4111. JEFFERSON (Thomas), Offices held by.—[further continued] .
In the autumn of * * *
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 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 3d 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, where I arrived on the 15th of May,
1783.—
Autobiography. Washington ed. i, 51.
Ford ed., i, 71.
(1821)
