successor of different principles might
be appointed. The late change in your council of appointment will remove
this fear. It will not be improper to say a word on the subject
of expense. The gentlemen who composed General Washington's first
administration took up, too universally, a practice of general
entertainment, which was unnecessary, obstructive of business, and
so oppressive to themselves, that it was among the motives for their
retirement. Their successors profited from the experiment, and lived
altogether as private individuals, and so have ever continued to do.
Here, indeed, it cannot be otherwise our situation being so rural, that
during the vacations of the legislature we shall have no society but of
the officers of government, and in time of sessions the legislature
is become and becoming so numerous, that for the last half dozen years
nobody but the President has pretended to entertain them. I have been
led to make the application before official knowledge of the result
of our election, because the return of Mr. Van Benthuysen, one of your
electors and neighbors, offers me a safe conveyance, at a moment when
the post-offices will be peculiarly suspicious and prying. Your answer
may come by post without danger, if directed in some other hand-writing
than your own: and I will pray you to give me an answer as soon as you
can make up your mind.

Accept assurances of cordial esteem and respect, and my friendly
salutations.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CCLXIV.--TO COLONEL BURR, December 15,1800

TO COLONEL BURR.

Washington, December 15,1800.

Dear Sir,

Although we have not official information of the votes for President and
Vice-President, and cannot have until the first week in February, yet
the state of the votes is given on such evidence, as satisfies both
parties that the two republican candidates stand highest. From South
Carolina we have not even heard of the actual vote; but we have learned
who were appointed electors, and with sufficient certainty how they
would vote. It is said they would withdraw from yourself one vote. It
has also been said that a General Smith, of Tennessee, had declared he
would give his second vote to Mr. Gallatin, not from any indisposition
towards you, but extreme reverence to the character of Mr. Ga