The land not having been prepared for cultivation during the preceding fall, Jefferson's farming operations during the summer of 1794 amounted to nothing. Unfortunately, when the next season came around for the proper preparation to be made for the coming year, it found him in such a state of health as to prevent his giving his personal direction to his farms, and thus he was cut off from any profit from them for another twelvemonth. Just about this time General Washington made another attempt, through his Secretary of State, Edmund Randolph, to get Jefferson back into his cabinet. Though at the time ill, Jefferson at once sent the following reply to Randolph: _To Edmund Randolph._ Monticello, September 7th, 1794. Dear Sir--Your favor of August the 28th finds me in bed under a paroxysm of the rheumatism, which has now kept me for ten days in constant torment, and presents no hope of abatement. But the express and the nature of the case requiring immediate answer, I write you in this situation. No circumstances, my dear Sir, will ever more tempt me to engage in any thing public. I thought myself perfectly fixed in this determination when I left Philadelphia, but every day and hour since has added to its inflexibility. It is a great pleasure to me to retain the esteem and approbation of the President, and this forms the only ground of any reluctance at being unable to comply with every wish of his. Pray convey these sentiments, and a thousand more to him, which my situation does not permit me to go into.... I find nothing worthy of notice in Jefferson's life during the year 1795. He continued tranquilly and happily enjoying the society of his children and grandchildren in his beautiful mountain home. Mrs. Randolph was now the mother of three children. We have seen from his letters to her how devotedly she was loved by her father. From the time of her mother's death she had been his constant companion until her own marriage; Maria Jefferson, now seventeen years old, was as beautiful and loving as a girl as she had been as a child. The brilliancy of her beauty is spoken of with enthusiasm by those still living who remember her. In a letter to Mr. Madison written in the spring of this year (1795), Mr. Jefferson writes thus of himself: _To James Madison._