USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -On February 28, 1787, the forty-four-year-old Thomas Jefferson left Paris for a three month, twelve-hundred-mile journey to southern France and northern Italy.

Detailed explanation-2: -On May 17, 1784, the Confederation Congress appointed Thomas Jefferson as a Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Versailles, directing him to join Benjamin Franklin and John Adams in Paris where he would eventually become the senior Minister in France.

Detailed explanation-3: -He would be gone for five years. As minister to France, he took every opportunity to explore that country. Trips for both business and pleasure took him to England, the Netherlands and what is now Germany and Italy.

Detailed explanation-4: -In addition to making military preparations for a conflict in the Mississippi Valley, Jefferson sent James Monroe to join Robert Livingston in France to try to purchase New Orleans and West Florida for as much as $10 million.

Detailed explanation-5: -In 1784, the Congress of Confederation, which was the precursor assembly to the U.S. Congress, sent Thomas Jefferson to France as a foreign minister (ambassador). Jefferson had previously served as a member of the Continental Congress, governor of Virginia, and a member of the Congress of Confederation.