He  grew  worse  and  worse.  At  one  time  the  inmates  of  his  house
lost  all  hope,  for  he  seemed  to  be  dying.  Ho  rallied,  however,  and
l>egan  slowly  to  improve.  "  He  continues  mending  to-day,"  Jeffer-
son wrote  to  his  daughter,  ''and  from  total  despair  we  are  now  in
good  hopes  of  him."

In  a  strange,  unexi)ected  way,  Jefferson  found  himself  in  ill-accord
with  the  tone  of  society  in  New  York.  He  had  come  from  Paris
more  a  republican  than  ever,  all  glowing  with  the  new  hopes  foi
mankind  which  the  Ilevolution  there  had  kindled.  The  patriots  of
France  had  drawn  inspiration  from  America,  and  tried  all  their


ALEXANDER   HAMILTON.  851

measures  by  American  standards.  "Our  proceedings,"  Jefferson  /  — ^
wrote  to  Madison  from  Paris,  in  August,  1789,  "  have  been  viewed  '  /
as  a  model  for  them  on  every  occasion ;  and  though,  in  the  heat  of
debate,  men  are  generally  disposed  to  contradict  every  authority
urged  by  their  opponents,  ours  has  been  treated  like  that  of  the
Bible,  open  to  explanation,  but  not  to  question."  He  was  now  in
that  America  whose  conquest  of  freedom  and  peaceful  establishment
of  a  republican  government  intelligent  men  in  other  lauds  had
owned  among  the  noblest  achievements  of  civilization.  The  faith-
ful believer  was  now  at  Mecca.  But  he  did  not  find  the  magnates
of  the  temple  so  enthusiastic  for  the  Prophet  and  the  Koran  as
more  distant  worshippers.
While  France  for  sixty  years  —  ever  since  the  publication  of  Vol-
taire's "English  Letters,"  in  1730 — had  been  growing  to  a  sense.
of  the  evils  of  excessive  power  in  the  government,  America  for  ten
years   had  had  painful    experience  of  the   evils   of  an  insufficient
eentral  authority.
