us, and we engaged him as a guide to extricate us out of our difficulty;
but woods are all you see, from Baltimore, until you reach the city, which
is only so in name. Here and there is a small cot, without a glass window,
interspersed among the forests, through which you travel miles without
seeing any human being. * * * * * * * * * The house is made habitable, but
there is not a single apartment finished, and all withinside, except the
plastering, has been done since Briesier came. We have not the least
fence, yard, or other convenience without, and the great unfinished
audience-room I make a drying-room of, to hang up the clothes in. The
principal stairs are not up, and will not be this winter. Six chambers are
made comfortable; two are occupied by the President and Mr. Shaw; two
lower rooms, one for a common parlor, and one for a levee room. Up stairs
there is the oval room, which is designed for the drawing-room, and has
the crimson furniture in it. It is a very handsome room now; but when
completed, it will be beautiful."

The presidential contest in 1800, was urged with a warmth and bitterness,
by both parties, which has not been equalled in any election since that
period. It was the first time two candidates ever presented themselves to
the people as rival aspirants for the highest honor in their gift. Both
were good men and true--both were worthy of the confidence of the country.
But Mr. Adams, weighed down by the unpopularity of acts adopted during his
administration, and suffering under the charge of being an enemy to
revolutionary France, and a friend of monarchical England, was distanced
and defeated by his competitor. Mr. Jefferson was elected the third
President of the Republic, and was inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1801.
One of the last acts of John Adams, before retiring from the Presidency,
was to recall his son from Berlin, that Mr. Jefferson might have no
embarrassment in that direction.