Thomas Jefferson and Great Britain in Peace and War

Abstract

My subject is Thomas Jefferson’s attitude toward Great Britain in peace and war. And since I am now more practising novelist than scholar, let me begin by sketching a scene. In early March 1786 Jefferson, who was at that time the American Minister Plenipotentiary to France, was invited by John Adams, his counterpart in England, to come to London for a conference on certain matters of trade. They were to confer in London because Adams was a cranky man who disliked Paris very much, and also bec..