In March, 1790, Mr. Jefferson reached New York, after his return from France, and entered upon his new office of Secretary of State under General Washington. He was a distant relative of our precocious student, then seventeen years of age; and the two families had just been brought nearer together by the marriage of one of Mr. Jefferson's daughters to a Randolph. The reaction against republican principles was at full tide; and no one will ever know to what lengths it would have gone, had not Thomas Jefferson so opportunely come upon the scene. At his modest abode, No. 57 Maiden Lane, the two Randolph lads--John, seventeen, Theodorick, nineteen--were frequent visitors. Theodorick was a roistering blade, much opposed to his younger brother's reading habits, caring himself for nothing but pleasure. John was an eager politician. During the whole period of the reaction, first at New York, afterward at Philadelphia, finally in Virginia, John Randolph sat at the feet of the great Democrat of America, fascinated by his conversation, and generally convinced by his reasoning. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that he was a blind follower of Mr. Jefferson, even then. On the question of States' Rights, he was in the most perfect accord with him. But when, in 1791, the eyes of all intelligent America were fixed upon the two combatants, Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine, Burke condemning, Paine defending, the French Revolution, the inherited instincts of John Randolph asserted themselves, and he gave all his heart to Burke. Lord Chatham and Edmund Burke were the men who always held the first place in the esteem of this kindred spirit. Mr. Jefferson, of course, sympathized with the view of his friend Paine, and never wavered in his belief that the French Revolution was necessary and beneficial. A generous and gifted nation strangled, moved him to deeper compassion than a class proscribed. He dwelt more upon the long and bitter provocation, than upon the brief frenzy which was only one of its dire results. Louis XIV. and Louis XV., picturesque as they were, excited within him a profounder horror than ugly Marat and Robespierre. He pitied haggard, distracted France more than graceful and high-bred Marie Antoinette. In other words, he was not a tory. There was a difference, too, between Mr. Jefferson and his young kinsman on the points upon which they agreed. Jefferson was a States' Rights man, and a strict constructionist, because he was a republican; Randolph, because he was a Virginian, Jefferson thought the government should be small, that the people might be great; John Randolph thought the government should be small, that Virginia might be great. Pride in Virginia was John Randolph's ruling passion, not less in 1790; than in 1828, The welfare and dignity of man were the darling objects of Thomas Jefferson's great soul, from youth to hoary age.