To the domestic concerns of his country he devoted a laborious and laudable attention. He insisted upon the adoption of a uniform system of currency and of weights and measures, and suggested many other improvements, predicated upon plain and enlightened premises, and all designed to advance the best interests of the American system. He pointed to the importance of securing and protecting fisheries, and of encouraging enterprise in all the branches of industry. He demonstrated the advantages of every species of commerce, and the necessity of preventing others from monopolizing such sources as legitimately belonged to the United States. He showed, in a masterly exposition of existing facts, the increasing policy of European courts, in restricting the intercourse of America, and their evident designs of engrossing trade. He submitted to congress an able and elaborate report, showing great foresight, close observation, and deep investigation, relative to the privileges and restrictions of the commercial intercourse of this with other countries. It received great attention, was a subject of long and animated discussion in congress, and became the foundation of a series of resolutions introduced by Mr. Madison, embracing the doctrines it contained, and forming the great line of demarcation between the _old_ school federal and republican parties. Having served his country long and faithfully, and having contributed largely in placing her on the high road of prosperity and freedom, Mr. Jefferson retired from public life on the 31st of December, 1793, and, for a season, enjoyed the more substantial comforts of the domestic circle at Monticello. He took especial care to impart comfort to all around him, and treated his slaves in the kindest manner, thus reducing to practice the mode of treatment towards them he had so often alluded to in theory. The education of his children, the cultivation and improvement of his estate, and the resumption of scientific research, gave to him an exhilarating consolation he had long desired, and which is never found in the arena of public business and political bustle. His manner of life at the period alluded to, is happily described by the Duke de Liancourt, a distinguished French gentleman who visited him at Monticello, and who wrote a narrative of his tour in the United States.