“I told him that no man had ever had less desire of entering into public offices than myself: that the circumstance of a perilous war, which brought everything into danger, and called for all the services which every citizen could render, had induced me to undertake the administration of the government of Virginia” and that he had twice refused diplomatic appointments before “a domestic loss … made me fancy that absence, and a change of scene for a time, might be expedient for me,” which led him to accept the assignment in France.
