Dear Sir--I received your friendly letters of ---- and June 30th, but the latter not till the 17th of October. It found me a little emerging from the stupor of mind which had rendered me as dead to the world as was she whose loss occasioned it.... Before that event my scheme of life had been determined. I had folded myself in the arms of retirement, and rested all prospects of future happiness on domestic and literary objects. A single event wiped away all my plans, and left me a blank which I had not the spirits to fill up. In this state of mind an appointment from Congress found me, requiring me to cross the Atlantic. Having accepted the appointment, Mr. Jefferson left his two youngest children with their maternal aunt, Mrs. Eppes, of Eppington, and went North with his daughter Martha, then in her eleventh year. Some delay in his departure for Europe was occasioned by news received from Europe by Congress. During the uncertainty as to the time of his departure he placed the little Martha at school in Philadelphia, under the charge of an excellent and kind lady, Mrs. Hopkinson. From this time we find him writing regularly to his daughters during every separation from them, and it is in the letters written on those occasions that are portrayed most vividly the love and tenderness of the father, and the fine traits of character of the man. That the reader may see what these were, I shall give a number of these letters, and, as far as possible, in their chronological order. The original of the first of the following letters is now in the possession of the Queen of England. Mr. Aaron Vail, when Chargé d'Affaires of the United States at the Court of St. James, being requested by Princess Victoria to procure her an autograph of Jefferson, applied to a member of Mr. Jefferson's family, who sent him this letter for the princess. Mr. Jefferson was at this time again a member of Congress, which was then holding its sessions in Annapolis. _Thomas Jefferson to Martha Jefferson._ Annapolis, Nov. 28th, 1783.