abolition of primogeniture, and equal partition of inheritances

removed the feudal and unnatural distinctions which made one member
of every family rich, and all the rest poor, substituting equal

partition, the best of all Agrarian laws. The restoration of the
rights of conscience relieved the people from taxation for the

support of a religion not theirs; for the establishment was truly of
the religion of the rich, the dissenting sects being entirely

composed of the less wealthy people; and these, by the bill for a
general education, would be qualified to understand their rights, to

maintain them, and to exercise with intelligence their parts in
self-government: and all this would be effected without the violation

of a single natural right of any one individual citizen. To these
too might be added, as a further security, the introduction of the

trial by jury, into the Chancery courts, which have already ingulfed
and continue to ingulf, so great a portion" target="_blank" title="n.比率 vt.使成比例">proportion of the jurisdiction

over our property.
On the 1st of June 1779. I was appointed Governor of the

Commonwealth and retired from the legislature. Being elected also
one of the Visitors of Wm. & Mary college, a self-electing body, I

effected, during my residence in Williamsburg that year, a change in
the organization of that institution by abolishing the Grammar

school, and the two professorships of Divinity & Oriental languages,
and substituting a professorship of Law & Police, one of Anatomy

Medicine and Chemistry, and one of Modern languages; and the charter
confining us to six professorships, we added the law of Nature &

Nations, & the Fine Arts to the duties of the Moral professor, and
Natural history to those of the professor of Mathematics and Natural

philosophy.
Being now, as it were, identified with the Commonwealth itself,

to write my own history during the two years of my administration,
would be to write the public history of that portion of the

revolution within this state. This has been done by others, and
particularly by Mr. Girardin, who wrote his Continuation of Burke's

history of Virginia while at Milton, in this neighborhood, had free
access to all my papers while composing it, and has given as faithful

an account as I could myself. For this portiontherefore of my own
life, I refer altogether to his history. From a belief that under

the pressure of the invasion under which we were then laboring the
public would have more confidence in a Military chief, and that the

Military commander, being invested with the Civil power also, both
might be wielded with more energy promptitude and effect for the

defence of the state, I resigned the administration at the end of my
2d. year, and General Nelson was appointed to succeed me.

Soon after my leaving Congress in Sep. '76, to wit on the last
day of that month, I had been appointed, with Dr. Franklin, to go to

France, as a Commissioner to negotiate treaties of alliance and
commerce with that government. Silas Deane, then in France, acting

as agent (* 2) for procuring military stores, was joined with us in
commission. But such was the state of my family that I could not

leave it, nor could I expose it to the dangers of the sea, and of
capture by the British ships, then covering the ocean. I saw too

that the laboring oar was really at home, where much was to be done
of the most permanent interest in new modelling our governments, and

much to defend our fanes and fire-sides from the desolations of an
invading enemy pressing on our country in every point. I declined

therefore and Dr. Lee was appointed in my place. On the 15th. of
June 1781. I had been appointed with Mr. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Mr.

Jay, and Mr. Laurens a Minister plenipotentiary for negotiating
peace, then expected to be effected thro' the mediation of the

Empress of Russia. The same reasons obliged me still to decline; and
the negotiation was in fact never entered on. But, in the autumn of

the next year 1782 Congress receiving assurances that a general peace
would be concluded in the winter and spring, they renewed my

appointment on the 13th. of Nov. 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 Dec.

1782. for Philadelphia, where I arrived on the 27th. The Minister of
France, Luzerne, offered me a passage in the Romulus frigate, which I

accepting. But she was then lying 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 Sept. 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.
(* 2) His ostensible character was to be that of a merchant,

his real one that of agent for military supplies, and also for
sounding the dispositions of the government of France, and seeing how

far they would favor us, either secretly or openly. His appointment
had been by the Committee of Foreign Correspondence, March, 1776.

On the 6th. of the following month I was appointed by the
legislature a delegate to Congress, the appointment to take place on

the 1st. of Nov. ensuing, when that of the existing delegation would
expire. I accordingly left home on the 16th. of Oct. arrived at

Trenton, where Congress was sitting, on the 3d. of Nov. and took my
seat on the 4th., on which day Congress adjourned to meet at

Annapolis on the 26th.
Congress had now become a very small body, and the members very

remiss in their attendance on it's duties insomuch that a majority of
the states, necessary by the Confederation to constitute a house even

for minor business did not assemble until the 13th. of December.
They as early as Jan. 7. 1782. had turned their attention to

the monies current in the several states, and had directed the
Financier, Robert Morris, to report to them a table of rates at which

the foreign coins should be received at the treasury. That officer,
or rather his assistant, Gouverneur Morris, answered them on the 15th

in an able and elaborate statement of the denominations of money
current in the several states, and of the comparative value of the

foreign coins chiefly in circulation with us. He went into the
consideration of the necessity of establishing a standard of value

with us, and of the adoption of a money-Unit. He proposed for the
Unit such a fraction of pure silver as would be a common measure of

the penny of every state, without leaving a fraction. This common
divisor he found to be 1 -- 1440 of a dollar, or 1 -- 1600 of the

crown sterling. The value of a dollar was therefore to be expressed
by 1440 units, and of a crown by 1600. Each Unit containing a

quarter of a grain of fine silver. Congress turning again their
attention to this subject the following year, the financier, by a

letter of Apr. 30, 1783. further explained and urged the Unit he had
proposed; but nothing more was done on it until the ensuing year,

when it was again taken up, and referred to a commee of which I was a
member. The general views of the financier were sound, and the

principle was ingenious on which he proposed to found his Unit. But
it was too minute for ordinary use, too laborious for computation

either by the head or in figures. The price of a loaf of bread 1 --
20 of a dollar would be 72. units.

A pound of butter 1 -- 5 of a dollar 288. units.
A horse or bullock of 80. D value would require a notation of

6. figures, to wit 115,200, and the public debt, suppose of 80.
millions, would require 12. figures, to wit 115,200,000,000 units.

Such a system of money-arithmetic would be entirely unmanageable for
the common purposes of society. I proposed therefore, instead of

this, to adopt the Dollar as our Unit of account and payment, and
that it's divisions and sub-divisions should be in the decimal ratio.

I wrote some Notes on the subject, which I submitted to the
consideration of the financier. I received his answer and adherence

to his general system, only agreeing to take for his Unit 100. of
those he first proposed, so that a Dollar should be 14 40 -- 100 and

a crown 16. units. I replied to this and printed my notes and reply
on a flying sheet, which I put into the hands of the members of