I leave to others the sublime delight of riding in the storm, better pleased with sound sleep and a warm berth below, with the society of neighbors, friends, and fellow-laborers of the earth, than of spies and sycophants. No one, then, will congratulate you with purer disinterestedness than myself. The share, indeed, which I may have had in the late vote I shall still value highly, as an evidence of the share I have in the esteem of my fellow-citizens. But still, in this point of view, a few votes less would be little sensible; the difference in the effect of a few more would be very sensible and oppressive to me. I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office. Since the day, too, on which you signed the treaty of Paris, our horizon was never so overcast. I devoutly wish you may be able to shun for us this war, by which our agriculture, commerce, and credit will be destroyed. If you are, the glory will be all your own; and that your administration may be filled with glory and happiness to yourself and advantage to us, is the sincere wish of one who, though, in the course of our voyage through life, various little incidents have happened or been contrived to separate us, retains still for you the solid esteem of the moments when we were working for our independence, and sentiments of respect and attachment.
Of the office of Vice-president, we find Jefferson, in a letter to Madison written on January 1st, 1797, saying:
It is the only office in the world about which I am unable to decide in my own mind whether I had rather have it or not have it. Pride does not enter into the estimate; for I think, with the Romans, that the general of to-day should be a soldier to-morrow, if necessary. I can particularly have no feelings which could revolt at a secondary position to Mr. Adams. I am his junior in life, was his junior in Congress, his junior in the diplomatic line, his junior lately in our civil government.
He always spoke of this office as being of all others the most desirable, from the fact that it gave the incumbent a high position, good salary, and ample leisure. To him this last advantage was its greatest recommendation, and made him accept it with less reluctance than he would have done any other which his countrymen could have forced upon him.