I arrived here on the 21st instant, after as laborious a journey of a fortnight from Richmond as I ever went through, resting only one day at Alexandria and another at Baltimore. I found my carriage and horses at Alexandria, but a snow of eighteen inches falling the same night, I saw the impossibility of getting on in my carriage, so left it there, to be sent to me by water, and had my horses led on to this place, taking my passage in the stage, though relieving myself a little sometimes by mounting my horse. The roads through the whole way were so bad that we could never go more than three miles an hour, sometimes not more than two, and in the night not more than one. My first object was to look out a house in the Broadway, if possible, as being the centre of my business. Finding none there vacant for the present, I have taken a small one in Maiden Lane, which may give me time to look about me. Much business had been put by for my arrival, so that I found myself all at once involved under an accumulation of it. When this shall be got through, I will be able to judge whether the ordinary business of my department will leave me any leisure. I fear there will be little. The reader, I feel sure, will not find out of place here the following very graceful letters of adieu, written by Jefferson to his kind friends in France: _To the Marquis de Lafayette._ New York, April 2d, 1790. Behold me, my dear friend, elected Secretary of State, instead of returning to the far more agreeable position which placed me in the daily participation of your friendship. I found the appointment in the newspapers the day of my arrival in Virginia. I had, indeed, been asked, while in France, whether I would accept of any appointment at home, and I had answered that, not meaning to remain long where I was, I meant it to be the last office I should ever act in. Unfortunately this letter had not arrived at the time of fixing the new Government. I expressed freely to the President my desire to return. He left me free, but still showing his own desire. This and the concern of others, more general than I had any right to expect, induced me, after three months' parleying, to sacrifice my own inclinations.