Title: From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 5 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Tudor, William, Sr.

5 June 1813

“You ‘never profoundly admired Mr. H.’ I have suggested some hints in his favor. You ‘never profoundly admired Mr. S. A.’ I have promised you an apology for him. You may think it a weak one; for I have no talent at panegyric or apology. ‘There are all sorts of men in the world.’ This observation, you may say, is self-evident and futile; yet Mr. Locke thought it not unworthy of him to make it; and if we reflect upon it, there is more meaning in it than meets the eye at the first blush. You say Mr. S. A. ‘had too much sternness and pious bigotry.’ A man in his situation and circumstances must possess a large fund of sternness of stuff, or he will soon be annihilated. His piety ought not to be objected to him or any other man. His bigotry, if he had any, was a fault; but he certainly had not more than governor Hutchinson and secretary Oliver, who I know, from personal conversations, were as stanch Trinitarians and Calvinists as he was, and treated all Arians and Arminians with more contempt and scorn, than he ever did. Mr. Adams lived and conversed freely with all sectarians in philosophy and divinity. He never imposed his creed on any one, nor endeavored to make proselytes to his religious opinions. He was as far from sentencing any man to perdition who differed from him, as Mr. Holley, Dr. Kirkland, or Dr. Freeman. If he was a Calvinist, a Calvinist he had been educated, and so had been all his ancestors for two hundred years. He had been from his childhood too much devoted to politics to be a profound student in metaphysics and theology, or to make extensive researches or deep investigations into such subjects. Nor had any other man attempted it in this nation in that age, if any one has attempted it since. Mr. Adams was an original. Sui generis, sui juris. The variety of human characters is infinite. Nature seems to delight in showing the inexhaustibility of her resources. There never were two men alike, from the first man to the last, any more than two pebbles or two peas.
“Mr. Adams was born and tempered a wedge of steel, to split the knot of lignum vitæ which tied North America to Great Britain. Blunderheaded as were the British ministry, they had sagacity enough to discriminate from all others, for inexorable vengeance, the two men the most to be dreaded by them, Samuel Adams and John Hancock; and had not James Otis been then dead, or worse than dead, his name would have been at the head of The Triumvirate.
“James Otis, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock, were the three most essential characters; and Great Britain knew it, though America does not. Great and important and excellent characters, aroused and excited by these, arose in Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, South Carolina, and in all the other States; but these three were the first movers, the most constant, steady, persevering springs, agents, and most disinterested sufferers and firmest pillars of the whole Revolution.
“I shall not attempt even to draw the outlines of the biography of Mr. Samuel Adams. Who can attempt it ?
“But if I had time, eyes and fingers at my command, where should I find documents and memorials? Without the character of Samuel Adams, the true history of the American Revolution can never be written. For fifty years his pen, his tongue, his activity were constantly exerted for his country, without fee or reward. During all that time he was an almost incessant writer. But where are his writings? Who can collect them? And if collected, who will ever read them? The letters he wrote and received, where are they? I have seen him at Mrs. Yard’s in Philadelphia, when he was about to leave Congress, cut up with his scissors whole bundles of letters, into atoms that could never be reunited, and throw them out at the window, to be scattered by the winds. This was in summer, when he had no fire. In winter he threw whole handfuls into the fire. As we were on terms of perfect intimacy, I have joked him, perhaps rudely, upon his anxious caution. His answer was, ‘Whatever becomes of me, my friends shall never suffer by my negligence.’
“This may be thought a less significant anecdote than another. Mr. Adams left the letters he had received and preserved, in possession of his widow. This lady, as was natural, lent them to a confidential friend of her husband, Mr. Avery, who then was and had been Secretary of the Commonwealth under the administrations of Mr. Adams and Mr. Hancock. Mr. Avery informed me that ‘he had them, and that they were a complete history of the Revolution.’ I will not say into whose hands they fell after Mr. Avery’s death, and I cannot say where they are now. But I have heard that a gentleman in Charlestown, Mr. Austin, undertook to write the Life of Mr. Adams; but finding his papers had been so garbled that the truth could not be discovered, he abandoned his design. Never will those letters which secretary Avery possessed ever be brought together again, nor will they ever be found. So much for Mr. Adams, at present. Now for Mr. Otis.
“I write no biographies or biographical sketches. I give only hints. James Otis was descended from our most ancient families. His education was the best his country afforded. He was bred to the bar under Mr. Gridley, the greatest lawyer and the greatest classic scholar I ever knew at any bar. His application was incessant and indefatigable. Justice Richard Dana has often told me, that the apartment in which Otis studied, when a pupil and a clerk of Mr. Gridley, was near his house; that he had watched him from day to day, and that he had never known a student in law so punctual, so steady, so constant and persevering. Accordingly, as soon as he was admitted to the bar, he became a conspicuous figure. And among whom? Gridley, Pratt, Trowbridge, and he was much admired, and as much celebrated as any of them. His generous, manly, noble character as a private gentleman, his uncommon attainments in literature, especially in the law, and his nervous, commanding eloquence at the bar, were every where spoken of. The government soon discerned his superiority, and commissioned him Advocate General. He married a lady who in that day was esteemed a fortune. From 1755 to 1758, I heard my master, Colonel James Putnam of Worcester, who was a critical judge, and Mr. Trowbridge, the then attorney general, and his lady, constantly speaking of Otis as the greatest, the most learned, the most manly and the most honest young man of his age. All this was before I had ever seen Mr. Otis. I never saw him till late in the autumn of 1758, nor Mr. Samuel Adams till after that year.
“To sum up, in a few words. The two young men whom I have known to enter the stage of life with the most luminous, unclouded prospects and the best founded hopes, were James Otis and John Hancock. They were both essential to the Revolution, and both fell sacrifices to it.
“Mr. Otis, from 1760 to 1770, had correspondences in this province, in New England, in the middle and southern Colonies, in England, in Scotland. What is become of these letters and answers? Mr. Otis, soon after my earliest acquaintance with him, lent me a summary of Greek Prosody of his own collection and composition; a work of profound learning and great labor. I had it six months in my possession before I returned it. Since my return from Europe, I asked his daughter whether she had found that work among her father’s manuscripts? She answered me with a countenance of wo, that you may more easily imagine than I can describe, that she ’had not a line from her father’s pen!’ That ‘he had spent much time and taken great pains to collect together all his letters and other papers, and in one of his unhappy moments committed them all to the flames.’ I have used her own expressions.
“Such has been the fate of the memorials of Mr. James Otis and Mr. Samuel Adams. It was not without reason, then, that I wrote to Mr. Niles of Baltimore, that the true history of the American Revolution is lost forever. I could write volumes of other proofs of the same truth, before, during, and since the Revolution. But, cui bono? They would be read by very few, and by very few of those few would be credited.”


Title: To John Adams from Richard Rush, 6 June 1813
From: Rush, Richard
To: Adams, John

Dear and Respected Sir.
Washington June 6th. 1813.

It was only the day before yesterday that Mr Andrew Eliot handed me your letter dated the 5th of May. Although you do not speak of him as being particularly known to you yet the mere circumstance of his bringing a letter to me from your hand was gratifying, and constitutes the highest claim to my attention to him. As yet I have seen him but once when he delivered it to me; but in whatever way I can facilitate the business that brought him here it will afford me great pleasure to do so.
Your endearing expressions of my departed father were very cordial to my heart. Out of his own immediate family every member of it well knows that there lived no man in all that related to whom he took so deep, so constant, and so affectionate an interest as yourself. Your illustrious services, your illustrious virtues, and the many other tittles to his ardent and unalterable esteem for you, all the members of his family have had impressed upon them, unalterably too I hope, by his frequent repetitions. It was my peculiar affliction to have been away from him for more than a year before his death; nor, (so rapid was the progress of his disease) could I be in time to receive his dying blessing. I reached his disconsolate house just as the funeral obsequies were over, and the gates of the tomb shut forever upon me.
Mr Jones, the secretary of the Navy, is the acting secretary of the Treasury in the absence of Mr Gallatin; though, in truth,  it is merely a nominal power that he will exercise. Few men are so thoroughly men of business as Mr Gallatin; he left nothing in arrears when he went away, and this, with skilful clerks in his office drilled by long practice, and very precise and full instructions for all matters which he left behind, will enable its common business to go on well enough, with Mr Jones’s mere signature, to give it the official stamp. All the tax bills which it is probable you will soon see reported were drawn up by Mr Gallatin previously to his departure; and so of that late Treasury report and statement sent into Congress under Mr Jones’s name as acting secretary. Yet, Mr Gallatins absence at such a time as the present is considered by many a disadvantage. Should he get back, and with a treaty, as he hoped to do, by Christmas, all may be well. But should he be kept longer it appears to me there may be some embarrassment to the business of his department. With all your kind opinions, Sir, I am by far too great a tyro for its present labours and responsibilities.
You, Sir, who can never cease to think of your country, and who have lent the sanction of your name to the justice of the war it is engaged in, cannot fail to derive satisfaction from the improved posture of our publick affairs and the late successes of our arms. The army is filling up fast, the treasury is well supplied and most probably will continue to be so, the majority on the side of the government is stronger in congress than on the declaration of war, the state of New York has fallen in with Pennsylvania and Virginia and the prospect of prosecuting the war with vigor and success now apparently as good as I believe the determination so to prosecute it is certainly taken.
With those sentiments of veneration that belong to your character, and at the same time with the most respectful personal attachment, allow me to subscribe myself your youthful friend—

Richard Rush.


Title: From John Adams to Joseph Delaplaine, 8 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Delaplaine, Joseph

Sir
Quincy June 8th 1813

There are several things abroad which are reported to have been intended as pictures of me; some of them drawn by persons who never saw me. others by persons who never saw me to whom I never sat and others and others by painters who requested me to sit.
I pretend not to be a judge of the merit of any of them. But there is not an approved likness among them. The least approved of all is one that was taken by a Roman Catholic priest who was preaching to me while I was sitting mute before him, on transubstantiation and the incarnation of God. This he had engraved and as Mr Stewart informed me, sold two and twenty thousand of them at a dollar a piece
My head has been so long the sport of painters, as my heart has been of libellers, that I shall make no objection to any use that may be made of either
It would rejoice my soul to see a real portrait of Dr Rush or Mr Jay.
I am Sir your humble Servant

John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Mathew Carey, 9 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Carey, Mathew

Mr Carey
Quincy May June 9. 1813

I have received your kind letter of the 3d instant with two Copies of the Sketches having received one before, bseides the first. All the four arrived in perfect Condition. One I gave yesterday to my Nephew, William Smith Shaw, formerly my private Secretary, for his Boston Athenæum, who is delighted with it, a Second I gave to our Quincy Library, and it is now circulating in this Village, whose Inhabitants are almost as Aquatic as Turtles. Mr Clarks circular Letters I have Scattered where I thought they would the Soonest take root Spring up and grow. And I will Spread as many as you will Send me, to the best of my Judgment.
I should like to know, the price of the Volumes; but be it more what it may; I pray you send me a Copy by every Mail, till I desire you to desist; or till the Edition is exhausted. I have a few Shares in the Schuylkill Bridge and I believe I may have a little property in the hands of Mr Dobson; As soon as my Son Thomas Boylston Adams, can convey to proper Powers of Attorney, to any of his Friends, Say Mr Meredith or Mr Ewing, I will endeavor to remit you the Money: but at all Events you shall have it. Silver and Gold have I none; and our villainous paper I hope, will not pass with you: but in all events your pay shall be Sure.
Mr Clark has a Serious event to record in his Second Edition, the Fate of the ill Starred Cheasapeak.
Human Nature, Mankind, bear Adversity, better than Prosperity. Lessons of real Wisdom are never learned in the latter. For this reason, I wish that every Error Indiscretion defeat and disgrase of our navy and of its creators may be accorded with sacred fidelity I am convinced it will do more good than all our victories, Triumphs and Glories though I would by no means have these “belittled.”
I take it for granted that Lawrence is dead. Let us tread lightly on the Ashes of the dead heroism as exalted as any in history: but let us not forget that heroism, is often indiscreet. Let Challenges, Defiances  Gasconades and all Thrasonism, be gently reproved. It never ends well. The Massachusetts Expedition to penobscot is one of the most affecting and instructive admonitions to statesmen to Generals and admirals, that American history affords. The number of Ships the number of men the number of Guns, the names and power of ships, the names and conduct of commanders every step of their proceedings and their final contemptible and deplorable catastrophy I wish to see recorded with impartial and scrupulous truth. I fear no disgraceful truth I fear nothing but panegyric.
The part you have taken in this work merits the thanks of America, and assuredly those of your humble Servant,

John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 9 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Waterhouse, Benjamin

Dear Sir
Quincy June 9th 1813

I enclose you sketches of Naval history and a letter from the Author Make what use of them you think probono publico.

John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 11 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Jefferson, Thomas

Dear Sir
Quincy June 11. 1813

I recd. yesterday your favour of May 27th. I lament with you the loss of Rush. I know of no Character living or dead who has done more real good in America. Robert Treat Paine still lives, at 83 or 84, alert drol and witty though deaf. Floyd I believe, yet remains. Paine must be very great; Philosopher and Christian; to live under the Afflictions of his Family. Sons and Daughters with Genius and qualities and Connections and prospects the most pleasing, have been Signally unfortunate. A Son, whose name was altered, from Thomas to Robert Treat has left a Volume of Prose and Verse, which will attract the Attention of Posterity to his Father, more than his Signature of Independence. It is the History of a Poet, and in Genius Eccentricity, Irregularity, Misfortune and Misery, equal to most in Johnsons Lives.
To your ignoro, I add non curo. I should as soon Suppose that the Prodigal Son, in a  frolic with one of his Girls made a trip to America in one of Mother Careys Eggshels, and left the fruits of their Amours here as believe any of the grave hypotheses, and Solemn reasonings of Philosophers or Divines upon the Subject of the peopling of America. If my Faith in Moses or Noah depended on any of these Speculations, I would give it up.
I Sincerely thank you for your congratulations on the Successes of our Navy. I wish to write you more, than my paralyttic Fingers will justify or tollerate up this Subject. I believe, but am not certain, that you was present in Congress, in the 5th of October 1775, when it appears by the Journal, the first foundation of an American Navy was laid. I wish to know, whether you recollect the opposition that was made to the appointment of that Committee, to their report, and to the Adoption the Resolution. Do you retain any recollection of the Speeches of Edward Rutledge Robert Treat Paine, or any other Member, on that Occasion? It is, to be Sure a question of idle curiosity. but the curiosity is very Strong.
I have another Curiosity more ardent Still. I have ever believed that you were the Author of, the Essay towards a Navy when you was Secretary of State. I have reason to suspect that Hamilton was averse to that Measure. That you were always for a Navy to compell the Barbary Powers to peace, I distinctly remember in in many of our personal Conversations in Europe: and I have carefully preserved very Strong Letters from You full of arguments for Such a Navy. If I am mistaken in ascribing to you the measures taken in Washingtons Administration, looking towards a Navy, I wish you to correct my  Errors. Till that is done I shall Sincerely believe myself orthodox. The Mail approaches, and I must cease with Assurances of respect and Esteem
John Adams
P.S. We must have a Navy now to command The Lakes, if it costs Us 100 Ships of the Line; whatever becomes of the Ocean
J.A.


Title: From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 14 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Jefferson, Thomas

Dear Sir
Quincy June 14. 1813

In your Letter to Dr. Priestley of March 21. 1801, you “tender him, the protection of those laws which were made for the wise and good, like him; and disclaim the legitimacy of that Libel on legislation, which, under the form of a Law, was for Sometime placed among them.” This Law, I presume was, the Alien Law, as it was called.
As your name is Subscribed to that law, as Vice President, and mine as President, I know not why you are not as responsible for it as I am. Neither of Us were Concerned in the formation of it. We were then at War with France: French Spies then swarmed in our Cities and in the Country. Some of them were intolerably, turbulent, impudent, and Seditious. To check these was the design of this, law. Was there ever a Government, which had not Authority to defend itself against Spies in its own Bosom? Spies of an Ennemy at War? This Law was never executed by me in any Instance.
But what is the conduct of our Government now? Aliens are ordered to report their names and obtain Certificates once a month: and an industrious Scotchman, at this moment industriously labouring in my Garden is obliged to walk once a month to Boston, eight miles at least, to renew his Certificate from the Marshall. And a fat Organist is ordered into the Country. Etc. &c. &c. All this is right. Every Government has by the Law of Nations a right to make prisoners of War of every Subject of an Enemy. But a War with England differs not from a War with France. The Law of Nations is the same in both.
I cannot write Volumes in a Single Sheet: but these Letters of yours require Volumes from me.
“The mighty Wave of public Opinion, which has rolled over!” This, in your Style, and Sometimes in mine, with less precision and less delicacy. Oh! Mr Jefferson! What a Wave of public Opinion has rolled over the Universe? By the Universe here, I mean our Globe. I can yet Say there is nothing new under the Sun, in my Sense. The Reformation rolled Wave of public opinion over the Globe, as wonderful as this; A War of thirty Years, was necessary to compose this Wave. The Wars of Charlemaigne rolled a Wave. the Crusades rolled a Wave, more mountainous than the French Revolution. Only one hundred years ago,  a Wave was rolled; when Austria England and Holland in Alliance, contended against France, for the dominion or rather the Alliance of Spain.
Had “The Clock run down,” I am not So Sanguine, as you, that the Consequence would have been as you presume. I was determined in all Events to retire. You and Mr Madison are indebted to Bayard, for an Evasion of the Contest. Had the Voters for Burr, addressed the Nation, I am not Sure that your Convention would have decided in your Favour. But what reflections does this Suggest? What Pretensions had Aaron Burr to be President or Vice President?
What a “Wave” has rolled over Christendom for 1500 years? What a Wave has rolled over France for 1500 Years Supporting in Power and Glory the Dinasty of Bourbon? What a Wave Supported the House of Austria? What a Wave has Supported the Dinasty of Mahomet, for 1200 Years? What a Wave Supported the House of Hercules, for So many Ages in more remote Antiquity? These waves are not to be Slighted. They are less resistable than those in the Gulph Stream in an hurricane. What a Wave has the French Revolution Spread? And what a Wave is our Navy of five Frigates raising?
If I can keep this book, “Memoirs of Lindsey” I Shall have more to Say. Meantime I remain your Friend
John Adams


Title: To John Adams from Thomas Jefferson, 15 June 1813
From: Jefferson, Thomas
To: Adams, John

Dear Sir
Monticello June 15. 13.

I wrote you a letter on the 27th of May, which probably would reach you about the 3d inst. and on the 9th I received yours of the 29th of May. of Lindsay’s Memoirs. I had never before heard, & scarcely indeed of himself. it could not therefore but be unexpected that two letters of mine should have anything to do with his life. the name of his editor was new to me, & certainly presents itself, for the first time, under unfavorable circumstances. religion, I suppose, is the scope of his book: and that a writer on that subject should usher himself to the world in the very act of the grossest abuse of confidence, by publishing private letters which passed between two friends, with no views to their ever being made public, is an instance of inconsistency, as well as of infidelity of which I would rather be the victim than the author. by your kind quotation of the dates of my two letters I have been enabled to turn to them. they had compleately vanished from my memory. the last is on the subject of religion, and by it’s publication will gratify the priesthood with new occasion of repeating their Comminations against me. they wish it to be believed that he can have no religion who advocates it’s freedom. this was not the doctrine of Priestley, and I honored him for the example of liberality he set to his order.
the first letter is political. it recalls to our recollection the gloomy transactions, the doctrines they witnessed, and the sensibilities they excited. it was a confidential communication of reflections on these from one friend to another, deposited in his bosom, and never meant to trouble the public mind. whether the character of the times is justly portrayed or not, posterity will decide. but on one feature of them they can never decide, the sensations excited in free yet firm minds, by the terrorism of the day. none can conceive who did not witness them, and they were felt by one party only. this letter exhibits their side of the medal. the Federalists no doubt have presented the other, in their private correspondences, as well as open action. if their correspondencies should ever be laid open to the public eye, they will probably be found not models of comity towards their adversaries. the readers of my letter should be cautioned not to confine it’s view to this country alone. England & it’s alarmists were equally under consideration. still less must they consider it as looking personally towards you. you happen indeed to be quoted because you happened to express, more pithily than had been done by themselves, one of the mottos of the party. this was in your answer to the address of the young men of Philadelphia. (see Selection of patriotic addresses. pa. 198.) one of the questions on which our parties took different sides, was on the improvability of the human mind, in science, in ethics, in government Etc. those who advocated reformation  of institutions, pari passu, with the progress of science, maintained that no definite limits could be assigned to that progress. the enemies of reform, on the other hand, denied improvement, & advocated steady adherence to the principles practices & institutions of our fathers, which they represented as the consummation of wisdom, & akmé of excellence, beyond which the human mind could never advance. Altho’ in the passage of your answer alluded to, you expressly disclaim the wish to influence the freedom of enquiry, you predict that that will produce nothing more worthy of transmission to posterity, than the principles, institutions, & systems of education recieved from their ancestors. I do not consider this as your deliberate opinion. you possess, yourself, too much science, not to see how much is still ahead of you, unexplained & unexplored. your own consciousness must place you as far before our ancestors, as in the rear of our posterity. I consider it as an expression lent to the prejudices of your friends; and altho’; I happened to cite it from you, the whole letter shows I had them only in view. in truth, my dear Sir dear sir, we were far from considering you as the author of all the measures we blamed. they were placed under the protection of your name, but we were satisfied they wanted much of your approbation. we ascribed them to their real authors, the Pickerings, the Wolcotts, the Tracys, the Sedgwicks, et id genus omne, with whom we supposed you in a state of Duresse. I well remember a conversation with you, in the morning of the day on which you nominated to the Senate a substitute for Pickering, in which you expressed a just impatience under ‘the legacy of Secretaries in which Genl. Washington has left you’ and whom you seemed therefore to consider as under public protection. many other incidents shewed how differently you would have acted with less impassioned advisers; & subsequent events have proved that your minds were not together. you would do me great injustice therefore by  taking to yourself what was intended for men who were then your secret, as they are now your open enemies. should your write on the subject, as you propose, I am sure we shall see you place yourself farther from them than from us.
As to myself, I shall take no part in any discussions. I leave others to judge of what I have done, and to give me exactly that place which they shall think I have occupied. Marshall has written libels on one side; others, I suppose, will be written on the other side; and the world will sift both, and separate the truth as well as they can. I should see with reluctance the passions of that day rekindled in this, while so many of the actors are living, & all are too near the scene, not to participate in sympathies with them. about facts, you and I cannot differ; because truth is our mutual guide. and if any opinions you may express should be different from mine, I shall receive them with the liberality and indulgence which I ask for my own, and still cherish with warmth. the sentiments of affectionate respect of which I can with so much truth tender you the assurance.
Th: Jefferson


Title: To John Adams from Robert Fulton, 17 June 1813
From: Fulton, Robert
To: Adams, John

To the Honorable John AdamsSir
New York June 17th 1813

Accept of my thanks for the letters which I received from you this morning, those from our minister in Russia are duplicates of letters I had the honor to receive from him about Six weeks past, The success of the useful arts must give real pleasure to every man of mind, and to none more than you whose knowledge of political economy enables you to trace all their happy consequences, there are yet many rich gems in the mines of Science which require only exertion to draw them forth; Perseverance may succeed but indolence never can, hence I persevere with mathematics for my Pilot, when I succeed my country is benefited when I fail I loose my time and some mony, but society is not injured An experimental war has not so innocent a character. With profound / respect I am Sir your most obedient

Robt. Fulton


Title: From John Adams to Hendrick W. Gordon, 18 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Gordon, Hendrick W.

Dear Sir
Quincy June 18th 1813

we shall never be able to discharge our obligations to you for your kind attentions and attentions and assistance in our family correspondence with Russia.
your care of the inclosed will add another Item to the debt of your grateful Servant

John Adams


Title: From John Adams to John Mitchell, 19 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Mitchell, John

Sir
Quincy June 19. 1813

I have received the Letter you did me the honour to write me on the first of this month, with a parcel containing Letters from J.Q. Adams Esq in Russia to his Father, his Mother; his Brother & his Sons, with one to Robert Fulton of N. York committed to your care by H. H. Cogswell Esqr Secretary of the Province by Order of his Excellency Sir John C Sherbrook the Commander in Chief.
My thanks are due to you, Sir and to the Secretary for your kind attentions and the trouble you have both had upon this occasion, and above all I pray you to present my respectful compliments to Sir John Sherbrook and my best thanks for his generous politeness, in permitting these letters from Mr Adams so precious to his family, to be transmitted to them.
I have forwarded the letter to Robert Fulton Esqr in N. York by the mail, and have the honor to be Sir your obliged Servant

John Adams.


Title: From John Adams to James Prince, 19 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Prince, James

Dear Sir
Quincy June 19th 1813.

Will  you be so good as to convey the enclosed letter, to Mr Mitchell, our agent in Halifax, for exchange of Prisoners: I have left it open that you may see, there is no treason in it. The parcel of Letters mentioned in it I received from Mr Mitchell through your hands. Decorum requires that I should acknowledge the receipt of them, by the first Cartel. With much esteem
John Adams


Title: To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 20 June 1813
From: Van der Kemp, François Adriaan
To: Adams, John

My Dear and respected Sir!
Oldenbarneveld 20 Jun. 1813.

No, you will not blame me, though I make use of a Sundays afternoon—having the morning employ’d in familÿ worship—in writing to an honoured friend. This too is religion, to remember the favours, which we received, and Shew our gratitude in our good will,  though it is not in our power to prove it bÿ more vigorous exertions Freed this daÿ of head-ache I must improve these moments, and congratulate you  and mrs Adams with the marriage of your grand Son at Petersburg, which I presume must be a desirable union—as the bride is the Sister of your Son’s Ladÿ. If mÿ conjecture is just, it would enhance your Satisfaction, could I in person acquit me of mÿ duty at Quincÿ, then I Should participate in the fulness of your joÿ, and give a free course to mÿ warmest feelings—Maÿ you live—till you can bless the promising progenÿ of these your grand-children!
Your Son’s Situation, now the court has left St Petersburg—at least the Emperor, must be very enviable—at his country-Seat—encircled—when he chuses it—bÿ what is worthÿ in the Capital—Sibi Suisque vivens deditusque musis. There Quincÿ laÿs in Silence the foundation of his future greatness and from there, I ardently hope, he Shall exhilarate the parental bosom bÿ his achievements, if the malignant genius of his countrÿ does not frustrate his attempts, but even then yet he Shall not remain unrewarded.
You mentioned to me, that you possessed a London Edition of Machiavel’s works in Italian. I lately received one of mr. Busti, which as he assures, is incorrectly printed at Amsterdam. It was published in 1725, in three vol. in 8o. The first containing Historie Florentine Il principe—la vita di Castruccio—del Duca Valentino—I ritratti delle Cose di Francia—della Allemagna—the Second Dell’arte della guerra L’asino d’oro—Quattro capitoli in rima terza—Duci decennali in rima terza—Novella—comedie Mandragola elitia—the Third Discorsi Sopra la prima Deca di S. Livio, then the opere inedite—an edition in Small 4to. Londra 1760 being il discorso Sopra il riformar lo Stato di Firenze e 3g Lettere—If your edition contains anÿ thing else of that illustrious writer—I Shall be gratified with the communication of it. To this present was joined Il morgante maggiore di Luigi Pulci in three vol. and Niccolo Fortiguerra’s famous Ricciardetto in 3 vol. The Latter, I did read in a French Translation. Last year mr Busti Send me Alfien’s Tragedie but only the four last vol—It is the Lausanne Addition in 8o 1794. Mifflin promised me, to endeavour to procure me the first. Now he is gone, can you not Step in his place? I know you will if you can Succeed to obtain it; in this manner repeated kindnesses embolden to ask for new ones.
What term of courtesy is it in French—“etre digne de porter le ruban gris-de lin”? perhaps your Ladÿ maÿ learn it to us both—If I am not enlightened—I Shall request instruction bÿ one of my French Correspondents—It vexes me alwaÿs to read—what I do not understand—therefore I trouble my head So little  as possible with deep theologÿ and abstruse metaphysics—and in these Sciences it is excusable to writ, what we understand not—but in belles Lettres it rises a blush—however I am allways prudent enough to chuse mÿ instructors, who dislike to expose me.
If the Sketch is not published I Shall make another correct copy for you or your Son Quincÿ, if you consider its value worth communication
Permit me to request you—to assure your Ladÿ of my high respect I know—you Shall not cease to remain the kind and obliging friend of / Your

Fr. Adr. vanderkemp


Title: To John Adams from Richard Sullivan, 21 June 1813
From: Sullivan, Richard
To: Adams, John

Hon, John Adams
Sir,
Boston 21st. June 1813—

A Letter from you of the 25th. ult. expressive of your intention to decline a reelection to the office of President of the Masstts. Society for promoting Agriculture having been read by the Chairman at the annual meeting for the choice of Officers, I was thereupon directed to make known to you the regret of the Society at the loss of a name from the head of their institution, and of counsels, which have for several years given it so much importance and dignity in the eyes of the community and to express to you the best wishes of the gentlemen present for the continuance of your health and happiness—With these good wishes, Sir, I beg leave respectfully to unite my own—And am, with great / consideration, Your Obedt. Servt.

Ro Sullivan


Title: From John Adams to Robert Fulton, 23 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Fulton, Robert

Sir
Quincy June 23. 1813

I thank you for your favour of the 17th. I am entirely of your Opinion, that the Diamons in the quarries of Science are inexhaustable: and as you have been, I hope you will continue to be a Successful Miner. If I were only fifty years younger I should be happy to dig, with you.
The two Scientific Nations have made experimental War upon Us for twenty years. It is but one, that We have tried a Serious experiment of resistance. If our Success has not been very astonishing, the Want of Experience, not Genius has been wanting. Perseverance will Succeed; indolence never can. I am, Sir, with / much respect your humble Servant

John Adams


Title: From John Adams to William Jones, 23 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Jones, William

Sir
Quincy June 23rd. 1813

I am requested to enclose to you a letter from John Kingman Junior to me of the 16th instant.
Of my own knowledge I can say nothing but that the young man appears intelligent; that he belongs to one of the few towns, in this State which are attached to the present national Administration, and not hostile to the war. All the gentlemen by whom he says he has been recommended, I presume are in sentiment with the town. He is about 20 or 21, By putting his name on the list of Candidates, you will oblige your humble Servant

John Adams


Title: To John Adams from James Lloyd, 24 June 1813
From: Lloyd, James
To: Adams, John

                            Boston June 24. 1813

Mr Lloyd has had the honor to receive a highly flattering note from his Excellency Mr Adams, accompanying a copy of “Sketches of the Naval History of the United States.”—for which he offers his grateful acknowledgments, and begs leave to assure Mr Adams, that he shall at all times greatly reverence those, who in the Cabinet, or on the Ocean, have originated, reared, or upheld the Naval Glory of our Country—the safe defence of the Nation, and which, with due encouragement would be its conductor to those noble destinies, which seem to have been indicated by Omnipotence, and through whose goodness which he still hopes may be in reserve for it.—
Mrs Lloyd presents to Mrs Adams her very respectful remembrances.—


Title: From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 25 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Jefferson, Thomas

Dear Sir
Quincy June 25. 1813

Your favour of the 15th came to me Yesterday, and it is a pleasure to discover that We are only 9 days apart.
Be not Surprised or alarmed. Lindsays Memoirs will do no harm to you or me. You have right and reason to feel and to resent the breach of Confidence. I have had enough of the same kind of Treachery and Perfidy practiced upon me, to know how to Sympathize with you. I will agree with you, in unquallified censure of Such Abuses. They are the worst Species of Tyrany over private Judgment and free Enquiry. They Suppress the free communication of Soul to Soul.
There are critical moments, when Faction, whether in Church or State, will Stick at nothing. Confidence of Friendship the most Sacred, is but a cobweb tie. How few! Oh how few are the exceptions! I could name many Cases of the rule: but will mention but one. Do you remember Tenche Coxe?
You must have misunderstood me, when you understood that I “proposed to write” on the ‘Subject,” if you meant, to the Public. I have written enough and too much, I have  no thought, in this correspondence, but to Satisfy you and myself. If our Letters Should be Shewn to a friend or two, in confidence; and if that confidence Should be betrayed: your Letters will do you no dishonour. As to mine I care not a farthing. My Reputation has been So much the Sport of the public, for fifty years, and will be with Posterity, that I hold it, a bubble, a Gossamuer, that idles in the wanton Summers Air. Now for your Letter.
During the three Years, that I resided in England, I was Somewhat acquainted, with Lindsay, Disnay, Farmer, Price, Priestley, Kippis, Jebb, Vaughans, Bridgon, Brand Hollis &c &c &c. even Dr Towers was not personally unknown to me. A Belsham was once introduced to me, probably the Author of Lindsays Memoirs. I had much conversation with him. Whether he is a Brother of Belsham the Historian, I know not. Lindsay was a Singular Character, unless Jebb was his parrallel. Unitarianism and Biblical Criticism were the great Characteristicks of them all. All were learned, Scientific, and moral. Lindsay was an heroic Christian Philosopher. All, professed Friendship for America, and these were almost all, who pretended to any Such Thing.
I wish you could live a Year in Boston, hear their Divines; read their publications, especially the Repository. You would See how Spiritual Tyranny, and ecclesiastical Domination are beginning in our Country; at least Struggling for birth.
Now, for your political Letter.—No. I have not done, with Spiritual Pride, in high places and in low. I would trust these liberal Christians in London and in Boston, with Power, just as Soon, as I would, Calvin or Cardinal Lorrain; just as Soon as I would the Quakers of Pensylvania; just as Soon as I would Methodists or Moravians; just as Soon as I would Rochefoucault and Condorcet; just as Soon as I would the Œconomists of France; just as Soon as I would Bolingbroke and Voltaire, Hume and Gibbon; nay just as Soon, as I would Robespierre or Brissot. I can go no higher, unless I add The League and the Fronde in France, or Charles the first and Archbishop Laud in England and Ireland.
Let me Say, however, by the Way, that I fully believe, that Priestley is only guilty of an indiscretion, very pardonable, in this thing. Lindsay is perfectly innocent. Belsham has done the wrong. I cannot but contrast his Conduct, with that of Disney, who found among the Papers of Brand Hollis Letters from me and my Wife, which We had both forgotten. He wrote to Us and asked leave to publish them. Neither of Us recollected a Word of them for We had no Copies. We both left to his discretion to publish what he pleased and he has done it. I expected much more nonsense and extravagance in mine than appears, for I wrote to Hollis without reserve.
Checks and Ballances, Jefferson, however you and your Party may have ridiculed them, are our only Security, for the progress of Mind, as well as the Security of Body.—Every Species of these Christians would persecute Deists, as Soon as either Sect would persecute another, if it had unchecked and unballanced Power. Nay, the Deists would persecute Christians, and Atheists would persecute Deists, with as unrelenting Cruelty, as any Christians would persecute them or one another. Know thyself, human Nature!
I am not Sure, that I am yet ready to return to Politicks.
Upon the whole, I think this is enough for one Letter. Politicks shall be adjourned to a future day. not a very distant one, however.
John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Jonathan Mason, Jr., 26 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Mason, Jonathan, Jr.

Dear Sir
Quincy June 26th 1813

The public papers have announced some sentiments of yours which have induced me to beleive that the volume of sketches which accompanies this letter will not be unacceptable to you.
I pray you to accept it not only as a token of remembrance, but as an opportunity to encourage and promote, the extension and completion of a work, so necessary to our Commerce, our Union & our Independence.
I am Sir with much Esteem and affection your friend
John Adams.


Title: To John Adams from Thomas Jefferson, 27 June 1813
From: Jefferson, Thomas
To: Adams, John

Monticello June 27. 13.

Ἴδαν ἐς πολύδενδρον ἀνὴρ ὑλητόμος ἐλθὼν,
Παπταίνει, παρέοντος ἄδην, ποθεν ἄρξεται ἔργου·
Τί πρᾶτον καταλεξῶ; ἐπεὶ πάρα μυρία ἐιπῆν.
and I too, my dear Sir, like the wood-cutter of Ida, should doubt where to begin, were I to enter the forest of opinions, discussions, & contentions which have occurred in our day. I should exclaim with Theocritus Τί πρᾶτον καταλεξῶ; ἐπεὶ πάρα μυρία ειπῆν. but I shall not do it. the summum bonum with me is now truly Epicurean ease of body and tranquility of mind; and to these I wish to consign my remaining days. men have differed in opinion, and been divided into parties by these opinions, from the first origin of societies; and in all governments where they have been permitted freely to think and to speak. the same political parties which now agitate the US. have existed thro’ all time. whether the power of the people, or that of the ἄριςτοι should prevail, were questions which kept the states of Greece and Rome in eternal convulsions; as they now schismatize every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot. and in fact the terms of whig and tory belong to natural, as well as to civil history. they denote the temper and constitution of mind of different individuals. to come to our own country, and to the times when you and I became first acquainted. we well remember the violent parties which agitated the old Congress, and their bitter contests. there you & I were together, and the Jays, and the Dickinsons, and other anti-independants were arrayed against us. they cherished the monarchy of England; and we the rights of our countrymen. when our present government was in the mew, passing from Confederation to Union, how bitter was the schism between the Feds and Antis. here you and I were together again. for altho’ for a moment, separated by the Atlantic from the scene of action, I favored the opinion that nine states should confirm the constitution, in order to secure it, and the others hold off, until certain amendments, deemed favorable to freedom Should be made, I rallied in the first instant to the wiser proposition of Massachusets, that all should confirm, and then all instruct their delegates to urge those amendments. the amendments were made, and all were reconciled to the government. but as soon as it was put into motion, the line of division was again drawn; we broke into two parties, each wishing to give a different direction to the government; the one to strengthen the most popular branch. the other the more permanent branches, and to extend their permanence. here you & I separated for the first time: and as we had been longer than most others on the public theatre, and our names therefore were more familiar to our countrymen, the party which considered you as thinking with them, placed your name at their head; the other, for the same reason, selected mine. but neither decency nor inclination permitted us to become the advocates of ourselves, or to take part personally in the violent contests which followed. we suffered ourselves, as you so well expressed it, to be the passive subjects of public discussions. and these discussions, whether relating to men, measures, or opinions, were conducted by the parties with an animosity, a bitterness, and an indecency, which had never been exceeded. All the resources of reason, and of wrath, were exhausted by each party in support of its own, and to prostrate the adversary opinions. one was upbraided with recieving the Antifederalists, the other the old tories & refugees into their bosom. of this acrimony  the public papers of the day exhibit ample testimony in the debates of Congress, of state legislatures, of stump-orators, in addresses, answers, and newspaper essays. and to these without question may be added, the private correspondence of individuals; and the less guarded in these, because not meant for the public eye, not restrained by the respect due to that; but poured forth from the overflowings of the heart into the bosom of a friend, as a momentary easement of our feelings. in this way, and in answers to addresses, you & I could indulge ourselves. we have probably done it, sometimes with warmth, often with prejudice, but always, as we believed, adhering to truth. I have not examined my letters of that day. I have no stomach to revive the memory of it’s feelings. but one of these letters, it seems, has got before the public, by accident and infidelity, by the death of one friend to whom it was written, and of his friend to whom it was communicated, and by the malice and treachery of a third person, of whom I had never before heard, merely to make mischief, and in the same Satanic spirit, in which the same enemy had intercepted and published, in 1776, your letter animadverting on Dickinson’s character. how it happened that I quoted you in my letter to Dr. Priestly and for whom ,and not for yourself, the structures were meant, has been explained to you in my letter of the 15th. which had been committed to the post 8. days before I received yours of the 10th. 11th. and 14th. that gave you the reference which these asked to the particular answer alluded to in the letter to Priestley.
the renewal of these old discussions, my friend, would be equally useless and irksome. to the volumes then written on these subjects human ingenuity can add nothing new: and the rather, as lapse of time has obliterated many of the facts. and shall you & I, my dear Sir, like Priam of old, gird on the “arma, diu desueta, trementibus aevo humeris”? shall we, at our age, become the Athletae of party, and exhibit ourselves, as gladiators, in the Arena of the newspapers? nothing in the universe could induce me to it. my mind has been long fixed to bow to the judgement of the world. who will judge me by my acts, and will never take counsel from me as to what that judgment shall be. if your objects and opinions have been misunderstood, if the measures and principles of others have been wrongfully imputed to you, as I believe they have been, that you should leave an explanation of them, would be an act of justice to yourself. I will add that it has been hoped you would leave such explanations as would place every saddle on it’s right horse, and replace on the shoulders of others the burthens they shifted on yours.
But all this, my friend, is offered, merely for your consideration and and judgment; without presuming to anticipate what you alone are qualified to decide for yourself. I mean to express my own purpose only, and the reflections which have led to it. to me then it appears that there have been differences of opinion, and party differences, from the first establishment of governments, to the present day; and on the same question which now divides our own country: that these will continue thro’ all future time: that every one takes his ride in favor of the many, or of the few, according to his constitution, and the cicumstances in which he is placed: that opinions, which are equally honest on both sides, should not affect personal esteem, or social intercourse: that as we judge between the Claudii and the Gracchi, the Wentworths and the Hampdens of past ages, so, of those among us whose names may happen to be remembered for  awhile, the next generation will judge, favorably or unfavorably, according to the complexion of individual minds, and the side they shall themselves have taken: that nothing new can be added by you or me to what has been said by others, & will be said in every age, in support of the conflicting opinions on government: and that wisdom & duty dictate an humble resignation to the verdict of our future peers. in doing this myself, I shall certainly not suffer moot questions to affect the sentiments of sincere friendship & respect, consecrated to you by so long a course of time, and of which I now repeat sincere assurances.
Th. Jefferson


Title: From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 28 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Jefferson, Thomas

Dear Sir
Quincy June 28.th: 1813

It is very true that “the denunciations of the Priesthood are fulminated against every Advocate for a compleat Freedom of Religion. Comminations, I believe, would be plenteously pronounced by even the most liberal of them, against Atheism, Deism.” against every Man who disbelieved or doubted the Resurrection of Jesus or the Miracles of the New Testament. Priestley himself would denounce the man who Should deny The Apocalyps, or the Prophecies of Daniel. Priestley and Lindsay both have denounced as Idolaters and Blasphemers, all the Trinitarians and even the Arrians. Poor weak Man when will thy Perfection arrive? Perfectibility, I Shall not deny: for a greater Character than Priestley or Godwin has Said “Be ye perfect” &c. For my part, I cannot deal damnation round the land on all I judge the Foes of God or Man. But I did not intend to Say a Word on this Subject, in this Letter. As much of it as you please hereafter: but let me now return to Politicks.
With some difficulty, I have hunted up, or down, “the Address of the Young Men of the City of Philadelphia, the District of Southwark, and the Northern Liberties: and the Answer.
The Addressers Say “Actuated by the same principles on which our forefathers atchieved their independence, the recent Attempts of a foreign power to derogate from the dignity and rights of our Country awaken our liveliest Sensibility, and our Strongest indignation.” Huzza my brave Boys! Could Thomas Jefferson or John Adams, hear these Words, with insensibility, and without Emotion? These Boys afterwards add “We regard our Liberty and Independence, as the richest portion given Us by our Ancestors.” And, who were these Ancestors? Among them were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. And I very cooly believe that no two Men among those Ancestors did more towards it than those two. Could either, hear this like Statues.? If, one hundred years hence, your Letters and mine Should See the light I hope the Reader, will hunt up this Address and read it all; and remember that We were then engaged or on the point of engaging in a War with France. I Shall not repeat the Answer, till we Come to the paragraph, upon which you criticised to Dr Priestley: though every Word of it is true, and I now rejoice to See it recorded; and though I had wholly forgotten it.
The Paragraph is “Science and Morals are the great Pillars on which this country has been raised to its present population, oppulence and prosperity, and these alone, can advance, Support and preserve it.” “Without wishing to damp the Ardor of curiosity, or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction, that after the most industrious and impartial Researches, the longest liver of you all, will find no Principles, Institutions, or Systems of Education, more fit, in general, to be transmitted to your Posterity, than those you have received from you Ancestors.”
Now, compare the paragraph in the Answer, with the paragraph in the Address, as both are quoted above: and See if We can find the Extent and the limits of the meaning of both.
Who composed that Army of fine young Fellows that was then before my Eyes? There were among them, Roman Catholicks English Episcopalians, Scotch and American Presbyterians, Methodists, Moravians, Anababtists, German Lutherans, German Calvinists Universalists, Arians, Priestleyans, Socinians, Independents, Congregationalists, Horse Protestants and House Protestants, Deists and Atheists; and “Protestans qui ne croyent rien.” Very few however of Several of these Species. Nevertheless all Educated in the General Principles of Christianity: and the general Principles of English and American Liberty.
Could my Answer, be understood, by any candid Reader or Hearer, to recommend, to all the others, the general Principles, Institutions or Systems of education of the Roman Catholicks? Or those of the Quakers? Or those of the Presbyterians? Or those of the Menonists? Or those of the Methodists? or those of the Moravians? Or those of the Universalists? or those of the Philosophers? No.
The general Principles, on which the Fathers Atchieved Independence, were the only Principles in which, that beautiful Assembley of young Gentlemen could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their Address, or by me in My  Answer. And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all those Sects were United: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities Sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence.
Now I will avow, that I then believed, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God: and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System. I could therefore Safely Say, consistently with all my then and present Information, that I believed they would never make Discoveries in contradiction to these general Principles. In favour of these general Principles in Phylosophy, Religion and Government, I could fill Sheets of quotations from Frederick of Prussia, from Hume, Gibbon, Bolingbroke, Reausseau and Voltaire, as well as Newton and Locke: not to mention thousands of Divines and Philosophers of inferiour Fame.
I might have flattered myself that my Sentiments were Sufficiently known to have protected me against Suspicions of narrow thoughts contracted Sentiments, biggotted, enthusiastic or Superstitious Principles civil political philosophical, or ecclesiastical. The first Sentence, of the Preface to my Defence of the Constitutions, Vol. 1. printed in 1787 is in these Words “The Arts and Sciences, in general, during the three or four last centuries, have had a regular course of progressive improvement. The Inventions in Mechanic Arts, the discoveries in natural Philosophy, navigation and commerce, and the Advancement of civilization and humanity, have occasioned Changes in the condition of the World and the human Character, which would have astonighed the most refined Nations of Antiquity.” &tc I will quote no farther; but request you to read again that whole page, and then Say whether the Writer of it, could be Suspected of recommending to Youth, “to look backward, instead of forward” for instruction and Improvement.
This Letter is already too long. In my next I Shall consider “The Terrorism of the day. Mean time, I am as ever, your Friend

John Adams


Title: To John Adams from Hendrick W. Gordon, 28 June 1813
From: Gordon, Hendrick W.
To: Adams, John

Dear Sir,
Boston June 28th 1813

It has been said by some persons, with a view to make many believe it, “that His Excellency John Quincy Adams our Minister in Russia has written to his Father the late President of the U.S. a letter which came by the way of Halifax & recently received, in which he says “the war in which the U.S. are engaged” is unncessary and unjust.”
For myself I do not beleive that he has written any thing to that effect. I wish to be able to say to my informant that it is not true, but I have no design or wish to make any publick use of any reply that you may be pleased to make to this letter, unless you should expressly allow it.
I have the honor to be / with great Respect, / Dear Sir, your most / Obedient and much / Obliged Hum Servt HW Gordon


Title: From John Adams to Mathew Carey, 29 June 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Carey, Mathew

Sir
Quincy June 29th 1813

I have this day received from the Post Office, three copies of the sketches which with twelve received before amount to fifteen copies. I did not intend to exceed twenty copies, and when you arrive at that number I pray you to stop, I expected but one by a mail but you have sent two and oftener three.
I have transmitted through my son Thomas Boylston Adams to his Friend Jonathan Jones Esqr a power of Attorney to receive some money due to me, and a request to pay you for all the copies you have sent, or may send to the number of twenty or more, if you shall have sent more before this letter reaches you. I have given, and shall give away all, to such persons as will be likely to do good with them or receive good from them.
I have taken much pains to obtain from Captains, Williams, Waters, Tucker &c information. They are all pleased with your project: and promise me all in their power: but I find these heroes are grown old. Memory is not prompt writing is painful: the labour of thinking irksome. Procrastination steals away time: and who can wonder.
The printed Biography of Decatur canot have escaped you. There is extant in print a biography of Captain Talbot in the revolutionary War, and in the war with France in 1798 &c This Mr Clark and you would be glad to see, I am Sir your obliged Servant

John Adams


Title: To John Adams from Hendrick W. Gordon, 29 June 1813
From: Gordon, Hendrick W.
To: Adams, John

Dear Sir,
Boston 29th June 1813.

Since I had the pleasure of writing you yesterday, I have learnt that a Swedish vessel will sail from here on Sunday or Monday next direct for Gottenburg, and that Capt Wm Story, a Brother of Judge Story, is to take passage in her—Perhaps a better opportunity to write your Son our Minister in Russia will not occur this summer—
Capt Story is an intimate acquaintance of mine, and I am persuaded would if required load him self with letters to oblige you. He will probably remain in Gottenburg some time and will take no other opportunity than a good one to send your letter to Mr Adams—
I send this by a private hand so that you may have more time to write, than you would have if I waited to have it go by mail— In haste I remain / yours devotedly
H W Gordon


Title: To John Adams from Isaac Prince, 1 July 1813
From: Prince, Isaac
To: Adams, John

Sir,
Philadelphia July 1st. 1813.—

I beg leave to enclose you herewith a Prospectus of “The Naval Chronicle of the United States”—a Wook I intend to publish at this place.—
Your known attachment to cherish a Naval establishment, will I trust plead my apology for using this liberty.—
Our infant Navy first received its birth from your exertions—was reared under your fostering protection, and will I am satisfied ever continue to call forth, your solicitude and best wishes for its augmentation and honour.—
Permit me to hope that you will take a lively interest in aiding my views, and if your time and convenience will allow, that you will enrich the pages of the Naval Chronicle, with such information, as you may deem interesting and useful—
Any intelligence, or documents on Naval subjects are respectfully invited, and I pray of you to believe, that no greater gratification can be afforded me, than hearing from you and being honoured with your approbation of the Publication.—
I have the honour to  be / Sir, / Your Mo. Ob. Servt.

Isaac Prince.


Title: From John Adams to Hendrick W. Gordon, 1 July 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Gordon, Hendrick W.

Dear Sir
Quincy July 1 1813

Your kind letter of the 28th and 29th are before me. The report that my son, has written or said that, “The present War is unnecessary and unjust.” is wholly unfounded.
Your obliging offer, to send our Letters by Captain William Story to St. Petersburgh will be accepted with gratitude to both. I am Sir your obliged Friend

John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 1 July 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Waterhouse, Benjamin

Dear Sir,
Quincy July 1st. 1813

The report that John Quincy Adams has written to his father, or any one else that “the war which the United States has declared, and is waging against England is in his opinion unjust and unnecessary;” whether fabricated in Halifax or Boston is altogether groundless.
Mr Quincy’s resolve is slacking.
Louis 14th Fistula drained his brain of vapours. Vide Talk of a tub.
You have not acknowledged the recipt of the book I sent you  on the history of the Navy. It is the mighty thing of more importance than both of us, which I threatened to send you. I hold the Navy in high honour; let Mr Quincy, and his friends, resolve what they please.
The independent Whig perseveres in spite of Sparticus & Robadil. When will Cutts’s promise be performed
I see no impropriety in asking for your letters to Rush. I shall not

John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Mathew Carey, 3 July 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Carey, Mathew

Sir
Quincy July 3. 1813

I thank you for your favour of the 28th of June. I know your press of Business too well to need any Apology for delays of answers to my Letters.
It is a great Satisfaction to me, that Mr Jefferson has interested himself in Mr Clarks Publication. His Memory, I presume can furnish many materials: and certainly no man is better qualified to suggest improvements of the Work.
Jus suum cuique. I wish Mr Clark would insert in the next Edition, that the Preamble of the Law of Massachusetts of November 1775 was drawn by Vice President Gerry, and the Purvue by the late Governor Sullivan. The Facts you may depend on.
I have now received, I think 18 Volumes, Two more will be as many as I wish, at present. Jonathan Jones Esqr will I hope discharge my Bill.
I wish Mr Clark would also insert a Suggestion of a calculation, how great Power at Sea, the Massachusetts alone could now produce, if She Should exert herself as She did in the revolutionary War, in proportion to her Present Population and resources in Wealth, Materials, Artists and Seamen.
Would it not be well to arrange the materals in the future Edition, according to their Dates.
Mr Clarks talents and Industry are equal to the Work he has undertaken perplexing and important as it is.
I am Sir with esteem and / regard your humble Servant
John Adams


Title: From John Adams to John Langdon, 3 July 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Langdon, John

Dear Sir
Quincy July 3. 1813.

Although it would do no good to excite your Tears or my own, by Allusions to your late Afflictions or mine; I Sincerely condole and Sympathize with you.
Instead of bewailing the past, it is better to think of the future, and Serve our Generation, as well as We can by the feeble Forces and few days that may be lent Us. I know of nothing better that I can attempt at this moment in this Way, than by presenting this Volume which contains Memorials of Transactions, Quorum Pars magne fuisti.
A Navy begins to be popular. Most Men are convinced of its necessity both on the Lakes and the Ocean.
I am, Sir your old Friend
John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Mathew Carey, 5 July 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Carey, Mathew

Sir
Quincy July 5. 1813

Last night Mr Marston gave me the inclosed Six Papers. The original Letter from Captain Hoisted Hacker to Brown and Vernon, I wish to have returned. These Papers are authentic.
I have found no Man So active and ardent in promoting Your and Mr Clarks Views as John Marston; who has Spared no pains.
The Captain Simpson mentioned in one of these Papers was I presume the First Lieutenant of Captain John Paul Jones when he captured the Twenty Gun Ship which he carried into Brest, in 1778. Simpsons name ought to be more known in History than it is. Ask Colonel Jonathan Williams. if he differs in Sentiment, I will dispute with him.
The Mail is at hand, and I wish not to miss it.
John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Mathew Carey, 7 July 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Carey, Mathew

Sir
Quincy July 7. 1813.

The Letter, within, from Colonel Jeremiah Obrien to Captain John Foster Williams, inclosed is one to me from John Marston Esq, is at the Service of Mr Clark and yourself.
The inclosed Letter to me From Mr Isaac Prince, you will please to return to me. This Gentleman is altogether unknown to me. I am apprehensive, that his magnificent Prospectus, by tempting the rich, and the elegant to wait for his Publication will injure You and Mr Clark, by diminishing the Sale of your first Edition and damping the public Ardour for the Second. I Shall continue to transmit to you, whatever little information may come to my Knowledge.
Has an Enemy done this? If He has, he is an ingenious Enemy, a Master of the Stratagems of War.
I know not how it is; but the landed Gentlemen in all Countries, Seem to be natural Enemies of a Navy. Holland has been ruined by this Cause. So has Portugal; So has Spain; The human Race owes its Independence and Safety for what I know to this Cause in France. We must not then censure it. We Americans have Shewn ourselves bone of the bone and flesh of the Flesh of other Nations, in this particular as in many others. Dr Franklin used to Say and write to Englishmen, very often “I have not been believed in England.” I can Say with equal Truth and Modesty “I have not been believed in America.” For eight and thirty Years; nay for eight and fifty Years have I held up, the naval resources of America as her Arm of Defence and the Instrument of her Prosperity and Glory. And what now, is our Misery and what is the Cause of it?
No President of the United States, ever Said a wiser thing, than he who Said, “if the English build thirty Frigates on the Lakes We must build Forty.” I Say if the English build fifty Line of Battle Ships on the Lakes We must build an hundred.
It is time for Somebody in this Country to think, Speak, write and Act.
I think I have received two and twenty Copies of the Sketches. Jonathan Jones Esqr I hope will pay you. If not, please to Send me your Account, and it Shall be remitted to you, some Way or other. Your obliged Servant
John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Isaac Prince, 7 July 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Prince, Isaac

Sir
Quincy July 7th. 1813

I thank you for your polite letter of July 1st and for your splendid Prospectus. My head and heart concur in every proposal to recommend a Navy to the United States. But I apprehend that this enterprize will hurt the sale of the first Edition of Mr Clark’s sketches and diminish the public curiosity for the second.
Mr Clark is an entire stranger to me. Mr Matthew Carey  a very slight acquaintance. A Correspondent, never, till the publication of his work.
I am sorry to see a rivalry instituted that I fear will injure the cause. I am Sir your obliged Servant

John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Mathew Carey, 8 July 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Carey, Mathew

Sir
Quincy July 8: 1813

Inclosed is another letter from John Marston esq. of Yesterday, containing an original letter from David Pierce to Captain John Foster Williams. Mr Clark may file these papers, among his Memorabilia maritima et navalia; and make such use of them as he thinks fit.
I should be glad to know something of Mr Isaac Prince; at least of his profession and occupation and the place of his nativity. His brilliant Prospectus, I fear, will draw away from you, too many of those who buy Books for the sake of the Maps, Prints and Portraits, and care little for any other contents.
Every day increases my grief and Astonishment for the glaring contrast, between the Spirit Activity and energy of the People of New England from 1774 to 1783; and the torpor, which deadens every thing in 1813. This cannot last. The Character of the People is not altered. It is the Magick of Politicks which has produced, this seeming lethargy. A black Art indeed! A Dæmon, that must and will be exorcised.
John Adams.


Title: To John Adams from John Langdon, 8 July 1813
From: Langdon, John
To: Adams, John

					Ever respected Sr.
					Portsmouth July 8th. 1813

				Your letter of the 3d inst. with the sketches of the Naval History of the United States, together with Mr. Clarke’s letter; I have received for which you have my sincere thanks. Your tender allusions to my late afflictions with your kind condolence, is as balm to my bleeding heart. Permit me to say  my Dear Friend, that, I am, from the heighth of human happiness, (by the afflicting stroke of Divine Providence)  bro’t very low, but may I not say with the great Apostle to of the Gentiles, that I am cast down, but, Blessed be God, am not destroyed. At any advanced time of life, to have my dearest friend, and greatest earthly comfort taken from me, is truely grevious; But my duty is to be still and know that it is God, let him do as seemeth his good in his sights, and to remember that my Redeemer liveth. I pray you Sr. to present my very kind respects to your Lady. That you both, may enjoy your usual happiness for years yet to come, and that we all may meet in a better World is the prayer of your Obliged Friend / and Hble. Servt

					John Langdon


Title: From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 9 July 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Jefferson, Thomas

Quincy July 9 1813

Lord! Lord! What can I do, with so much Greek? When I was of your Age, young Man, i.e. 7 or 8 or 9 years ago I felt, a kind of pang of Affection, for one of the flames of my youth, and again paid my Addresses to Isocrates and Dionissius Hallicarnassensis &c &c &c I collected all my Lexicons and Grammers and Sat down to περι ενθεςεως ονοματων &c. In this Way I amused myself for sometime: but I found, that if I looked a Word to day, in less than a Week I had to look it again. It was to little better purpose than writing Letters on a pail of Water.
Whenever I Sett down to write to you, I am precisely in the Situation of the Wood Cutter on mount Ida: I cannot See Wood for Trees. So many Subjects crowd upon me that I know not with which to begin. But I will begin at random with Belsham; who is, as I have no doubt, a Man of merit. He had no malice against you, nor any thought of doing mischief: nor has he done any, though he has been imprudent. The Truth is the Dissenters of all Denominations in England and especially the Unitarians, are cowed, as We used to Say at Colledge. They are ridiculed, insulted, persecuted. They can Scarcely hold their heads above water. They catch at Straws and Shadows to avoid drowning. Priestley Sent your Letter to Linsay, and Belsham printed it from the same motive, i.e, to derive Some countenance from the Name of Jefferson. Nor has it done harm here. Priestley Says to Linsay “You see he is almost one of Us, and He hopes will Soon be altogether Such as We are. Even in our New England I have heard a high Federal Divine Say, your Letters had increased his respect for You.
“The same political parties which now agitate U.S. have existed through all time”. Precisely. And this is precisely the complaint in the preface to the first volume of my defence. While all other sciences have advanced, that of Government is at a Stand: little better understood; little better practiced now than 3 or 4 thousand Years ago. What is the Reason? I Say Parties and Factions will not Suffer, or permit Improvements to be made. As soon as one Man hints at an improvement his Rival opposes it. No sooner has one Party discovered or invented an Amelioration of the Condition of Man or the order of Society, than the opposite Party, belies it, misconstrues it, misrepresents it, ridicules it, insults it, and persecutes it. Records are destroyed. Histories are annihilated or interpolated, or prohibited Sometimes by Popes, Sometimes by Emperors, Sometimes by Aristocratical and Sometimes by democratical Assemblies and Sometimes by Mobs.
Aristotle wrote the History and description of Eighteen hundred Republicks, which existed before his time. Cicero wrote two Volumes of discoures on Government, which perhaps were worth all the rest of his Works. The Works of Livy and Tacitus & that are lost, would be more interesting than all that remain. Fifty Gospells have been destroyed, and where are St. Lukes World of Books that had been written? If you ask my Opinion, who has committed all the havoc? I will answer you candidly; Ecclesiastical and Imperial Despotism has done it, to conceal their Frauds.
Why are the Histories of all Nations, more ancient than the Chrtian Æra, lost? Who destroyed the Alexandrian Library? I believe that Christian Priests, Jewish Rabbis Grecian Sages and Roman Emperors had as great a hand in it as Turks and Mahomitans.
Democrats, Rebells and Jacobins, when they possessed a momentary Power, have Shewn a disposition, both to destroy and to forge Records, as vandalical, as Priests and Despots. Such has been and Such is the World We live in.
I recollect, near 30 years ago to have said carlesly to You, that I wished I could find time and means to write Something upon Aristocracy. You Seized upon the Idea, and encouraged me to do it, with all that friendly warmth that is natural and habitual to you. I soon began, and have been writing upon that Subject ever Since. I have been so unfortunate as never to be able to make myself understood. Your “ἄρiςτοi” are the most difficult Animals to manage, of anything in the whole Theory and practice of Government. They will not Suffer themselves to be governed. They not only exert all their own Subtelty Industry and courage, but they employ the Commonality, to knock to pieces every Plan and Model that the most honest Architects in Legislation can invent to keep them within bounds. Both Patricians and Plebeians are as furious as the Workmen in England to demolish labour-saving Machinery.
But who are these “ἄρiςτοi”? Who shall judge? Who Shall Select these choice Spirits from the rest of the Congregation? Themselves? We must first find out and determine who themselves are. Shall the congregation choose? Ask Xenophon. perhaps hereafter I may quote you Greek. Too much in a hurry at present, english must suffice. Xenophon Says that the ecclesia, always chooses the worst Men they can find, because none others will do their dirty work. This wicked Motive is worse than Birth or Wealth. Here I want to quote Greek again. But the day before I received your Letter of June 27. I gave the Book to George Washington Adams going to the Accademy at Hingham. The Title is Ηθiκη Pοiεσiσ, a Collection of Moral Sentences from all the most ancien Greek Poets. in one of the oldest of them I read in greek that I cannot repeat a couplet the Sense of which was
“Nobility in Men is worth as much as it is in Horses Asses or Rams: but the meanest blooded Puppy in the World, if he gets a little money, is as good a man as the best of them.” Yet Birth and Wealth together have prevailed over Virtue and Talents in All ages. The Many, will acknowledge no other “αρiςτοi”.Your Experience of this Truth, will not much differ from that of your old Friend
John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 12 July 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Jefferson, Thomas

Dear Sir
Quincy July 12. 1813

I forgot in my last to remark, a very trifling Inaccuracy in yours of June 27th. The Letter intercepted in Hichbournes Trunk which was reported to glance at Mr Dickenson, was not in 1776. It was in the month of June 1775. Had it been June 1776, the English would not have printed it. The Nation had then too maturely reflected, on the necessity of Independence, and was too ripe and too hot for a Proclamation of it. Neither Mr Dickenson, nor any of his Friends would have dared to express the Smallest resentment of it, out of their own gloomy circles. The Penns the Allens the Chews and the Willings, in other Words the Proprietary Gentlemen of Pensilvania, I mean those of them who had not ran away to the English, would have been Silent. The Quakers instead of producing my Letters and reading and recording them in their General Meeting, and holding me up to the detestation of their whole Society as the most odious of Men aiming, or at least having in contemplation the Possibility of Independence in any case whatsoever,: would have concealed and dissimulated their hypocritical cant. The Pembertons, (even Israel,) the Drinkers, the Shoemakers and all the rest would have been Silent. The Spirit would not have moved one of them, to open his Lips.
In June 1776, my Friends would not have put on, long faces and lamented my imprudence. None of them would have wondered as Some of them did in 1775, that a Man of Forty Years of Age, and of considerable Experience in business, and in life Should have been guilty of Such an Indiscretion. Others would not have Said “it was a premature declaration of Independence, and Joseph Reed Soon afterwards private Secretary of General Washington, and After that Governor of Pennsilvania, would not have Said to me, as he did, “I look upon the Interception and publication of that Letter, as an Act of the Providence of God, to excite the Attention of the people to their real Situation, and to Shew them, what they must come to.”
You Say “it has been hoped, I would leave such explanations as would place every Saddle on its right Horse, and replace on the Shoulders of others, the burthens they Shifted on yours.”
Hoped! by whom? They know not what they hope? I have already “replaced on the Shoulders of Franklin, burthens he Shifted on mine. Shall I “replace on the Shoulders of Washington the burthens that a bastard Bratt of a Scotch Pedlar, placed on his Shoulders, and he Shifted on mine.?
How many Gauntletts, am I destined to run? How many Martyrdoms must I Suffer?
Be they more or less, I have enjoyed a happy Life, and I would not exchange Life Character or Fortune with any of them.
There are few Men now living if any who know more of me than you do. Yet you know but little of the Life I have led; the hazards I have run, or the “light Afflictions for a moment” I have endured.
I will conclude this grave Solemn Letter, with a merry Story: but as true as it is diverting.
In my Youth I was acquainted, with one of our New England Nobility, Representative, Counsellor, Colonel, Judge, John Chandler of Worcester, of whom I could tell you, twenty, humerous and instructive Anecdotes. He was a good, tho a rapid and free Character. He had great Influence in our Legislature, Upon Some Occasion there was a complaint against him As a Justice of the Peace, in the County of Worcester. He arrived in Boston and the Counsell Sent for them him, and interrogated him and threatened him. When he came down from the Counsell Chamber, one of his Brother Representatives asked him, “What can the matter be?” “God damn them” Said Chandler, “they talk of uncreating their Creator.”
If you do not understand this, and wish an explanation You Shall have it.
Not to Say too much at once.
John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 13 July 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Jefferson, Thomas

Dear Sir
Quincy July 13th. 1813

Let me allude, to one circumstance more, in one of your Letters to me, before I touch upon the Subject of Religion in your Letters to Priestley.
The first time, that you and I differed in Opinion on any material Question; was after your Arrival from Europe; and that point was the french Revolution.
You was well persuaded in your own mind that the Nation would Succeed in establishing a free Republican Goverment: I was as well persuaded, in mine, that a project of Such a Government, over five and twenty millions people, when four and twenty millions and five hundred thousands of them could neither write nor read: was as unnatural irrational and impracticable; as it would be over the Elephants Lions Tigers Panthers Wolves and Bears in the Royal Menagerie at Versailles. Napoleon has lately invented a Word, which perfectly expresses my Opinion at that time and ever since. He calls the Project Ideology. And John Randolph, tho he was 14 Years ago, as wild an Enthusiast for Equality and Fraternity, as any of them; appears to be now a regenerated Proselite to Napoleons opinion and mine, that it was all madness.
The Greeks in their Allegorical Style Said that the two Ladies Αριςτοcρατια and δημοcατια, always in a quarrel, disturbed every neigbourhood with their brawls. It is a fine Observation of yours that “Whig and Torey belong to Natural History.” Inequalities of Mind and Body are So established by God Almighty in his constitution of Human Nature that no Art or policy can ever plain them down to a Level. I have never read Reasoning more absurd, Sophistry more gross, in proof of the Athanasian Creed, or Transubstantiation, than the subtle labours of Helvetius and Rousseau to demonstrate the natural Equality of Mankind. Jus cuique; the golden rule; do as you would be done by; is all the Equality that can be Supported or defended by reason, or reconciled to common Sense.
It is very true, as you justly observe, I can say nothing new on this or any other Subject of Government. But when La Fayette harangued you and me, and John Quincy Adams, through a whole evening in your Hotel in the Cul de Sac, at Paris; and develloped the plans then in Operation to reform France: though I was as silent as you was, I then thought I could Say Something new to him: In plain Truth I was astonished at the Grossness of his Ignorance of Goverment and History, as I had been for Years before at that of Turgot, Rochefaucault, Condorcet and Franklin. This gross Ideology of them all, first Suggested to me the thought and the inclination which I afterwards hinted to you in London, of writing Something upon Aristocracy. I was restrained for Years, by many fearful considerations. Who and what was I,? A Man of no name or consideration in Europe. The manual Exercise of writing was painful and distressing to me, almost like a blow, on the elbow or the knee; my Style was habitually negligent, unstudied, unpolished; I Should make Enemies of all the French Patriots, the Dutch Patriots, the English Republicans, Dissenters, Reformers, call them what you will; and what came nearer home to my bosom than all the rest, I knew, I Should give offence to many, if not all of my best Friends in America, and very probably destroy all the little Popularity I ever had, in a Country where Popularity had more Omnipotence than the British Parliament assumed. Where Should I get the necessary Books? What Printer or Bookseller would undertake to print Such hazardous Writings?
But when the French Assembly of Notables met, and I Saw that Turgots “Government in one Centre and that Center the Nation” a Sentence as misterious or as contradictory as the Athanasian Creed, was about to take place; and when I Saw that Shaises Rebellion was breaking out in Massachusetts, and when I Saw that even my obscure Name was often quoted in France as an Advocate for Simple Democracy; when I saw that the Sympathies in America had caught the French flame: I was determined to wash my own hands as clean as I could of all this foulness. I had then Strong forebodings that I was Sacrificing all the honours and Emoluments of this Life; and So it has happened: but not in so great a degree as I apprehended.
In Truth my “defence of the Constitutions and “Discourses on Davila”, laid the foundation of that immense Unpopulaty, which fell like the Tower of Siloam upon me. Your Steady defence of democratical Principles, and your invariable favourable Opinion of the French Revolution laid the foundation of your unbounded Popularity.
Sic transit Gloria Mundi.
Now, I will forfeit my Life, if you can find one Sentence in my Defence of the Constitutions, or the Discourses on Davila, which by a fair construction, can favour the introduction of hereditary Monarchy or Aristocracy into America.
They were all written to Support and Strengthen the Constitutions of the United States.
The Woodcutter on Ida, though he was puzzled to find a Tree to chop, at first, I presume knew how to leave off, when he was weary; But I never know when to cease, when I begin to write to you
John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Mathew Carey, 14 July 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Carey, Mathew

Mr Carey
Quincy July 14th. 1813

Your letter of the 5th has distressed me; because it has made me apprehend that I expressed myself in mine to you of the 29th Ult. with too little caution.  But be assured that I never had a suspicion that you were actuated by any mean, mercenary, or even mercantile motive in this business. You have not sent me one copy too many; You have deserved well of your Country, and will merit the thanks of posterity, as you have those of this age, and none more sincerely than mine; I never doubted that your first Edition would prove too small for the public demand. I shall soon have more memorials to send you, from Captain Williams, Captain Waters, & Samuel Brown, Esqre authentic documents surely! for your second edition.
Our American historians ought not to be forgiven for their shameful negligence of this subject; Both Parties have studiously winked it out of sight; which made your enterprize more hazardous, and more meritorious; I hope that my apprehensions of injury to you from Mr Isaac Princes brilliant Prospectus, of a Naval Chronicle, will prove groundless. But no insidious contrivance, can ever deprive you of the glory of producing the most complete and perfect history of the rise and progress of a Navy, that the world ever saw. I cannot express in too strong terms my personal sense of obligation to you as an individual Citizen; witnessing for 38 years  a languor an inattention and indifference to a Navy in my Countryman, which I had not consideration enough in the world to remove; I have felt a painful anxiety, which you must have perceived in some of my rattling letters to Dr Rush, some paragraphs of which you have seen.
You may be opposed, persecuted and overborne; but the deed is done; An American Navy is established; and I know of no man who has done more to effect it than Matthew Carey. A Navy perhaps more than one, or two. Aye there’s the rub. May you & I exert all our faculties that there may be but one. I am Sir with sincere Esteem, your well wisher

John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Mathew Carey, 15 July 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Carey, Mathew

Sir
Quincy July 15. 1813

I send you, as I received it, a Packett from Mr Bentley of Salem. You and Mr Clark must digest it. I have not the Power, not the means, to copy or extract.
Expect more in a few days from your obliged
John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Richard Rush, 15 July 1813
From: Adams, John
To: Rush, Richard

Dear Sir
Quincy July 15 1813

Your favour of June 29th has given me feelings, like those I always enjoyed when writing to your Father
The distinction between a War and a peace party, is a Sophism. There is a Sense in which all Parties and all Men, wish for peace, except perhaps a few military Geniuses, who like Luxembourg have an aversion to planting Cabbages. It is a doubt whether there ever was a popular War. Some of the most prudent Men in France have said to me, that “our American revolutionary War, was the first and the only, popular War that was ever waged by a King of France.” The present War in England is and has been for twenty Years unpopular. If the Nation could have voted as our Nation votes, it the War would have been reprobated every Year. Governments See, and feel necessities, that Nations never See nor feel. But all Governments have some power, and Governments must be Supported, or worse Wars must ensue.
I cannot believe, that this nation believes this War unjust or unnecessary. Examine any one of the Peace Party. Push him home; he will at last Say, England has insulted Us, wronged Us, injured Us: but if We had continued the Taxes, gradually increased our Number of Frigates, fortified our Frontiers &c England would never have dared to insult Us. This War is unnecessary therefore, because our Negligence has brought it, upon Us.
The Conduct of the War, the inattention to the Lakes, the Indiscipline and inexperience, the theoretic Ignorance of our Armies are urged as mathematical demonstrations of the Incapacity of our Government, and its Inadequacy to the Crisis.
The Talents, the Scollarship, the Genius, the Learning of Jefferson and Madison are not disputed; but their total Incapacity for practical Government or War, is unblushingly asserted, and I must Say not much disputed by any Party or Individual here.
In this unhappy State of affairs, it appears to me, that the Health of the President is of great importance. I wish to know his real Situation. His Tryals are enough to destroy a Stronger Frame than his. I believe my Constitution to be Stronger by nature than his: but public Exertions Anxieties and perplexities have more than once, brought me to the brink of the Tomb; in Spight of all the resources of Air, exercise, Diet and medicine than I could obtain.
If Mr Madison Should unfortunately fail Us, Mr Gerry is our Ruler. I know him. I know his Talents. I know his Rectitude. I know his Resolution and Spirit. But I know the load of Passion and Prejudice, and abuse, and misrepresentation he has to Support.
The Lord God, omnipotent reigneth. Let the Earth rejoice.
Had this Nation continued at Peace thirty Year longer, the American Nation would have been as timorous as a Warren of Hares; and might have been decoyed and Slaughtered like Plovers Pidgeons, or Brants, the Silliest of all the Birds of the Air. If I were superstitious, I Should believe that Heaven ordained this War, in mercy to Us, to convince Us of the necessity of a maritime defence, and military Discipline; rather than to punish Us for our past Stupidity and Wickedness; though these have richly deserved it.
I am told an handbill is out, announcing a precipitate retreat of the Russians and Prussians; and Napoleone again tryumphant. It is to no purpose to rejoice at any Victory, gained or Battle lost, in Europe, on any Side. We ought to grieve for Suffering Humanity: but no man can Say what Victory or what defeat has a tendency to relieve it.
Prussian Power, and Prussian Armies, are memorable Examples of the effects of long peace, in this Warring World. 35 Years ago, the very Word Prussia commanded respect in all Europe. Not only Ambassadors and Ministers of State; not only Generals and Armies, but Kings Emperors and Republicks trembled at the Sound. Holland is another instance. But what are Prussian Armies now? mere Cockade and Uniform. What is Holland now? Millionaries, and Beggers.
We must not lament this War. Before Honour is Humility. We must be humbled, (“in dust and Ashes”) before We can be honoured by ourselves or others. Let me not interfere in the Duties of your Station, and believe me, upon Principle and Affection, your Sincere Friend
John Adams


Title: To John Adams from Alexander Hill Everett, 15 July 1813
From: Everett, Alexander Hill
To: Adams, John

Sir.
Boston, 15 July. 1813.

Permit me to express to you my ackowledgments for the politeness, with which you were pleased to speak of my Address in your letter of the 4th. I hope you received it as a mark of respect: in any other point of view it was not worth offering.
I beg you, Sir, to accept my grateful thanks for the Naval History with which you did me the honor to accompany the letter. I have read it with great interest and pleasure. A candid judge, I think, would be at no loss to decide, that the exploits of our little fleet of which we have so much reason to be proud are a Sever Satire on the negligence of the government and a brilliant proof of what we might do with a vigorous and efficient maritime force. It is true, we could not easily cope, single-handed, with the thousand ships of England, but I imagine we should find no difficulty, in raising a navy that, manned and officered and conducted, as our ships have been in this war, would find employment for every inch of canvass she could now spare.
I am, Sir, with great respect, your very humble servant.

A. H. Everett


Title: To John Adams from James Monroe, 15 July 1813
From: Monroe, James
To: Adams, John

Dear Sir
Washington July 15. 1813

I have the pleasure to inclose you a copy of a report of the committee of the H. of Reps. on foreign relations, in which the communications between the Executive of the UStates & the British govt., since the war, are reviewed, and a project of an act of Congress relative to seamen submitted to consideration. The object of the report seems to be as it undoubtedly is, to place the controversy between the two nations on a just footing, to support the ground of the Executive by a corresponding act of Congress, and by taking from G. Britain all motive for the war; either terminate it by an honorable peace, or unite the country in a vigorous prosecution of the war.
I had the pleasure to receive from you sometime since a letter which excited much my feelings. Having highly respected in my early life the great abilities & the virtuous firmness which you displayed in our revolutionary struggle; having always entertained the utmost confidence in your independance of foreign influence, in your integrity, patriotism, and attachment to our happy union, I could never be indifferent either to what concerned your personal welfare, or to the sentiments and disposition which you might have towards me. In acknowledging your communication permit me to assure  you that your opinion, disinterested as I am satisfied it is, on the subject to which it related, had much weight in my mind. My sincere wish is that no innocent person should fail to obtain redress, and I am persuaded that many innocent persons, whatever may have been the original character of the transaction, have suffer’d. I am aware that this calamity, by affecting one portion of the union only, has produc’d an injurious effect, and think that that consideration in itself, gives the parties a strong additional claim to attention. I hope that this cause of inquietude & complaint may be settled on just principles, and to the satisfaction of the parties. Your favorable opinion of their claim tends much to promote that result.
From your son no late letters have been received. The Baltic being frozen up, & the communications by land interrupted, by the war, between France & Russia, have prevented it. His view of the present state of affairs, between those powers, & in the north generally, will be very interesting & is looked for with anxiety by the President.
I have the honor to be dear Sir with great respect / & esteem your very obedient servant

Jas Monroe