Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/235

 " six months' session has worn me down to a state of almost total incapacity for business," wrote President Jefferson to his attorney-general. "Congress will certainly rise to-morrow night, and I shall leave this for Monticello on the 5th of May, to be here again on the 8th of June." More earnestly than ever he longed for repose and good-will. "For myself," he said, "I have nothing further to ask of the world than to preserve in retirement so much of their esteem as I may have fairly earned, and to be permitted to pass in tranquillity, in the bosom of my family and friends, the days which yet remain to me." He could not reasonably ask from the world more than he had already received from it; but a whole year remained, during which he must still meet whatever demand the world should make upon him. He had brought the country to a situation where war was impossible for want of weapons, and peace was only a name for passive war. He was bound to carry the government through the dangers he had braved; and