Nature intended me for the pursuits of science

[This is from my letter to Samuel Du Pont de Nemours, March 2, 1809. It was two days before the end of my Presidency.]

Within a few days I retire to my family, my books, & farms & having gained the harbor myself. I shall look on my friends still buffeting the storm, with anxiety indeed, but not with envy. Never did prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power. Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight.

[Here are what other US Presidents say about being US President, by Arthur Edson of the Utica Observer-Dispatch:

IN WATCHING the vigorous jockeying for position in the presidential sweepstakes, it's strange to see how those who have won regard it.

Here's the way Washington sized up the job, at a time when he was being subjected to heavy criticism: "I would rather be in my grave than in the presidency."

John Adams said after his term expired: "If I were to go over my life again I would be a shoemaker rather than an American statesman."

Jefferson, midway in his second term: "It brings nothing but unceasing drudgery and daily loss of friends."

Lincoln: "If to be the head of hell is hard as what I have to undergo here, I could find it in my heart to pity Satan himself.”

Garfield, nine months before his assassination; "My God, what is there in this place that a man should ever want to get in it."

Wilson: "There are blessed intervals when I forget by one means or another that I am president of the United States."]