Perhaps Jacob Tullius’s parallel text edition of Longinus’s De Sublimitate was the first book from Wythe’s bequest Jefferson read. Longinus’s concept of the sublime had already influenced Jefferson’s aesthetic sensibilities. As his appreciation of Ossian suggests, Jefferson closely associated the sublime and the melancholy. His copy of Wythe’s Longinus reinforces the association. Opening the book’s cover, Jefferson inscribed the following: “The gift of a friend a few days before he died.”32
Death threatened another member of Jefferson’s intimate circle of family and friends that summer. His son-in-law Thomas Mann Randolph, who was currently serving his second term in the House of Representatives, had allegedly insulted a congressional colleague, the fiery John Randolph of Roanoke. Their dispute threatened to end in a duel. Jefferson wrote Randolph’s friends, encouraging them to talk him out of the duel. He also wrote his son-in-law directly, reminding him of the wife and children who were depending upon him. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed, and threats of a duel dissipated.33
The day Meriwether Lewis returned to St. Louis, September 23, 1806, he wrote a letter informing the president of their success. Jefferson received the letter in late October, time enough to include their story in his annual message to Congress. In an early draft of the message, Jefferson told a longer version of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which he abbreviated in revision. He officially announced their success and applauded their accomplishments: “They have traced the Missouri nearly to its source, descended the Columbia to the Pacific ocean, ascertained with accuracy the geography of that interesting communication across our continent, learned the character of the country, of its commerce, and inhabitants, and it is but justice to say that Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, and their brave companions, have, by this arduous service, deserved well of their country.”34
Meriwether Lewis returned to Washington in December. In “Life of Captain Lewis,” Jefferson resumed the biography from the time of Lewis’s successful return: “Never did a similar event excite more joy through the United States. The humblest of its citizens had taken a lively interest in the issue of this journey, and looked forward with impatience for the information it would furnish.”35
Partly as a reward for his successful journey, Jefferson appointed Lewis governor of upper Louisiana Territory. Lewis did not assume his gubernatorial responsibilities until he returned to St. Louis in March 1808. He was at his best in the rough-and-tumble life of a wilderness explorer, and the tedious duties of an administrator depressed him greatly. Exacerbating his increasingly precarious mental state, he engaged in much land speculation and lost considerable sums. He decided to leave St. Louis in September 1809.
At Fort Pickering (what is now Memphis), Lewis encountered his old friend Captain Gilbert Russell, who found him in “a state of mental derangement.” Russell took it upon himself to assume what would now be called a suicide watch. Already, Lewis “had made several attempts to put an end to his own existence.”36 After six days, Lewis seemed to recover his presence of mind enough to travel. Major James Neely, who accompanied him on the road to Nashville, disagreed. Lewis seemed deranged to him.
Partway across Tennessee, two of their horses escaped. Lewis asked Neely to remain behind to locate the horses, promising to stop for the night at the first house he encountered. He stopped at the house of one Mrs. Grindle. She gave him a room but became quite concerned when she heard him pacing the floor incessantly and talking to himself. Unbeknownst to Mrs. Grindle, one of her servants had supplied him with some gunpowder. Late that night, Meriwether Lewis shot himself, first in the chest, then in the head. He died around sunrise.
Explaining his suicide in “Life of Captain Lewis,” Jefferson offered a forward-thinking psychological interpretation that took both his experience and his natural predilections into account:
Governor Lewis had, from early life, been subject to hypochondriac affections. It was a constitutional disposition in all the nearer branches of the family of his name, and was more immediately inherited by him from his father. They had not, however, been so strong as to give uneasiness to his family. While he lived with me in Washington I observed at times sensible depressions of mind: but knowing their constitutional source, I estimated their course by what I had seen in the family. During his western expedition, the constant exertion which that required of all the faculties of body and mind, suspended these distressing affections; but after his establishment at St. Louis in sedentary occupations, they returned upon him with redoubled vigour, and began seriously to alarm his friends. He was in a paroxysm of one of these, when his affairs rendered it necessary for him to go to Washington…. About three o’clock in the night he did the deed which plunged his friends into affliction, and deprived his country of one of her most valued citizens, whose valour and intelligence would have been now employed in avenging the wrongs of his country, and in emulating by land the splendid deeds which have honoured her arms on the ocean. It lost to the nation the benefit of receiving from his own hand the narrative now offered them of his sufferings and successes, in endeavouring to extend for them the boundaries of science, and to present to their knowledge that vast and fertile country, which their sons are destined to fill with arts, with science, with freedom and happiness.37
These closing remarks to “Life of Captain Lewis” reveal Jefferson’s literary craftsmanship as well as his unshakable optimism. Lewis’s suicide makes it tempting to end his story in melancholy thoughts, but Jefferson avoided the temptation. He kept his eye on the rhetorical purpose of his “Life of Captain Lewis”: an introduction to History of the Expedition. Jefferson ends on a hopeful note, explaining that the explorations of Lewis and Clark will allow Americans to fulfill their destiny.
CHAPTER 34
The President as Patron of Literature
In September 1807, Thomas Jefferson was at Monticello enjoying the end of his summer vacation before returning to Washington. The successful return of Lewis and Clark the previous year had marked the high point of his second term as president. Since then, he had experienced several difficulties, punctuated by an event that threatened an international crisis. On June 22, the H.M.S. Leopard, aggressively searching for deserters from the British navy, had fired on the Chesapeake, an American frigate, killing three sailors and wounding several others. Tensions between Great Britain and the United States had escalated through the summer. Many Americans clamored for war, and the situation remained unresolved. Jefferson would face some tough decisions upon his return to Washington.
Amidst the political turmoil, he was happy for any diversion that could take his mind off the weighty responsibilities he faced as president. Late this September, one diversion came in the form of an odd little Englishman in a dark blue coat and an old, white woolen hat. The man turned out to be an itinerant printer and traveling bookseller in his late forties named Jonathan Brunt.1 The appearance of a traveling bookseller at Monticello was nothing new: Jefferson had been greeting chapmen at his door since boyhood. But even among that strange breed of fellows who traveled the nation selling books, Jonathan Brunt was out of the ordinary.
Jefferson grew weary of the numerous gawkers who came by Monticello to catch a glimpse of him and his house, but he usually welcomed fellow bookmen. Samuel Whitcomb, a bookseller who visited Monticello many years after Jefferson retired from public life, left a detailed record of his visit. Jefferson answered the door himself, shook Whitcomb’s hand, and invited him inside. Though Whitcomb had no letter of introduction, Jefferson seemed genuinely pleased with him. When Whitcomb asked if he would be willing to subscribe to a new book, however, Jefferson fibbed: he told Whitcomb that he never subscribed to anything.2
Of course, Jefferson had been subscribing to books through much of his life. As president, he realized that subscribing to new publications gave him a way of patronizing American literature and encouraging its development. Subscribing to books was just one of several ways Jefferson patronized literature during his administration. H
e continued to subscribe to numerous publications even after he left the presidency, but he had to draw the line somewhere. His blanket response to Whitcomb let him politely refuse this door-to-door salesman’s request. Jonathan Brunt left no comparable record of his visit to Monticello; presumably Jefferson’s reaction to him was similar to his reaction to Whitcomb: cordial, yet reluctant to make his guest too comfortable.
Since the mid-1790s Brunt had been crisscrossing the United States, haplessly seeking a livelihood. He had been traveling long enough to develop a routine: he would visit a print shop, work briefly for the local printer, print some pamphlets of his own composition, and get back on the road, walking from one place to the next selling books along the way. Once he had exhausted his stock, he would locate a printer wherever he ended up and repeat the process. The pamphlets he printed include extracts from various sources, snippets on patriotism and politics combined with autobiographical rants. Brunt’s competence as a printer offered him the opportunity to express himself and to record his aberrant thoughts for posterity. Using the printed word as his medium, he could record his ideas in a way denied to others in a similarly precarious psychological state.
Erratic as they are, Brunt’s writings offer an insider’s look into mental illness in early America. His paranoia is obvious early in his writings. He lashed out against the “speculators,” a vague term encompassing everyone who wished to do him harm and anyone who tried to restrict his personal freedom. It is impossible to know what Brunt said to Jefferson this September day, but his writings indicate the tone and tenor of his discourse. There may be no better way to introduce Jonathan Brunt than to let him do the talking.3
The History of Jonathan Brunt
I was born in a small village, in the county of Derby, near the county of York, in Old England, on the eight of May 1760…. When near fifteen years old I went ’prentice to a Stationer, Printer, and Bookseller, at Sheffield in Yorkshire, about six miles from the place where I was born. As my natural and acquired abilities are not very great, they were not suitable employments, because I could not excel a majority of my fellow-workmen in quickness and judgment. As I am of a very private turn of mind, Agriculture (the natural and most useful employment of man) would have suited me better. During my servitude I was religiously inclined, tho’ frequently overcome with my private besetting sin, which made me very unhappy.
After working two years at Sheffield, and one year at London, in different Printing-Offices, I saved, by industry and frugality, upwards of fifty pounds. With this sum, and one hundred pounds I was entrusted with by my parents, through the improper influence of an indulgent mother, I kept a Bookseller’s shop, and engaged in the Printing Business, at Sheffield, on a contracted plan, but did not succeed very well, thro’ want of more spirit and property to carry it on….
Before I had been two years in business, I unfortunately made too free with the second woman-servant who lived with me, and, though of very short duration, I made some foolish and wicked promises, (only conditional, that she was free from every other man) but they were soon after set entirely aside by the young woman taking a false oath before a Magistrate. If I was wrong and unfit at that time, (through the foul sin of self-pollution) for intercourse with a woman, she was equally as unfit for an intercourse with the other sex, from causes unknown to me at this time. How severely such a conduct is censured by the commands of God. Through this indiscretion I paid more than the law of the land required: and was accused of many things of which I was quite innocent.
In a few years after I committed a worse fault with a young woman who lived with me. I obeyed the Law: but the fruit of this bad proceeding (a girl) died at the age of about seven months. In about half a year after the child’s death, this young woman was married to another man….
Above ten years ago I arrived in America, with an intention to procure an honest living, by following the printing business in different parts, which conduct I have mostly observed to the present day….
Travelling on the Green Mountain in Vermont, the beginning of January 1795, or six, when there was a large fall of snow, I unfortunately missed the main road, and got entangled in the woods, about nine o’clock one Saturday morning, where I walked about six or seven hours on the hills and in the vallies, in the latter of which the snow was more than knee deep, when I began to feel great pain in my feet and ankles, caused by the intense frost, when I fortunately heard the sound of an axe, towards which I immediately directed my course, at which house I arrived one or two hours before sun-set, which happened to be on the main road I had left, by mistake—the said house had been empty some time before, but two young men had come there one or two days before my misfortune, to repair that house. The said young men had prepared a bucket of cold water on my arrival, but I did not make the experiment of plunging my feet and legs into the water, because of the great pain I felt therein—I stayed at the said house a few days where poultices were applied to my sore feet, and then they removed me to several farmhouses for the space of three months, during which time a gradual cure was nearly compleated by salving and nursing—except a small piece of bone coming out of one of my great toes, the bad effects of which I sensibly feel to the present day….
When I was in New York the beginning of December 1797,… John Moulson enquired for me, pretending that he had seen my own father at Sheffield, the 10th of July, 1797, and that my father had paid £21. 12s to him, for my use and service, that is, to procure return passage to England for me…. When on or about the 15th of December 1797, the said J. M. came to me, and said he would take me to a Doctor, without any expence; but instead thereof, he treacherously decoyed me into the City Hospital, pretending to the Doctors, (for there were more than one) and Steward (who was a villainous Englishman) that I was crazy, or insane. These persons seemed to favor his views, as their intention was to increase their patients, and I was taken down into No. 2, when and where I discovered too late their tyrannical designs, and solicited to go out of the Hospital immediately; on which the understrappers in waiting, (a Scotchman and an Irishman) by order of the Steward, thrust me into a cold cell; on using violence, or taking hold of me, I called out murder, and said I was betrayed. During this illegal and cruel persecution, the said J. M. was either in the Doctor’s or Governess’ room.—They locked me up in the said cell a few days, they afterwards permitted me to be a prisoner at large…. They detained and confined me 18 weeks in the said Hospital, with the perfect use of my reason, or the rational powers of my mind—the pretended allegation of insanity being entirely false and groundless, if not malicious. If I had not behaved peaceably and orderly during the said confinement, the miscreants about me would have put me in the strait jacket….
It is worthy of remark, that during my confinement, a speculator came to me, and said, that I might go out of the Hospital with somebody …. I was determined not to surrender my personal liberty to any one, or put myself at the disposition of another, either man or woman; but that I would act according to the good Laws of the United States, if they would permit me.
At last they thought on another plan to cause me to forfeit the ways of honor; they obliged me to sign a palpable lie, to regain my personal liberty, viz. “Cured of mania.” I scarcely knew whether to sign the lie, or attempt to get over the part-picked fence; for fear of being used ill, if I failed to get out of the city, I thought it best to sign the lie.…
In the eastern states, in the midst of plenty, from the years 1796 to 1800, some depraved miscreants, preparing some unfortunate bodies, and then castrating them, gave me the unlawful contents to eat secretly—but I express my abhorrence of such bad cannibal practices and principles. Before I came to America I could not have supposed that one such depraved wretch had existed therein. About the year 1798, some evil disposed persons in Virginia and New-York state, joining in a secret combination, attempted to carry me off, by putting dreadful poison into some good milk or hasty-pudding….
It is difficult to say how much personal
information Brunt offered as he introduced himself to Jefferson. Brunt himself admitted, “I sometimes talk too much, at other times too little.”4 Perhaps he stopped short of confessing his private besetting sin of self-pollution or expressing his paranoia about people feeding him human body parts or poisoning his hasty pudding. Chances are he revealed enough to make Jefferson recognize what John Moulson had recognized the previous decade: Jonathan Brunt was quite insane.
Actually, Jefferson did know something about this strange little man before meeting him in person. Brunt had written the president from Schenectady six years earlier, sending him a pamphlet he had edited and partly composed.5 Brunt was hoping to curry Jefferson’s favor in order to obtain a post with his administration. The pamphlet he sent was titled Rush’s Extracts. It excerpted passages from a charge that Judge Jacob Rush had given a grand jury in Northampton County, Pennsylvania. Rush’s comments amount to an impassioned treatise on patriotism. This pamphlet also contains a series of essays composed by Brunt, one accusing some people of cannibalism, another attacking those who thought he was insane, and another retelling the story of his hospitalization in New York.
Nearly a year after sending him a copy of Rush’s Extracts, Brunt wrote President Jefferson again, explaining his circumstances and asking for a position: “As I have followed the Printing-Business in America without much success, thro’ the minds of the people being somewhat contaminated with corrupt speculations; (which is not actuated by a principle of laudable enterprize in honest Industry;) I hoped you would not be displeased if I enquired of you, if it would be practicable to get a place as a writer or copyist under your Government.”6 Needless to say, Jefferson had no place in his administration for him.
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