38 Notes on America. 



effort was worse than fruitless, it was scornfully repelled. Application 

 was then made to the legislature of Virginia, his native state, and oyer 

 which he had formerly, in the day of his glory, presided as governor, for 

 permission to dispose of his property by means of a lottery. After a 

 severe struggle, this was granted by a very small majority. A subscrip- 

 tion was then proposed to be raised throughout the Union, for the purpose 

 of purchasing the tickets of this lottery, in other words, for paying his 

 debts. Mr. Jefferson just lived long enough to be aware that this project 

 had utterly failed. The amount subscribed was paltry in the extreme. I 

 recollect that when 1 was called upon, the Charleston subscription had not 

 reached one hundred pounds, and as an Englishman and a foreigner, I 

 must have been one of the last applied to for that patriotic purpose. 



In Boston, the amount collected for Mr. Jefferson's relief was so trifling, 

 that the committee declined to publish it, and returned the money ; and in 

 New York and Philadelphia, the attempt was almost equally abortive. 



How are we to believe the professions of respect and attachment to the 

 memory of a man whose petitions for relief were treated in this unfeeling 

 manner ? It is to be recollected, that, in the previous year, upwards of 

 twenty thousand pounds had been voted by Congress to La Fayette, whose 

 services, as compared with those of Mr. Jefferson, may be said rather to 

 live in the imagination of the Americans, than in the pages of their na- 

 tional history. Sufficient time had also elapsed for the animosity engen- 

 dered by party politics to have passed away. It was many years since the 

 president of the college at Newhaven had described Mr. Jefferson as a man 

 of superior talents indeed, but of greater profligacy than Charles the Second} 

 when it was not uncommon for the congregational clergy in New England 

 to beseech the Lord " to vouchsafe to the President of the United States 

 a little common honesty, for that assuredly he needed it much." But, 

 as I remarked above, these times had passed away. It was natural, 

 therefore, to suppose that one of the foremost men of the revolution, one 

 who had been twice President, would not have been suffered to expire in 

 abject and notorious poverty. The nation, however, was appealed to in 

 vain on his behalf. 



I was therefore somewhat at a loss to account for the uniform strain 

 of panegyric on his character and services, which, immediately on his 

 decease, resounded through the country. But not very long afterwards 

 I observed, that much the same style of affectionate respect was used by 

 my loyal compatriots in England, at the public meetings, and in the ad- 

 dresses of condolence sent up to the throne or the death of the late Duke 

 of York ; arid I then concluded that the maxim, de mortius nil nisi bonem 

 was more generally adopted and acted upon than I had previously 

 imagined. 



There is a street in Charleston called Vendue Range, where commodities 

 of every description, including negroes, are bought and sold by auction. 

 If it were possible for an Englishman to overcome his feelings of sorrow 

 and disgust at seeing his fellow creatures knocked down to the highest 

 bidder, like so many sheep and oxen, the scenes exhibited in the Vendue 

 Range would not be unproductive of amusement. 



The value of a negro in the market does noc depend so much upon his 

 personal strength, or skill in any mechanical employment, as upon the 

 good will with which he would probably serve his o"\vner. At a slave 

 auction, therefore, it is highly necessary, previously to making a pur- 



