Opening paragraphs............

It was a provincial version of the grand entrance.  On June 20, 1775, Thomas Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia in an ornate carriage, called a phaeton, along with four horses and three slaves.  The roughly three-hundred-mile trip from Williamsburg had taken him ten days, in part because the roads were poor and poorly marked - twice he had been forced to hire guides to recover the route - and in part because he had dawdled in Fredericksburg and Annapolis to purchase extra equipment for his entourage.  As the newest and youngest member of Virginia's delegation to the Continental Congress, he obviously intended to uphold the stylish standard of the Virginia gentry, which the Philadelphia newspapers had recently described, with a mixture of admiration and apprehension, as those "haughty sultans of the South....."
-Joseph J.  Ellis
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson