Th:  Jefferson.

P. S. June 18.  The motion under debate with the Commons, for constituting their Assembly, passed yesterday by a majority of four hundred and odd, against eighty odd.  The latter were for it in substance, but wished some particular amendment.  They proceeded instantly to the subject of taxation.  A member who called on me this moment, gave me a state of the proceedings of yesterday, from memory, which I enclose you.  He left the House a little before the question was put, because he saw there was no doubt of its passing, and his brother, who remained till the decision, informed him of it.  So that we may expect, perhaps, in the course of to-morrow, to see whether the government will interpose with a bold hand, or will begin a negotiation.  But in the mean time, this letter must go off.  I will find some other opportunity, however, of informing you of the issue.  T. J.

^^^ [Character of Mr. Necker, accompanying the preceding letter.]

Nature bestowed on Mr. Necker an ardent passion for glory, without, at the same time, granting him those qualities required for its pursuit by direct means.  The union of a fruitful imagination with a limited talent, with which she has endowed him, is always incompatible with those faculties of the mind which qualify their possessor to penetrate, to combine, and to comprehend all the relations of objects.

He had probably learned in Geneva, his native country, the influence which riches exercise on the success of ambition, without having recourse to the school of Paris, where he arrived about the twenty-eighth year of his age.  A personal affair with his brother, in which the chiefs of the republic conducted themselves unjustly towards him, the circumstances of which, moreover, exposed him to ridicule, determined him to forsake his country.  On taking his leave, he assured his mother that he would make a great fortune at Paris.  On his arrival, he engaged himself as clerk, at a salary of six hundred livres, with the banker Thelusson, a man of extreme harshness in his intercourse with his dependants.  The same cause which obliged other clerks to abandon the service of Thelusson, determined Necker to continue in it.  By submitting to the brutality of his master with a servile resignation, whilst, at the same time, he devoted the most unremitting attention to his business, he recommended himself to his confidence, and was taken into partnership.  Ordinary abilities only were requisite to avail him of the multitude of favorable circumstances, which, before he entered into the administration, built up a fortune of six millions of livres.  He owed much of his good fortune to his connections with the Abbe Terrai, of whose ignorance he did not scruple to profit.  His riches, his profession, his table, and a virtuous, reasonable, and well informed wife, procured him the acquaintance of many persons of distinction, among whom were many men of letters, who celebrated his knowledge and wisdom.