h difficulty to
a conclusion. Unhappily neither was a good judge of men. When pitted
against a Bonaparte, a Talleyrand, or a Canning, they appeared
provincial in their ways and limited in their sympathetic understanding
of statesmen of the Old World.

Next to that of Madison, Jefferson valued the friendship of Albert
Gallatin, whom he made Secretary of the Treasury by a recess
appointment, since there was some reason to fear that the Federalist
Senate would not confirm the nomination. The Federalists could never
forget that Gallatin was a Swiss by birth--an alien of supposedly
radical tendencies. The partisan press never exhibited its crass
provincialism more shamefully than when it made fun of Gallatin's
imperfect pronunciation of English. He had come to America, indeed, too
late to acquire a perfect control of a new tongue, but not too late to
become a loyal son of his adopted country. He brought to Jefferson's
group of advisers not only a thorough knowledge of public finance but
a sound judgment and a statesmanlike vision, which were often needed to
rectify the political vagaries of his chief.

The last of his Cabinet appointments made, Jefferson returned to
his country seat at Monticello for August and September, for he was
determined not to pass those two "bilious months" in Washington. "I have
not done it these forty years," he wrote to Gallatin. "Grumble who will,
I will never pass those two months on tidewater." To Monticello, indeed,
Jefferson turned whenever his duties permitted and not merely in the
sickly months of summer, for when the roads were good the journey was
rapidly and easily made by stage or chaise. There, in his garden
and farm, he found relief from the distractions of public life. "No
occupation is so delightful to me," he confessed, "as the culture of the
earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden." At Monticello,
too, he could gratify his delight in the natural sciences, for he was a
true child of the eighteenth century in his insatiable curiosity about
the physical universe and in his desire to reduce that universe to an
intelligible mechanism. He was by instinct a rationalist and a foe
to superstition in any form, whether in science or religion. His
indefatigable pen was as ready to discuss vaccination and yellow fever
with Dr. Benjamin Rush as it was to exchange views with Dr. Priestley on
the ethics of Jesus.

The diversity of Jefferson's interests is truly remarkable. Monti