They spent the night twelve miles farther on at a house where there were fourteen children, not one of them ten years old; and set out at 8 o’clock the next morning through the foothills of the Southwest Mountain. That day, the 13th of April (an important day with Mr. Jefferson) they came to Monticello. “The visit which I made Mr. Jefferson was not unexpected, for he had long since invited me to come and pass a few days with him; notwithstanding which I found his first appearance serious, nay even cold; but before I had been two hours with him we were as intimate as if we had passed our whole lives together. Walking, books, but above all a conversation always varied and interesting, made four days pass away like so many minutes. I recollect with pleasure that as we were conversing one evening over a bowl of punch, after Mrs. Jefferson had retired, our conversation turned on the poems of Ossian. In our enthusiasm the book was sent for and placed near the bowl, where by their mutual aid the night far advanced imperceptibly upon us. Sometimes natural philosophy, at others politics or the arts, were the topics of our conversation, for no object had escaped Mr. Jefferson; and it seemed as if from his youth he had placed his mind, as he had his house, on an elevated situation, from which he might contemplate the universe.” Mr. Jefferson and M. de Chastellux rode over to Charlottesville, “a rising town,” to see Colonel Armand,[G] whose legion was in quarters there. Colonel Armand had a pet wolf which had been caught wild in the neighborhood. M. de Chastellux left Monticello on the 17th, and on the 19th arrived at the Natural Bridge, by way of Rockfish Gap and Steel’s Tavern. Returning by way of New London (Bedford), “already a pretty considerable town, at least seventy or eighty houses,” the party of tourists reached Cumberland Courthouse on the 23d. “This is the chief manor house of a very considerable country; it is situated in a plain of about a mile diameter, sixteen miles from Hodnett’s, which we had passed. Besides the courthouse and a large tavern, its necessary appendage, there are seven or eight houses inhabited by gentlemen of fortune. I found the tavern full of people, and understood that the judges were assembled to hold a court of claims--that is to say, to hear and register the claims of sundry persons, who had furnished provisions for the army. We know that in general, but particularly in unexpected invasions, the American troops had no established magazine, and as it was necessary to have subsistence for them, provisions and forage were indiscriminately laid hold of on giving the owners a receipt, which they call a certificate. During the campaign, whilst the enemy was at hand, little attention was given to this sort of loans, which accumulated incessantly, without the sum total being known, or any means taken to ascertain the proofs. Virginia being at length loaded with these certificates, it became necessary, sooner or later,