originated with Gouverneur Morris, of New York, but with details too cumbrous for common use. Jefferson proposed our present system of dollars and cents, with dimes, half-dimes, and a great gold coin of ten dollars, with subdivisions, such as we have now. Jefferson strongly desired also to apply the decimal system to all measures. When he travelled he carried with him an odometer, which
divided the miles into hundredths, which he called cents. "I find," said he, "that every one comprehends a distance readily when stated to him in miles and cents: so he would in feet and cents, pounds and cents." On 7 May, 1784, congress elected Jefferson for a third time plenipotentiary to France, to join Franklin and Adams in negotiating commercial treaties with foreign powers. On 5 July he sailed from Boston upon this mission, and thirty-two days later took up his abode in Paris. On 2 May, 1785, he received from Mr. Jay his commission appointing him sole minister plenipotentiary to the king of France for three years from 10 March, 1785. "You replace Dr. Franklin," said the Count de Vergennes to him, when he announced his appointment. Jefferson replied: "I succeed; no one can replace him." The impression that France made upon Jefferson's mind was painful in the extreme. While enjoying the treasures of art that Paris presented, and particularly its music, fond of the people, too, relishing their amiable manners, their habits and tastes, he was nevertheless appalled at the cruel oppression of the ancient system of government. "The people," said he, "are ground to powder by the vices of the form of government," and he wrote to Madison that government by hereditary rulers was a "government of wolves over sheep, or kites over pigeons." Beaumarchais's "Marriage of Figaro" was in its first run when Jefferson settled in Paris, and the universal topic of conversation was the defects of the established régime. Upon the whole, he enjoyed and assiduously improved his five years' residence in Europe. His official labors were arduous and constant. He strove, though in vain, to procure the release of American captives in Algiers without paying the enormous ransom demanded by the dey. With little more success, he endeavored to break into the French protective system, which kept from the kingdom the cheap food that America could supply, and for want of which the people were perishing and the monarchy was in peril. He kept the American colleges advised of the new inventions, discoveries, and books of Europe. He was particularly zealous in sending home seeds, roots, and nuts for trial in American soil. During his journey to Italy he procured a quantity of the choicest rice for the planters of South Carolina, and he supplied Buffon with American skins, skeletons, horns, and similar objects for his collection. In Paris he published his "Notes on Virginia," both in French and English, a work full of information concerning its main subject, and at the same time surcharged with the republican sentiment then so grateful to the people of France. In 1786, when at length the Virginia legislature passed his "Act for Freedom of Religion," he had copies of it printed for distribution, and it was received with rapture by the advanced Liberals. It was his custom while travelling in France to enter the houses of the peasants and converse with them upon their affairs and condition. He would contrive to sit upon the bed, in order to ascertain what it was made of, and get a look into the boiling pot, to see what was to be the family dinner. He strongly advised Lafayette to do the same, saying: "You must ferret the people out of their hovels as I have done, look into their kettles, eat their bread, loll on their beds, on pretence of resting yourself, but in fact to find if they are soft." His letters are full of this subject. He returns again and again to the frightful inequalities of condition, the vulgarity and incapacity of the hereditary rulers, and the hopeless destiny of nineteen twentieths of the people. His compassion for the people of France was the more intense from his strong appreciation of their excellent qualities. Having received a leave of absence for six months, he returned with his daughters to Virginia, landing at Norfolk, 18 Nov., 1789. His reception was most cordial. The legislature appointed a committee of thirteen, with Patrick Henry at their head, to congratulate him on his return, and on the day of his landing he read in a newspaper that President Washington, in settling the new government, had assigned to Thomas Jefferson the office of secretary of state. "I made light of it," he wrote soon afterward, "supposing I had only to say no, and there would be an end of it." On receiving the official notification of his appointment, he told the president that he preferred to retain the office he held. "But," he added, "it is not for an individual to choose his post. You are to marshal us as may be best for the public good." He finally accepted the appointment, and after witnessing at Monticello, 23 Feb., 1790, the marriage of his eldest daughter, Martha, to Thomas Mann Randolph, he began his journey to New York. During his absence in France, his youngest daughter, Lucy, had died, leaving him Martha and Maria. On Sunday, 21 March, 1790, he reached New York, to enter upon the duties of his new office. He hired a house at No. 57 Maiden lane, the city then containing a population of 35,000. His colleagues in the cabinet were Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury; Henry Knox, secretary of war; and Edmund Randolph, attorney-general. Jefferson's salary was $3,500, and that of the other members of the cabinet $3,000, a compensation that proved painfully inadequate.
He soon found himself ill at ease in his place. He had left Paris when the fall of the Bastile was a recent event, and when the revolutionary movement still promised to hopeful spirits the greatest good to France and to Europe. He had been consulted at every stage of its progress by Lafayette and the other Republican leaders, with whom he was in the deepest sympathy. He left his native land a Whig of the Revolution; he returned to it a Republican-Democrat. In his reply to the congratulations of his old constituents, he had spoken of the "sufficiency of human reason for the care of human affairs." He declared "the will of the majority to be the natural law of every society, and the only sure guardian of the rights of man."
