MONROE retired from his high office March 4, 1825, and during the seven years which remained of his life divided his time between his home at Oak Hill, in Loudoun County, Virginia, and the residence of his daughter, Mrs. Gouverneur, in the city of New York. He accepted the post of Regent in the University of Virginia, which was instituted in 1826, and gave his personal attention to the duties of the office, with Jefferson and Madison. He was asked to serve on the electoral ticket of Virginia in 1828, but declined to do so, on the ground that an ex-President should refrain from an active participation in political contests. He consented, however, to act as a local magistrate and to become a member of the Virginia constitutional convention, which assembled a little later. He maintained an active correspondence with friends at home and abroad, and, what is much more remarkable, he undertook to compose a philosophical history of the origin of free governments, for which his literary training was quite inadequate. This treatise was published in 1867. Monroe, throughout his later days, was somewhat embarrassed in his pecuniary circumstances, and spent a great deal of time in endeavoring to secure from Congress a just reimbursement for the heavy expenses in which he had been involved during his prolonged services abroad. It is truly pitiful to perceive the straits to which so patriotic a servant of the country, against whose financial integrity not a word was uttered, was reduced; particularly when the expenditures he had incurred were, to a very large amount, required by the positions to which his countrymen had called him, and for which they made inadequate remuneration. No private subscription came to honor or relieve him. Lafayette, with a generous impulse and with great delicacy of procedure, offered him relief.1 Some allowance was at length made by Congress, and after his death his heirs received a moderate sum for the papers he had preserved. His old age was much given to retrospection, doubtless quickened by the necessity of reviewing his accounts in justification of his claims. A letter to Judge McLean may be found in his manuscripts, with a note that the form was altered, though the spirit was preserved. It reads as follows: 1 Ante, page, 154. 2 Monroe MSS. MONROE TO MCLEAN. OAK HILL, December 5, 1827. I have read with great interest your letter of the 15th ult. The course which you have pursued in the administration corresponds with that which I had anticipated. I was satisfied that you had done your duty to your country, and acquitted yourself to the just claims of those with whom you were officially connected. It has afforded me great pleasure to find that the Department has considerably improved, under your management, in all the great objects of the institution, the more extensive circulation of political and commercial intelligence among the great body of our fellow citizens and the augmentation of the revenue. This sentiment seems to be general throughout the community, which it would not be if it was not confirmed by unquestionable evidence. By the faithful and useful discharge of your public duties you have given the best support which could be rendered to the administration of Mr. Adams, and of which he must be sensible. No person at the head of the government has, in my opinion, any claim to the active partisan exertions of those in office under him. Justice to his public acts, friendly feelings, and a candid and honorable deportment towards him, without forgetting what is due to others, are all that he has a right to expect, and in those I am satisfied you have never failed. Your view, in regard to my concerns, corresponds also with my own. I shall never apply again to Congress, let my situation be what it may. The only point on which my mind has balanced is, whether the republication of my memoir, remarks, and documents, in a pamphlet, would be proper and useful. Those papers relate to important public events in both my missions and in the late war, and since, while I held an office in the administration. I was charged with a failure to perform my duty in my first mission, and recalled from it and censured. The book which I published on my return home, with the official documents which it contained, vindicated me against the charge, and on that ground I then left it. The parties are since dead, and I am now retired to private life. I never doubted the perfect integrity of General Washington, nor the strength or energy of his mind, and was personally attached to him. I admired his patriotism, and had full confidence in his attachment to liberty and solicitude for the success of the French Revolution. It being necessary to advert to that occurrence, in my communication to the committee which was first appointed on my claims, I availed myself of the occasion to express a sentiment corresponding with the above in his favor, as I likewise did in the memoir since published. The documents published with it prove, in minute detail, not only that I faithfully performed my duty to my country, but exerted my best faculties, on all occasions, in support of his character and fame. The letters of Major Mountflorence, which I had forgotten that I possessed, are material on both points. They prove that the French government charged me with having prevented it from taking measures which it deemed due to the honor of France, for eight months, and that it had withdrawn its confidence from, and ceased to communicate with, me at the very moment when I was recalled by my own government. Major Mountflorence was no particular friend or associate of mine. I found him in France, on my arrival there. He was the friend of Mr. Morris, my predecessor, and, as I understand, from Tennessee. Mr. Skipwith em ployed him as the chancellor in his office, on account of his acquaintance with our affairs and knowledge of the French language. He passed daily, on the business of the consulate, through the several departments of the government, and was acquainted with the principal officers, especially the clerks in each, and on that account I instructed him to make the inquiries to which his reports relate. All the other documents correspond with and support his statement, which they extend to other objects that are very interesting. I was likewise charged in that mission with speculation, in consequence of a purchase which I made of a house. The documents published show clearly the motive which led me into that measure, as they do my intention to offer it to my government, on my resignation and return, on the terms on which I bought it; being recalled, and the minister sent to replace me not received, such an offer would have been absurd. Besides, I was forced to sell it to enable me to leave the country; and even then I lost one half of |