Note 106 — PART I. LETTERS WRITTEN BEFORE HIS MISSION TO EUROPE 1773-1783. (continued 3)

[Mr. Jefferson's reasons for now accepting this appointment, which he had previously declined, are thus explained by himself:—"I had, about two months before, lost the cherished companion of my life [his wife], in whose affection, unabated on both sides, I had lived the last ten years in unchequered happiness." On the 19th of December, 1782, he left Monticello for Philadelphia, where he intended to embark for Europe; but the French Minister Luzerne, offering him a passage in the French frigate Romulus, then lying below Baltimore, he accepted the offer. The sailing of this frigate being delayed by ice, and a British fleet on the coast, information, in the meantime, reached America that a provisional treaty of peace had been signed by the American Commissioners, to become absolute on the conclusion of peace between France and England. On the arrival of this information, Mr. Jefferson was released from his mission, and returned to his home in Virginia on the 15th May, 1783.—Ed.]