Page:Life And Letters Of Thomas Jefferson -- Hirst (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.89541).pdf/452

Rh C. C. Pinckney and Rufus King. The completeness of Jefferson's victory marks the measure of his success and of popular approval. He carried fifteen of the seventeen. states of the Union, and in the electoral college received 162 votes against 14 for the Federalist candidates.

During his four years of office, Jefferson's private correspondence is naturally less voluminous and varied than usual. There are several long and interesting letters to Dr. Priestley, which taken together give a very accurate picture of Jefferson's views on the destiny of the United States, both in America and in relation to Europe. Thus on June 19, 1802, he writes:—

On April 9, 1803, he transmitted to Priestley a sketch of his religious opinions, and on April 21, he enclosed to Dr. Benjamin Rush, a "Syllabus of an Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus compared with those of others":—

"In some of the delightful conversations with you, in the evenings of 1798-9," he writes to Rush, "which served as an anodyne to the