Large as it was, this estimate of the debt fell far short of the reality. The arrears amounted in truth to twenty thousand dollars.[395] Nothing but immediate and rigid economy could restore the loss, and even with every advantage Jefferson could never hope to live again upon his old scale without incurring bankruptcy; he must cease to be a _grand seigneur_, or drag his family into the ruin which seemed to be the fate of every Virginian. Under the weight of these troubles, public and private, Jefferson’s longing to escape became intense; and his letters repeated, in accents more and more earnest, the single wish that filled his mind. “I shall within a few days,” he wrote February 25,[396] “divest myself of the anxieties and the labors with which I have been oppressed, and retire with inexpressible delight to my family, my friends, my farms, and books. There I may indulge at length in that tranquillity and those pursuits from which I have been divorced by the character of the times in which I have lived, and which have forced me into the line of political life under a sense of duty and against a great and constant aversion to it.” March 2 he wrote to Dupont de Nemours,[397] in stronger terms of weariness and disgust: “Never did a prisoner released from his chains feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power. Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science by rendering them my supreme delight.” March 4 he rode once more on horseback to the Capitol, and stood by the side of Madison while John Marshall administered the oath of office. The weight of administration was at last removed, but the longing for home became only the greater. March 5 he wrote to Armstrong:[398] “Within two or three days I retire from scenes of difficulty, anxiety, and of contending passions, to the elysium of domestic affections and the irresponsible direction of my own affairs.” A week afterward Jefferson quitted Washington forever. On horseback, over roads impassable to wheels, through snow and storm, he hurried back to Monticello to recover in the quiet of home the peace of mind he had lost in the disappointments of his statesmanship. He arrived at Monticello March 15, and never again passed beyond the bounds of a few adjacent counties. With a sigh of relief which seemed as sincere and deep as his own, the Northern people saw him turn his back on the White House and disappear from the arena in which he had for sixteen years challenged every comer. In the Northern States few regrets were wasted upon his departure, for every mind was intent on profiting by the overthrow of his system; but Virginia was still loyal to him, and the citizens of his own county of Albemarle welcomed with an affectionate address his final return. His reply, dignified and full of grateful feeling, seemed intended as an answer to the attacks of partisan grossness and a challenge to the judgment of mankind:--