




                   *The Riverside Biographical Series*

                                 NUMBER 5

                             THOMAS JEFFERSON

                                    BY

                           HENRY CHILDS MERWIN

                      [Illustration: Th. Jefferson]





                            THOMAS JEFFERSON

                                   BY

                           HENRY CHILDS MERWIN


                           [Publisher's emblem]


HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street
Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue
*The Riverside Press, Cambridge*





                   COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY HENRY C. MERWIN

                           ALL RIGHTS RESERVED





                                 CONTENTS


 CHAP.                                        PAGE
    I.   YOUTH AND TRAINING                      1
   II.   VIRGINIA IN JEFFERSON'S DAY            16
  III.   MONTICELLO AND ITS HOUSEHOLD           28
   IV.   JEFFERSON IN THE REVOLUTION            36
    V.   REFORM WORK IN VIRGINIA                45
   VI.   GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA                   59
  VII.   ENVOY AT PARIS                         71
 VIII.   SECRETARY OF STATE                     82
   IX.   THE TWO PARTIES                        98
    X.   PRESIDENT JEFFERSON                   114
   XI.   SECOND PRESIDENTIAL TERM              130
  XII.   A PUBLIC MAN IN PRIVATE LIFE          149






                             THOMAS JEFFERSON





                                    I


                            YOUTH AND TRAINING


Thomas Jefferson was born upon a frontier estate in Albemarle County,
Virginia, April 13, 1743. His father, Peter Jefferson, was of Welsh
descent, not of aristocratic birth, but of that yeoman class which
constitutes the backbone of all societies. The elder