He Hated Britain And Was Always In Debt
Wikimedia CommonsJefferson was so disgusted by the British burning the White House during the War of 1812 that he hoped to hire arsonists to burn St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Thomas Jefferson was a substantial Francophile, and presumably deepened his affection for all things French while working as a U.S. Envoy and Minister to the country. Meanwhile, he detested Great Britain with just as much vigor as he appreciated France.
Indeed, he believed Great Britain to be a repulsive and evil place.
This was in part because he was always in debt to British banks that were unwilling to accept American currency. At one point, Jefferson’s debt exceeded $100,000, but his hatred for Britain reportedly ran much deeper than mere financial entanglements.
Jefferson wrote that America was engaged in “eternal war” with the country, especially following the War of 1812 when the British set fire to the White House.
The man’s outlook was so bleak on the country that he believed the conflict would end with the “extermination of the one or the other party.” He eventually proposed that America secretly hire arsonists to burn St. Paul’s Cathedral in London to the ground.
Wikimedia CommonsPictured is the St. Paul Cathedral in London, which Jefferson wanted to see burn.
Jefferson was so passionately hateful of Great Britain that he even accused George Washington of being unpatriotic — claiming he had surrendered to the seductions of “harlot England.”
But Washington’s diplomacy with the Crown was rooted in the 1795 Jay Treaty which bartered peace for the two nations, which Jefferson deemed treasonous and said was “an alliance between England and the Anglomen of this country against the legislature and people of the United States.”
Jefferson even skipped Washington’s memorial service in December 1799 in protest of the General’s relationship toward Great Britain.
