28, 1781, when writing to Washington to congratulate him on Cornwallis' capitulation at Yorktown he deplores the "state of perpetual decrepitude" to which he is unfortunately reduced and which prevents him from greeting Washington personally. Several of his best friends were unable to understand or condone his retirement. Madison himself wrote to Edmund Randolph:[83] Great as my partiality is to Mr. Jefferson, the mode in which he seems determined to revenge the wrong received from his country does not appear to me to be dictated either by philosophy or patriotism. It argues, indeed, a keen sensibility and strong consciousness of rectitude. But his sensibility ought to be as great towards the relenting as the misdoings of the Legislature, not to mention the injustice of visiting the faults of this body on their innocent constituents. Monroe, ardent friend and admirer of Jefferson's, was even more direct when writing to acquaint his "master" with the criticism aroused by his retirement. To which Jefferson answered with a letter in which he poured out the bitterness of his heart. He first recited all his different reasons for making his choice; the fact that after scrutinizing his heart he had found that every fiber of political ambition had been eradicated; that he had the right to withdraw after having been engaged thirteen years in public service; that his family required his attention; that he had to attend to his private affairs. But the true reasons came only in the next paragraph: That however I might have comforted myself under the disapprobation of the well-meaning but uninformed people, yet that of their representatives was a shock on which I had not calculated.... I felt that these injuries, for such they have been since acknowledged, had inflicted a wound on my spirit which only will be cured by the all-healing grave. The man who wrote these lines had an epidermis far too sensitive to permit him to engage in politics and least of all in local politics. Jefferson in these particular circumstances forgot the lesson of his old friends the Greek and Latin philosophers--truly he was no Roman. Yet we cannot regret very deeply Jefferson's determination to retire from public life at that time, since to his retirement we owe his most extensive literary composition, one of the first masterpieces of American literature. During the spring of 1781 he had received from the secretary of the French legation, Barbé-Marbois, a long questionnaire on the present conditions of Virginia. During his forced inactivity, he drew up a first draft which was sent to Marbois, but extensively corrected and enlarged during the following winter. A few manuscript copies were distributed to close friends, but the "Notes on Virginia" were not published until 1787 and after they had been rather poorly translated into French by Abbé Morellet.[84]