em on every
occasion.... Our [authority] has been treated like that of the Bible, open
to explanation, but not to question."

Jefferson's advice was continually sought by Lafayette and others; and his
house, maintained in the easy, liberal style of Virginia, was a meeting
place for the Revolutionary statesmen. Jefferson dined at three or four
o'clock; and after the cloth had been removed he and his guests sat over
their wine till nine or ten in the evening.

In July, 1789, the National Assembly appointed a committee to draught a
constitution, and the committee formally invited the American minister to
assist at their sessions and favor them with his advice. This function he
felt obliged to decline, as being inconsistent with his post of minister
to the king. No man had a nicer sense of propriety than Jefferson; and he
punctiliously observed the requirements of his somewhat difficult
situation in Paris.

What gave Mr. Jefferson the greatest anxiety and trouble, was our
relations with the piratical Barbary powers who held the keys of the
Mediterranean and sometimes extended their depredations even into the
Atlantic. It was a question of paying tribute or going to war; and most of
the European powers paid tribute. In 1784, for example, the Dutch
contributed to "the high, glorious, mighty, and most noble, King, Prince,
and Emperor of Morocco," a mass of material which included thirty cables,
seventy cannon, sixty-nine masts, twenty-one anchors, fifty dozen
sail-needles, twenty-four tons of pitch, two hundred and eighty loaves of
sugar, twenty-four China punch-bowls, three clocks, and one "very large
watch."

Jefferson ascertained that the pirates would require of the United States,
as the price of immunity for its commerce, a tribute of about three
hundred thousand dollars per annum. "Surely," he wrote home, "our people
will not give this. Would it not be better to offer them an equal treaty?
If they refuse, why not go to war with them?" And he pressed upon Mr. Jay,
who held the secretaryship of foreign affairs, as the office was then
called, the immediate establishment of a navy. But Congress would do
nothing; and it was not till Jefferson himself became President that the
Barbary pirates were dealt with in a wholesome and stringent manner.
During the whole term of his residence at Paris he was negotiating with
the Mediterranean powers for the release of unfortunate Americans, many of
whom spent the best part of their