Title: To John Adams from Mercy Otis Warren, 15 August 1807
From: Warren, Mercy Otis
To: Adams, John

(Lett. 5th.)Plymouth, Ms., August 15, 1807.

You begin your Letter, Sir, of August 8th. with complaints of “new demonstrations of Mrs. Warren’s friendship.” Indeed, I cannot see the smallest foundation of complaint from page 229, Vol. 3d. of the Revolutionary History, to signing the Treaty with Great Britain page 232, that could give cause for the smallest umbrage, except the inadvertency of placing the names of Benjamin Franklin and John Jay, before that of John Adams. This might have happened from the carelessness of the author, rather than from any particular reasons in her mind, at the time. But this I very well remember, that when I observed, that Mr Adams was no favorite of the Officers and Administrators of affairs at the Gallican Court, and that his manners were not adapted to render him acceptable in that refined and polished nation, or that he did not appear to have much partiality for or confidence in them, I meant to convey to my readers an honorable idea of his impartiality, republicanism, and independence,—this the subsequent part of the paragraph proves.
Angry as you have appeared in your late correspondence, your integrity or industry, your moral or religious character, has never been impeached, and when the impartiality of history required any observation on political delinquency, your change of opinion has been imputed to the dictates of conscience which may sometimes be misguided where there are the best intentions. But the greatest characters will sometimes stoop to trivial observations, when their irritability is wrought up by groundless suspicions.
You ask, page 4th of the letter under consideration, “Why am I singled out to be stigmatized as a clown?”—You answer yourself in the next line, “Because Mrs Warren has a particular spite against me, the cause of which shall be investigated in its proper place.” I can patiently wait your time for investigation. If you are conscious of any cause for any particular spite against you, I should not wonder if you were wounded by the recollection. I have never felt any particular spite against you or any other man, but if you are sensible that you have been guilty of any thing that might have wounded my sensibility, I forgive you.—If you are satisfied with yourself for inserting in the next line that my observation was “false,” it will be no proof of the correctness of your manners, or exculpate you from the imputation of Clownism.
A gentleman or a man of generous feelings could never have charged a writer with “bitter inveteracy against him,—a wilful departure from the most authentic records of History, and a determined resolution right or wrong to strip him of all his laurels,” for the trivial circumstance of placing his name below his brother Negociators.
I pass over the several subsequent pages and allow you the full enjoyment of your rank, as you say, of which neither Jay, Jefferson, Laurens, Franklin, or any other could rob you, nor carry any other man “to the head of the new Commission but John Adams.” You observe “Congress to their honor had then the integrity, candor, and fortitude to resist all influence, and refuse to disgrace, degrade, or discourage a man who had been the first object of their choice, and whose whole conduct they had approved.” You go on, Sir, with a long list of your dangers, difficulties, and escapes, of which we had before heard, of your meritorious services both in Congress and in Europe;—for these you have been justly respected by your Country, by General Warren and by Mrs. Warren, who you say, “ knew that in those times I had much more of the confidence of Congress, and of all the most intelligent and disinterested people in America, who had any access to the secrets of affairs than Franklin.”—After this follows a Philippic against the aged Doctor, in which you censure the old gentleman for sometimes dropping to sleep amidst the multifarious discussions of a very respectable body of men, who had each his own opinions and his own system.
It was not the design of my historic work, to write a panegyric on your life and character, though fully sensible of your virtues and your services;—You may do that yourself in some future memoir, as I observe you contemplate writing your own life; and however largely you may expatiate on your superior abilities or services, I will not charge you with “vanity,” I will not say it was “pride of talents”;—I will not even say, “it is the vanity of human virtue,” as you assert, “some of my French friends call all moral principle.” I wish you had pointed out to me who my French friends are? I never knew that I had a friend in that nation. You might also, if you had pleased, have explained any of their maxims which you quote. I am not enough acquainted with their meaning to have adopted any of them.
It is very true that I have said on page 250, that “interested and ambitious men endeavoured to confound ideas and darken opinion, by asserting that republicanism was an indefinite term.” The observation was true, and you very well know Sir, though you was absent several years, that there were interested and ambitious men in your country, before, and in and after the termination of war, and that many of them had sufficient pride of talents and confidence in their own opinions, to broach such sentiments, before I ever suspected that Mr. Adams had said, or would say, that “republicanism might mean any thing or nothing.” What your enemies had agreed to impute to you, I know not. At the time referred to above, I was certainly your friend, and, several years after, the remains of that friendship, and the delicacy of my own feelings, prevented me from charging you with such an assertion, though after your return from Europe, it was often reported.—Such an expression, and its subsequent confirmation from such a man as Mr Adams, must naturally confound the ideas, and darken the opinions of the people, whose feelings had been flattered, that it was no chimera that a pure republic might exist,—that it was not an undefinable idea, but that they had thought themselves far advanced in the establishment of such a system. Twenty years ago I should not have hesitated to explain my own meaning when you asked it, on any subject; but so much perversion as I have recently experienced from you, on every expression of mine, is a sufficient reason why I should not further attempt to define the word republicanism to Mr Adams. Thus have I answered for myself, but am yet of the opinion that notwithstanding your challenge, General Warren would dare to give you his ideas of a republican Government, or a correct answer to any other question you should condescend to ask him.
The supplementary Chapter after the completion of the rise and progress of the Revolutionary War, you say, is “like mustard after dinner.” Perhaps mustard after dinner is not more disgusting to any palate, than the vinegar and nitre which so plentifully seasons all your pages which you assert you are writing in the “spirit of friendship.” But the resentment expressed, seems principally to arise from the neglect of the writer to dilate on the honors done you by your country. Your abilities and your exertions have frequently been acknowledged by myself, in a measure sufficient to gratify the most ambitious of men.
It is true you have been frequently elected to high office, notwithstanding which, the people suspected your aristocratic and monarchic biasses, though they were not generally and fully convinced of this solemn truth, until after your elevation to the Presidential Chair. Many of your friends were earlier convinced that a change of opinion had taken place in your mind, and silently regretted  the marked and uniform preference to monarchic usages, discoverable without your own confessions. In a more elevated station clearer conviction appeared, that you had no aversion to introducing the modes and forms of arbitrary systems of Government, which they never wished to see adopted in America; much less, to see them rivetted on posterity, by the hereditary and ancestral claims of a new born Nobility. A diadem and a sceptre are powerful temptations to any one who thinks himself the “greatest man in America,”—and could such an one resist the charms of a crown, if the way was properly prepared?
It was necessary this should be done by the general voice and consent of the people. A revolution of opinion was effected, of which you complain, and charge General Hamilton and Colonel Burr with the guilt of bringing this forward in conjunction with a swarm of “Liars and Libellers.”—You then ask Mrs Warren if she “glories in the exploits of these virtuous men and pure republicans?” and then answer yourself, “Yes, I know you do.” Prompt decision this.
You have named three gentlemen in your opprobrious charges of effecting a revolution which reduced you to private life, with whom Mrs. Warren never had the smallest acquaintance, though she very well knew the characters of them all. Of Colonel Hamilton there was little to fear until you placed him after Washington, at the head of your standing army. Mr Burr I never held in high consideration, and regretted that he had an opportunity of introducing so much confusion in Congress, at the memorable æra when your party so strenuously exerted themselves to place him in the Presidential Chair.—Was it not your adherents and partisans who would have plunged the country in a civil war, rather than Mr Jefferson should have been elected the first magistrate of the United States? They would have placed Mr Burr in that dignified station, but though he was really possessed of talents, he was never esteemed by those you denominate my “party,” as sufficiently qualified to role up to one of the first offices in the State. Yet his Countrymen never apprehended much danger from him, until he too, thought himself qualified to usurp and wear a crown. Of Governor McKean’s real character or designs I have been less informed.
Your anecdotes of the German clergyman and the apprehensions of the German boors, that the choice of the President of the United States, lay between an Atheist and a Presbyter are new to me, and I think them all as improbable as your next anecdote of the pretty Girls to be procured in England for yourself and Mr Pinckney. Such things as these, you assert, “are the principles, motives, and artifices, that influence our Elections,” and ask, “of what avail is virtue, talents, services, in such scenes of corruption”?—Is not this a severe libel on your Country? Nor is it a singular one; you have in several parts of your late Correspondence stigmatized the Americans as a very corrupt people.
You next observe, that there are scattered in various parts of Mrs Warren’s History “insinuations about titles and a titled Nobility,” &c. which I supposed “were intended as sarcasm upon me.” From what possible source could you infer that these observations were designed as a sarcasm upon you?—Did you suppose there was no other man in America, equally emulous of rank and title with yourself? Or was you in expectation that the first, the most exalted, and sweetest fruits of those royal institutions and privileged distinctions, must be reaped by yourself and your favorites?—Whenever those reflections have occurred in the history with which you are so much disgusted, they were the result of the Author’s cool reflections on the danger a young country was in, just relieved from a long war. In such a Country which appeared to be laying aside their simple habits, and from a connection with foreign nations and an association with foreign Officers seemed to be hankering after the modes, distinctions, and ranks of the servants of European Despots,—was it not obvious that dangers would thicken?—There were a number of military characters of high pretensions on one side, and on the other, very many characters in civil life dignified by their own virtues, and perhaps all possessed of an equal share of pride and an equal claim to those hereditary distinctions.
There certainly was at that time, a great number of aspiring characters, that might have created domestic difficulties if not a domestic war, for the sake of acquiring a nominal distinction and an assumed right to domination from the tinkling of a sonorous title.—You say yourself that even the good and great “Washington was fond of a title, and when His Highness was fixed upon as the most appropriate, he expressed no disapprobation.”—Nor will any one deny that there were many others at that time, who were eager expectants of an harvest of honor as well as wealth, both in military and civil departments, who were fanning the fond idea, that their merits too, had entitled them to this feather in their cap. Why then do you claim this sneer if it was one, as properly due only to yourself?
You go on next in order, with an assurance that when you began the extraordinary series of Letters in my hands, you intended “to have avoided any observations at present on any parts of your history but such as have an immediate relation to myself.”—“At present”—this is a threat often repeated in your letters;—what you have in your storehouse of thunder bolts I am yet at a loss to conjecture, and what you can mean by your dark allusions, it is not possible for me to understand.
Though I am fatigued with your repetition of abuse, I am not intimidated, even should it extend to all the characters an impartial historian has thought proper to name. Where I was personally acquainted, I have never thought myself mistaken in any of the traits of character I have sketched.—What has been related in conversation or from other means of information, I had the highest reason to suppose was correct.
If you had added six pages more, relative to the American Agent or Agency, I should not think myself amenable to you for any thing said of Mr. Dana, or his mission to the Grand Autocratrix of Russia. His character is known to his countrymen, and whether his talents were more conspicuous on the bench of justice or as a diplomatist, they will judge;—and whether his mission was defeated by the intrigues of the Count de Vergennes, Doctr. Franklin, or Sir James Harris, is not very material.
No immorality has been recorded of him in any page, nor any “envenomed satire” designed, under the “grave title of an History,” by Mrs Warren. Mr Dana is now retired—she wishes he may enjoy happiness through the present life and a due preparation for the next.
As you seem to have almost run out the thread of selfeulogium, you may perhaps, for want of other matter, continue to reproach and affront a writer, whose sex alone ought to have protected her from the grossness of your invectives.—For this purpose you may have taken up the defence of your friend Dana, who does not, from any thing I have said of him, appear to require your interference.
Nothing farther need be adduced in evidence of your disposition than the indelicacy of your insinuations in your comment on the note  in page 304, Vol 2d. of the history under consideration. There you say,—“The note at the bottom of this page, Mrs Warren, makes me blush for you.”—If your modesty was a little more consistent, you would have spared the recital of what you say you have met with in some “Scandalous Chronicle,” confirmed by some great Lady, relative to the weaknesses of the Grand Autocratrix. What was your design, your feelings, or your ideas, in bringing forward those obscene allusions, I cannot possibly conjecture.—It might have been expected that the purity of your mind would have turned disgusted from them, and that your cheek would really have cindered when you made an effort to bring into contact any thing so vulgar and indecent with a line ever written by Mrs. Warren. Surely, it must be a cankered heart as well as a jaundiced eye, that can discover any thing in that note inconsistent with purity or rectitude of heart.
I have six times read over a page in the same letter, without comprehending its meaning or understanding the ground or the drift of such an abusive clause as the following.—“There is in this page, Madam, a manifest allusion, though coloured and covered with too much art for an historian, to what I am as much ashamed as you to explain.”
I challenge any man of common understanding, any woman of delicacy, or any genius of the deepest penetration, to find an expression or a word that wants explanation, or an artful allusion coloured or covered through the whole page, unbecoming to my sex. And, sure I am, there has never been a thought in my heart that I was ashamed to express whether it related to person or opinion.
Nor can I more readily investigate the design of the story, or the character of the person, his errand to Russia, or your delicate observations thereon, which are to be found at the top of the 17th page of your letter of August 8th. but the result drawn is, that you are ashamed of your country. On this dark tale I have nothing to say, as I know nothing about it,—but as you seem to be in a blushing mood, while you “blush for Mrs Warren—while you blush for your country,” I advise you to add one item more, and blush for yourself.
I now wish to be relieved from a correspondence so repugnant to my feelings, and that I shall not be obliged longer to make extracts from yours and observations thereon which must of necessity be disadvantageous to the character of a Gentleman I have always wished to respect notwithstanding his political opinions may in some part of his life have deviated from some of the best and wisest of his friends.
My feeble health forbids too much exertion, and the abuse as well as the prolixity of your very extraordinary correspondence since the 11th of July, is fatiguing indeed. I have long wished to lay aside all political attentions, as well as other cares that are not only oppressive, but viewed by me as a waste of time at my advanced period.—I would now take leave with my sincere wishes for your tranquillity in retirement and felicity in future even though you should tell me as you have frequently done before, that there is not a single word of truth in the assertions of your once respected friend,

M Warren
   Nothing in one was designed by the writer of this note, than simply to exhibit the determined spirit of the Empress against receiving or encouraging a public Minister from the United States of America.


Title: To John Adams from William Vaughan, 17 August 1807
From: Vaughan, William
To: Adams, John

Orig per. New packetSir
London, 17 Aug 1807

I feel a pleasure in forwarding to you the second part of the Transactions of the Philosophical Society for 1806 and the first part for 1807, which that Society have been pleased to transmit to you through me which I hope you will receive safe by Captain LeBosquet of the Morneo.
In the same Packet, I have sent duplicates for Bowdoin College may I beg the favor of you to cause the same to be sent to them with the enclosed letter.
I hope the Volumes of last year were received safe.
Permit me to suggest to you sending me a line of acknowledgement to the Society for the present I am with great respect / Sir / your mo ob Sert
Wm Vaughan


Title: From John Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 17 August 1807
From: Adams, John
To: Warren, Mercy Otis

Dear Madam
Quincy c. August 17 1807

In the 306 page of your first Volume there are certain Traits that I had overlooked. “Richard Henry Lee Esq. was the first who dared explicitly to propose a Declaration of Independence. The Proposal Spread a Sudden dismay. A Silent Astonishment, Seemed to prevade the Assembly” &c. These Expressions, Madam, could only have arisen from Misinformation, or perhaps I shall express myself more properly, by calling it a Want of more accurate and particular information of the Proceedings in Congress. The Truth is the Subject had long been perfectly familiar to the Contemplations of all the Members of Congress. The three great Subjects, a Declaration of Independence, a Confederation of the States, and Treaties with foreign Powers, had been held up by me to the View of Congress for more than a year before this motion was made by Mr Lee in concert with me. I had myself, for more than a year, Scarcely Suffered a day to pass, without publickly adverting to those as Measures of indispensible Necessity, and earnestly urging Congress, by various Arguments to prepare themselves and the States and People to Adopt them. It appeared to me that those Gentlemen who Still flattered themselves with hopes of Reconciliation were extreamly deficient in their Knowledge of the haughty temper of the British Government and Nation and of their Sovereign Contempt of Us. It was very well known that some of the Members would never consent. For a whole year I had earnestly contended for the first Step, which appeared to me to be necessary, which was a Recommendation to all the States to take the whole Power of the Nation into their own hands, by instituting Governments by the original Authority of the People. It was not till the fifteenth day of May 1776 that We carried the Resolution. This Measure also was concerted between Mr Lee and myself, and Supported by Us and carried after a long debate. Mr Lee and myself were appointed to draw up the Resolution; it was drawn by my own hand agreed to by Mr Lee and reported by me as Chairman of the Committee. If you will please to read that Resolution in the Journal of Congress you will find that it amounted to a compleat declaration of Independence. What was it else? It was a compleat dissolution of all Allegiance to the King, it was a compleat Assumption of all Authority as well as Power. It was considered in this light by those who opposed it. Mr Duane called it “a Machine to make independence.” But in Fact it was an Assumption of Independence itself. There could be therefore no real astonishment in any body when the Motion was made by Mr Lee. If there was any affectation of Astonishment it was only by those who determined to oppose it to the last, the greatest Part of whom left Us upon that occasion, Some recalled by their Constituents and others went over to the Ennemy.
“The Measure was advocated by John Adams.” So it was, and so it had been for a year before and So many Arguments Used, and So many counter Arguments used against it, that neither Mr Adams nor Mr Dickinson, produced a Single new Idea, or Suggested a new Thought. Mr. Adams “invoked the God of Eloquence.” It is amazing to me, whence this ridiculous Story could have originated. I think I have read it in Some of the former Historians, from whom probably you received it. But you may depend upon it Madam, it is totally false. The Supream Being it is true is the God of Eloquence and of every other good: But I should never have invoked him under that Title. I remember very well what I did say. But I will previously State a Fact as it lies in my Memory, which may be Somewhat explanatory of it. In the previous multiplied debates which We had upon the Subject of Independence, the Delegates from New Jersey had voted against Us: their Constituents were informed of it, and recalled them and Sent Us a new Sett on purpose to vote for Independence. Among these were Chief Justice Stockton and Dr. Witherspoon. In a Morning When Congress met We expected the Question would be put and carried without any father Debate; because We knew We had a Majority, and thought that Argument had been exhausted on both Sides as indeed it was, for nothing new was ever afterwards advanced on either Side. But the Jersey Delegates appearing for the first time, desired that the question might be discussed. We observed to them that the Question was So public and had been So long discussed in Pamphlets News Papers and at evry fireside that they could not be uninformed and must have made up their Minds. They Said it was true they had not been inattentive to what had been passing abroad, but they had not heard the Arguments in Congress and did not incline to give their opinions untill they should hear the Sentiments of Members there. Judge Stockton was most particularly importunate, till the Members began to Say let the Gentlemen be gratified, and the Eyes of the Assembly were turned upon me and Several of them Said come Mr Adams you have had the Subject longer at heart than any of Us, and You must recapitulate the Arguments. I was Somewhat confused at this personal Application to me and would have been very glad to be excused; but as no other Person arose, after Sometime I Said “This is the first time of my Life, when I Seriously wished for the Genius and Eloquence of the celebrated orators of Athens and Rome. Called in this unexpected and unprepared manner, to exhibit all the Arguments in favour of a Measure the Most important in my Judgment that ever had been discussed in civil or political Society, I had no Art or oratory to exhibit, and could produce nothing but Simple Reason and plain common sense. I felt myself oppressed by the Weight of the Subject: and I believed it Demosthenes or Cicero had ever been called to deliberate on So great a question neither would have relied on his own Talents without a Supplication to Minerva and a Sacrifice to Mercury or the God of Eloquence.” All this to be Sure was but a flourish: and not as I conceive a very bright Exordium: but I felt Awkwardly, but nothing that I Said had the most remote resemblance to “An Invocation of the God of Eloguence.” I did not think it necessary in that assembly to make an ostentation of Piety by a Solemn Prayer: but I believe I can Safely Say I had Supplicated the Great Governor of the Universe in Relation to the Independence of my Country as often and as devoutly as Mr Dickenson had done.
Whether this crude Idea was vented by any Member of Congress from ill Will to me or merely from misunderstanding or misrecollection, I know not. I wish Some one had remembered the Speech, for it is almost the only one I ever made that I wish was litterally preserved. The Delegates from New Jersey declared themselves perfectly Satisfied, and the Question prevailed, not withstanding Mr Dickinsons Superiour “brilliancy of Epithet.” And now Madam I will relate an Anecdote. Some of these Expressions of mine have got into a Work of the Abby Raynal, and I will tell you in what manner. The Abby was very inquisitive with me after my Speeches in Congress; Said he had read Some Speeches in Some of the Publications in Europe, which were attributed to me, and he wished I would furnish him with any that I had published or delivered. I Said if he had Seen any Such Speeches they were forgeries for I never had writt published nor written a Speech in my Life made in any public assembly. Nor did I wish that any one I had ever delivered Should be preserved in Form excepting one And that was upon the Question of Independence. That had appear to me the greatest Question that ever was agitated, that the Consequences of it would be felt over the whole Globe, and therefore when I was called to discuss it I owned I had wished for the “Genius and Eloquence of the celebrated orators of Athens and Rome.”But that I had made no minutes of what I said and no part of it had been  published, I thought no more of the Conversation till the Abbys Pamphlet came out and there I read: “Que n’ai je reçu le Genie et L’Eloquence des celebres orateurs d’Athens et de Rome” &c and these are all the true Words of my Speech that have ever appeared in Print. I have mentioned this because even this Passage of Raynal has been belied in America to my disadvantage.
I am Madam as usual

John Adams


Title: From John Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 19 August 1807
From: Adams, John
To: Warren, Mercy Otis

Quincy August 19, 1807

“Pride of Talents and much Ambition were undoubtedly combined in the Character of the President, who immediately Succeeded General Washington” and these are represented as the most prominent features of his Character. Vol. 3. p. 393.
Permit me Madam to ask the favour of you, to point out the Act or Word, which appeared to you to evince this Pride of Talents. I know not that I ever felt any Such Pride. A Man whose disposition is So open as mine and who has indulged himself in So much facetiousness and So much Irony among his Friends as you know I always have done, may have often mistaken for his Friends, Enemies of the blackest rancour of heart, who may have misrepresented him in a thousand Instances. But Pride of Talents has been very far from my heart. I never in my Life believed that I had any Talents beyond mediocrity. I have always been Sensible to my mortification that all I have done, has been accomplished by the Severest and most incessant Labour. I have no reason to be proud of any thing. If I could be proud of any Thing it would be Industry: but even in this, I am much more inclined to be ashamed that I have done no more than to be proud of what I have done. I mean not by this, any affectation of Modesty for I will open my whole Soul to you on this Subject. I have great Satisfaction in believing, that I have done more Labour, run through more and greater dangers, and made greater Sacrifices, than any Man among my Contemporaries living or dead, in the Service of my Country, and I Should not hesitate to hazard all Reputation if I did not convince the Public of it too, if I should ever undertake it. This I deliver to you as my cool, Sober, deliberate opinion, and am not afraid it should go down to Posterity as Such. Will you please to name the Man who has done Suffered and Sacrificed So much? Name him and I will make a Sketch of a Comparison and either convince you or expose my self, perhaps both. You may call this Pride or Vanity or Self Sufficiency, or vain Glory or what you please. But it is the Truth.
One Event in my Administration I might expect would be represented by Hamilton and his Faction as the Effect of Pride of Talents: but I ought not to have expected it from Mrs Warren or any of her Party. I mean The Peace with France. In this Measure I was opposed by all the five of my own Cabinet Council as they call it. And by all the leading Members as they are were called of the Senate, and by all the like Members of the House of Representatives, I mean of the Federal Party. I was reduced in my own Judgment to the alternative of involving my Country in a foreign War abroad and a civil War at home on one Side; or taking upon myself, against the Advice and Wishes of all about me, the Renewal of Negotiations with France after France had humbled herself in her own Eyes, and in the Sight of all Europe and America. This I did believing at the Time, that I was Signing my own death Warrant as a Public Man: for I knew that the Antifederalists had been wrought up by twelve years of incessant Calumny to Such a rage of Prejudice and Antipathy to me that this measure would not procure me a Single Vote from that Party, and I had demonstration enough that the Same Measure would exasperate so many of the Federalists, that the next Election would undoubtedly be turned against me. I was very far from being proud of this Situation. But I thought my Duty to my Country ought to prevail over every Personal and Party Consideration, and that I ought to follow my own Judgment formed upon mature and very Serious deliberation, let it differ from whom it would. I did follow it and gave you that Peace which has been the Source of all the Tryumphs of your Party. I think you ought to give me Credit for it, instead of charging me with Pride. But it Shall be just as you please Mrs Warren. But I have never Sacrificed a Principle nor even concealed an Opinion from a Motive of ambition or an affectation of Popularity.We come now to the “much Ambition.” I am not about to unman myself. If I Should represent myself more than Man, no Person would believe me: and if I pretended to be less, I hope I Should find no Credit. Ambition is wrought into the Soul of every human Being from Alexander and Napoleon down to the Infant in his Mothers arms. I must be a Monster then in my own Estimation if I had been destitute of it in any part of my Life. Ambition too is the most lively in the most intelligent and the most generous Minds. I am far therefore from being offended at being represented as ambitious. There can be no rational question about the Existence of ambition in any human Breast, it is Scarcely extinct in Idiots and Lunaticks. The only questions Should be to what objects it is directed? and by what Laws is it governed? If the Object be the good of our Friends, Neighbours, Country and Mankind, this is Surely not censurable. If it is regulated by Truth, Honour, Justice and Benevolence it is certainly laudable. Now Madam I beseech you to tell me, when where, and in what Transaction of my Administration, or indeed of my whole Life when my Ambition prompted me to any other Object or was not regulated by those moral Sentiments and Rules? What Projects inconsistent with the Strictest Purity did my Ambition ever Suggest instigate or pursue? Whilst I hope for your candid Answer to these Questions, I will Say if any Man living or dead could produce incontestible Proofs, of a Sense of Duty prevailing over the most Seducing temptations of Ambition, I am bold to Say I have it in my Power to produce a great many of them. On the contrary I challenge all my Enemies to produce an Instance, in which my Ambition aimed at improper Objects, or pursued good ones by unjustifiable Means. I have never adopted the Maxim that the End would Sanctify or justify the means.
Careat Successibus Opto
Quisquis ob Eventu facta notanda putat.
It is with the Utmost astonishment that I read from Mrs Warrens Pen Such abominable Sentiments as those in the next Page, that I “drew a dolefull Picture of the Confusion and dissolution of all Republicks.” I drew no Pictures but that of faithful History. Not a Fact has ever been contested, nor ever can be. My Pictures of the Confusions and dissolutions, were of Republicks ill constituted, improperly mixed or not mixed at all; and this with the Single View of convincing my Countrymen of the Necessity and Duty of constituting their Republicks with Such Ballances and as could protect them from Despotism and Tyranny in every Form; and this in opposition to Chaise’s Rebellion, to the disorganizing Votes of County Committees and Conventions and especially to the weak vain Projects of Cong my particular Friends Rochefaucault and Condercet, who I Say Saw were about Setting the Universe in a blazing Bonfire by their presumptuous Ignorance, and Shallow Jurisprudence, a Sovereignty in a Single Representative assembly in France. “My Defence of the Constitutions had a powerful Tendency to Shake the Republican System, through the United States.” This is so far from being true, that those Books contributed more than all the military Exertions, to quell the Insurrections in Massachusetts, to convince the People who had been guilty of them of their Error, and to establish the Constitution of Massachusetts and introduce it as a Model into the National Constitution. You pay a miserable Compliment to the Information and Judgment of the People, Mrs Warren and a worse Compliment to the Republican System, when you Suppose that the Truth can deceive the former or Shake the latter. Republicks well constituted have been the best Governments in the World: but Republicks ill constituted have been the worst. “Few had the hardiness to counteract a Republican Form of Government, untill Several years after the United States had become an independent Nation.” Who were these few? I know of none who ever counteracted a Republican government. If there has been any Party or any Individual who has counteracted Such a Government, I know nothing of it. Such abominable Misrepresentations, Such political Chimæras, may have answered the Purposes of a Party: but as far as I know they are a merciless Injustice. If even a Hamilton or any of his Admirers, ever counteracted Such a Government, I never knew it: and certainly at this time of day if I knew it I would not conceal it. Nay farther there has been no time not even when he was most obsequious to me, when I would not have revealed it, if I had known it. The Quakers are the only People who avow themselves Monarchists and the Quakers are Jeffersonians. The grave reflections in p. 394. and 395 would make a figure in the Aurora or the Chronicle and would be very proper for one of the Sitters, or Runners or Riders at our Elections to read in the Bar Room of one of our Inns to a Cluster of Tavern haunters: but are altogether unworthy of the Pen of Mrs Warren, utterly repugnant to the Character of History.
One Word more of my “much Ambition.” If by Ambition you mean a Love of Power, or a desire of Public Offices,—I answer  I never Solicited a Vote in my Life for any Public office. I never Swerved from any Principle, I never professed any opinion, I never concealed even any Speculative opinion, to obtain a Vote. I never Sacrificed a Friend or betrayed a Trust, I never hired Scribblers to defame my Rivals I never wrote a Line of Slander against my bitterest Ennemy nor encouraged it in any other. Look over the List of your present Party Friends, and See if you can find one who can Say as much. From 1768 when I removed my Family to Boston, I never attended a popular assembly, till I was chosen their Representative, in the Place of Mr Bowdoin and your Brother in 1770 and then only for a Moment to accept the Choice. I never attended another popular assembly till 1774 when in a Boston Town Meeting of which I was made Moderator, I received the News of the appointment of Members of Congress and that I was one. The unbiased Judgment and Spontaneous feelings of the People have conferred upon me all the offices and Trusts I ever held. When I was finally turned out of the highest office in the Nation, by the Arts of a Burr and a Hamilton, and by innumerable other Arts which you probably know better than I do, have I complained. Have I been dejected,? have I been enraged? Ask those who knew me? Ambition disappointed naturally turns into Revenge. It produces Rage, Violence, Envy, Malice Hatred, and perpetual Projects to recover the lost consideration. Have you heard of any Such Effects upon me? If you have you have heard most impudent Lies. On the Contrary, although I have met with private Misfortunes and Family Afflictions Since my Exile to my “Terres” as Severe, as any you have ever experienced, I can Sincerely declare that the last Seven years have been the happiest of my Life. Have I uttered one complaint have I taken one Step to regain the popular favour? have I done one Act of Revenge upon any of my Ennemies? Have I ever done any Thing in opposition to Mr Jeffersons Government? I could have made a great deal of Noise, Mrs Warren. If those are Characteristicks of any illaudable Ambition I am ignorant of the nature of the Passion as well as of the meaning of the Word and must humbly intreat your Ladyship to explain them both to me. I will not retort, Mrs Warren, at present, upon you or your Connections: though you must be Sensible that in the opinion of World, or at least in the Prejudices of the People I might find an ample field for retalliation.
In a former Letter I hinted at Some personal Motives, that might have contributed to change Mrs Warren from a Zealous Friend into an Enemy to me. I can conjecture but one Source of this Memorable turn of the tide. It is this. At the Commencement of the new Government, Mrs Warren by Some of her Letters to me Seemed to Suppose it was in my Power to obtain Some promotion for Some of her Family. She might think that I did not exert my Self enough for this purpose. To this Accusation, if it is one I answer. By the Constitution, the Vice President was confined to the Legislature at the head of the Senate and had not the Smallest Connection with the Executive Authority. I Soon found that all the Secretaries of State were jealous enough of my Interference in any of their departments. As I had no Authority I thought I ought not to aim at any Influence in Nominations to offices. When Washington thought fit to consult me concerning the Qualifications or Merits of any of the Candidates I gave him all the Information I possessed, with Candor and Integrity: but I Scarcely recollect an Instance of my recommending a Person for nomination without the express application of the President to me. Had I been President, and at Liberty to act my own Judgment, I Should have nominated General Warren, to the office of Collector for the Port of Plymouth; for at that time all the Obloquy I had heard and all the extream Unpopularity into which he had fallen, had not Shaken my opinion of his Integrity. His Merits and Capacity in the Revolution were known to no Man better than to me. But the Conduct of General Warren at the time of Chaises Rebellion, whether truly or falsely represented, and his Supposed decided and inveterate Hostility to the Federal Constitution, had produced So determined a Spirit against him that if Washington himself had nominated him to any office, he would Surely have been negatived by the Senate. Nor was there one Moment during my Administration, when he would not have been negatived by two thirds of the Senate. For in my time the Federalists had a great Majority in Senate, which they never had in Washington’s day. This their Strength made them presumptuous and proved their ruin. But it was an immoveable Bar to any nomination of Warren in my Short Period. I am not chargeable, then, with any neglect of the Duties of Friendship, or of any oblivion of the Merrits of General Warren, while I was in Public. But I am apprehensive that the Family thought I was opposed to them or forgot them, and consequently turned their devotions to a Planet, that they thought a rising Sun, became very willing to believe as many of the Popular Lies against me as they possibly could, to call me a Monarchist and encourage the Insinuations that I had been corrupted in England &c &c &c and to cry up Jefferson as the great Republican. Jefferson who is not half so much of a Republican as I am, and whose Administration has not been So conformable to Republican Principles, or Manners as mine was. This is imputing your Change Madam to private Views and Selfish and Family Motives, to be Sure: but I cannot help it: I can think of no others. If you can explain it upon better Principles I Shall be very happy.
The only two offices, General Warren ever held under the old Congress, that of Pay Master of the Army and that of Member of the Navy Board I procured for him; and General Warren has repeatedly acknowledged it to me, I believe in your hearing. General Warren must remember, that Mr Cushing, and Mr Hancock were not very cordial Friends of his, and if he is ignorant, I know that Mr Samuel Adams, was not very zealous, till I compelled him to be So. The Motives of these Gentlemen may be conjectured. I wish I had not been compelled to expose the Imperfections of So many Patriots. But if more Justice is not done me, than is done in your History I Shall be obliged in Self defence to lay open many more Mrs Warren! In my numerous Journeys from France to Holland and from Holland to France, I took a great delight in contemplating at Antwerp the great and beautiful Productions of Art, which are collected in that City, by Rubins, Rembrandt, Vandyke and many other great Painters of the Flemish School. Among these was one, which I never failed to view with wonder, because it represented human Nature So truly and So exactly according to the experience of my whole Life, though in the most perfect and Sacred of human Characters. The Painting represented Jesus in the midst of his twelve Apostles, leaning familiarly on the Shoulder of the beloved Disciple and distinguishing him from all the eleven by Some peculiar marks of Attention and kindness. The Eyes of all are turned upon this tender Scene, and Jealousy is painted on every Countenance, more marked however in Some than in others: but Peter is almost transported with Rage His Eyes look as if they would Start out of their Socketts, his Lips Seem to quiver and his Teeth grin So Such a degree that you are apt to fancy you hear them grit against each other.
I might mention many of our best Men in whom I have observed these Passions: but at present I Shall name but few Mr Hancock was a Saint, Mr Cushing was a Saint and Mr Sam Adams was a Saint. I will not Say which of them resembled Peter the most. But I will Say that the last of them resembled Pet Saint Peter, more than the beloved John.
These Gentlemen all considered General Warren as a Person who might be brought forward as a Candidate for Governor or Lieutenant Governor. I have no more to Say at present.
I may have passed over Some Passages in your History Madam which relate to me. But I believe I have observed them all. This Letter therefore will be the last upon this Subject. I have received none of your favours Since I began to write. Had I read your History without knowing the Author, I Should have written under that Part of it which relates to me, a Stanza from Popes Alley, in imitation of Spencer, and taken no more notice of it.
Hard by a Sty, beneath a Roof of Thatch,
Dwelt obloquy, who in her early days
Basketts of Fish at Billingsgate did watch
Cod, Whiting, Oyster, Mackrel, Sprat, or plaice:
There learn’d She Speech from Tongues that never cease,
Slander beside her, like a magpie chatters
With Envy, (Spitting cat) dread foe to peace;
Like a curs’d Cur, Malice before her clatters,
And vexing every Wight, tears clothes and all to tatters.
But Mrs Warrens egregious Errors must be corrected, though I cannot and will not apply these Lines to her.

John Adams


Title: To John Adams from Rev. John Disney, 24 August 1807
From: Disney, Rev. John
To: Adams, John

Dear Sir.
The Hyde, near Ingatestone. August 24. 1807.

Among the papers of my late friend Mr.mr Brand-Hollis; I have been greatly gratified by the perusal of several letters from you, and by two from Mrs. Adams addressed to him.
It is probable that I may print a Memoir of my munificent friend, in which I should greatly wish to introduce these letters, in testimony of the friendship which subsisted between the parties, and from my conviction of their good principles, and their doing honor to the writers. But I am reluctant to take this liberty without previously asking Mrs Adams and your leave to make this use of them: and I hope such discretionary leave will not be denied me.
I had lately the pleasure of seeing Mr. Buckminster of Boston at the Hyde. From the high regard he expressed for you, I presume he is well known to you. I beg my best respects to him. I greatly regretted he made so short a stay with me.
The situation of our two countries must be alarming to each. But I trust that all serious misunderstanding will be done away by our respective rulers.—War will not afford any evidence of the justice of either side, but materially injure both.
I have been resident here since January 1805, and employed nearly the whole of my time in restoring the devastations of time, but wish a special regard to the designs of my friend.—The walk in which I pass Mr. and Mrs. Adams has been enlarged—neatly fenced, and the plantations deepened. The two respected pines are improved in situation as well as in their growth.
My family self unite in best regards to Mr. and Mrs. Adams and to Col. Smith, and I am / Dear Sir, your obliged and obedient humble servant

John Disney


Title: To John Adams from Mercy Otis Warren, 27 August 1807
From: Warren, Mercy Otis
To: Adams, John

Plymouth, Ms., Augt 27th. 1807.

At a time of life when retirement is sought for, and the release from all political attentions desired, ten long letters of accusation and reproach, of interrogation and retrospection, within the term of a few weeks, may be designed, not only to distress, but to create passions in my bosom which were never felt nor indulged.
When I finished mine of August 15th, I thought I might calculate on a respite from your exertions to insult and affront a woman of my age and standing in society. But her character may yet resist the malevolence of your pen, however indecently it has or may have been wielded, in hopes that the celebrity of your own fame might sanction an effort, as you threaten, “to enrol her name with a list of Liars and Libellers.”
It is impossible to pass over in silence your tenth letter, though you say it is your last. This letter, combined with many passages in the preceding one, is the top stone of insolent composition.—It is wound up with the most finished abuse and affrontive language that your genius or reading could furnish.—To this you have subjoined a curious selection of poetry from Pope’s Alley.—But it was a miserable subterfuge, to cover your own malignancy, to crowd in an interlineation with different ink, and at a different time, that “you cannot nor will not apply these lines to Mrs. Warren.”—You might perhaps never have been prompted to such allusions, had not your previous efforts to wound the feelings of your former friend have hardened your own so far as to lead you to cry out with Macbeth,—
“I am in blood
Stept in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”
After all, what has been the crime of the author of a History in which you have been named with so much respect? The historian never charged you with a single immorality, though her impartiality has led her, however highly she may have estimated your talents and your meritorious services to your country, conscientiously to assert that you, like all other human beings, was subject to change.—
This truth I have witnessed from my first acquaintance with you;—your nerves have not always been wound up by the same key.—I have seen you at some times ready to despair of the Commonwealth,—at others have heard you assert jocosely that liberty-pole government was the best government in the world.—At one time, I have heard you talk enthusiastically, on the “divine science of politics” and the systems productive of the greatest good to mankind; at another, I have heard you assert that self-love was the sole principle of human action.—
You may probably remember that this kind of conversation once at the Plymouth fireside, with some allusions to the doctrine of fatalism, produced a little poem addressed to yourself, which you may peruse again in page 195 of Mrs. Warren’s volume of miscellaneous poems. You have done many important services for your country since those days, but you have doubtless changed your opinions of men and things very many times; those changes, when marked or mentioned by Mrs. Warren, have always been attributed to the best motives, with a candid apology for the imperfection of human intellect, and the mistakes of an old friend.
How unlike are your charges?—Mrs. Warren is accused of a total defalcation from all principle, actuated by a malignant heart, uttering falshoods without number, and joining an infamous band of worthless defamers, in slandering Mr. Adams, in order to bring forward Mr. Jefferson to the Presidential Chair; and in writing for, and lost in the idolatrous worship of, such as you have considered, the atheistical and licentious partizans of republicanism. These, sir, are some of the charges against Mrs. Warren, through a correspondence, in which, not only the principles and manners of a gentleman, but even the language of one, have been abandoned.
To satiate your thirst for revenge for imaginary crimes—for sins of omission and commission—for omitting to draw an immaculate character,—and, for suggesting that Mr. Adams could have been once mistaken—Mrs. Warren’s family and her connections, are implicated as accessory in the guilt of the historian.—And what is the imputed guilt?—The temerity of telling the truth;—that in a certain portion of his time Mr. Adams was in favor of a monarchic government, and that this was generally believed through the United States, who rejected his opinions.—These insinuations are interwoven through all your letters against the whole Warren family, as having opposed or criminated you. These charges are contemptible enough, but more contemptible still, is your effort to magnify the ingratitude of the family, by saying that there once was a time, when, had you been the Chief Magistrate, you would have nominated General Warren a Collector for the little port of Plymouth.
Look back, sir, on what you was—look back also on Mr. Warren, say forty years ago, and recollect, what would then have been your reflections, had you have been told that you would some day have been raised to such a pinnacle of honor, as to have it in your power to insult Mr. Warren by the offer of such a petty appointment.—A short retrospection may also bring to your mind, that you are perhaps not so much indebted to any other man in the United States, for putting you in the road to the various dignified stations to which you have since been lifted;—and, when his influence had brought you forward as a member of the first Continental Congress, you may also remember that you took no step of importance without first consulting him.—This may be evinced by the many letters now in our hands, as well as by your own copies.—
I will remind you of this by copying a few extracts which confirm this assertion.—In a letter to Mr. Warren, dated Ipswich, June 25th, 1774, you speak of the Congress that was to be convened at Philadelphia, thus,—“I view the assembly that is to be there, as I do the Court of Areopagus, the Council of the Amphictyons,—a Conclave, a Sanhedrin, a Divan, I know not what. I suppose you sent me there to school. I thank you for thinking me an apt scholar, or capable of learning. For my part, I am at a loss, totally at a loss, what to do when I get there.—I must entreat the favor of your sentiments, and Mrs. Warren’s, what is proper, practicable, expedient, wise, just, good, necessary, to be done at Philadelphia. Pray, let me have them in a letter before I go.”—
I have just counted twenty-five letters received from you in those days of your pupilage, dated Philadelphia, October, 1775, and directed to Mr. Warren, besides a number to myself—November 5th, 1775, you go on, “I am under great obligations to you for your attention to me.—I am obliged to trouble you with inquiries concerning subjects which you understand very well, and I know nothing of.”—In a previous letter, you have observed thus,—“Every line I receive from you gives me great pleasure, and is of vast use to me in the public cause. Your letters were very useful to me last fall—Your character became then known, and much esteemed.—The few letters I have received from you this time, have increased the desire of more; and some other Gentlemen who happened to know you, particularly Governors Hopkins and Ward, of Rhode Island, have confirmed very good opinions which had been formed.—I must entreat you to omit no opportunity of writing, and to be as particular as possible.”—“Every letter of yours is worth its weight in gold.”—
And is it possible that you could ever suppose that this friend to whom you once looked up with so much veneration, could, in a subsequent period, ever think himself obliged, promoted, or dignified, by your appointing him a Collector for the little port of Plymouth?—
You have several times hinted at personalities, and expressed your suspicion that private resentment had been harbored by the “Warren family”—for something that seems to lie upon your conscience—
I know not what you can mean, unless you refer to a circumstance that I never thought of much consequence.—Thus, you have upbraided me in your last, with asking your influence, in the newly organized Government of the United States, for promotion to my family.—I deny it, sir.—I once had a son—a son whose amiability and worth you have frequently acknowledged under your own hand.—This son had resided long in Europe, was well acquainted with the history of foreign nations, with foreign languages, and with commercial affairs;—He would have liked a longer residence abroad, had he been appointed consul at Lisbon, as he had reason to expect from the influence of several of the first members of Congress.
It is true I once mentioned this circumstance to you, presuming you would readily facilitate this little favour, which was not beyond the influence of the Vice-President of the United States, the long professed friend of a gentleman, whose services and merits you very well knew, deserved much higher marks of consideration, both from his country and its government, than such an appointment for a son.—A rough, ungentlemanly reply to that letter was a sufficient bar to any subsequent application for your patronage.—But a circumstance of so little importance to them has never instigated the “Warren family” to form a junction with Burr, Hamilton, or any others in your list of enemies, as you have insinuated, “to turn you out of the highest office in the nation.”—
The allegations scattered through your letters, that Mrs. Warren was acquainted with the arts and intrigues of your enemies, or that she knew any thing of a long list of persons, whom you have denounced as infamous, and observed that “most of them have already come to a bad end, and the rest will follow,” are too much despised by her to attempt a refutation of your errors.
Are not these things a strong proof that a man may be “set in opposition to himself,” that the same man who has at one time requested her husband thus, “ Remember me, sir, in the most respectful manner to your good Lady, whose manners, virtues, genius, and spirit will render her immortal, notwithstanding the general depravity:”—at a subsequent period the same lady is insulted and vilified in the grossest manner in a series of letters from Mr. Adams to Mrs. Warren? Thus much for personalities. I know of nothing else on which you could found your numerous insinuations that personal resentment towards you had ever actuated my pen. If you scrutinize your own heart, you may perhaps be the best judge, whether your own conduct has not merited every censure you complain of.
You say in one of your letters that you have been “urged to write the memoirs of your own life, because nobody else could do it.”—If you should commence your own biography, a work which you say “must necessarily be very voluminous,”—which, undoubtedly, it must be, if you mean to include therein every trivial suggestion that may have come to your ear, relative to friends or foes, there may be allegations brought forward, which were never before heard or thought of by them.—I am led to expect this, not only from your threats, but from the little captious, unmeaning insinuations in the string of suppositions which here follow: “Suppose I should say, your father Colo. Otis, of Barnstable, was implicated,” &c. For what, sir? Colonel Otis’s character was so pure, that malice itself could not injure it.—“Suppose I should say Mr. James Otis, of Boston, was implicated,” &c. You know and the world knows his abilities and his merits too well, to dare to say any thing to injure his memory. “Suppose I should say General James Warren was implicated in all that I have heard of him during and since the Revolutionary War?”—Supposing you should, sir,—if you say nothing but truth, his integrity, his patriotism, and other virtues, cannot be depreciated by the pen of envy or slander. “Suppose I should say of Mrs. Warren that she has been implicated by a portion of her fellow-citizens, male and female?”—She is not afraid to stand before the tribunal of any of her fellow-citizens, either “male or female,” who may be disposed to examine her conduct through a long page of life, in which she has endeavored to discharge her domestic, as well as all other duties, with fidelity and kindness.—
For what, then, is she implicated?—You bring no specific charge against her,—but in the next page you say, you will mention “an intrigue of a party complexion,” and that you “have been informed, that when Mr. Jefferson was Secretary of State there was a meeting of the Anti Federalists at Boston, who agreed to write to Mr. Jefferson, and engage him to reserve himself as a candidate for the next Election of President, and promised to support him in opposition to me and to all others. I was accordingly to be run down and turned out.”—Is Mrs. Warren to be implicated for this intrigue?—Is it possible that Mr. Adams could for a moment indulge the absurd opinion, that Mrs. Warren knew any thing of an intrigue of which she never heard until informed by him?—You have observed that, “since that time the Warren family have countenanced some of the worst, if not all the calumnies which have been circulated against me.” This is a bold and unfounded assertion,—The Warren family at the period to which you allude, were too deeply immersed in domestic affliction of the most poignant nature, to pay much attention to the party contests of candidates for office. Mrs. Warren’s bosom was then lacerated by wounds which no time can heal, nor can oblivion ever be drawn over the cruelties which occasioned so much parental grief. Nor have the Warren family ever injured you or yours, but their mother has been very attentive and affectionate to your children—This they know, and to this my beloved friend Mrs. Adams will attest.
But however vindictive you may feel towards Mrs. Warren, or however ardently you may wish to implicate her character, you can make no exertions more injurious than those contained in your late letters.—To them you may recur; there you will find the darkest passions of the soul are in some measure gratified; and if you wish, as you seem to hint, to enroll her name on the list of a group of characters whom you most detest, it is at your option. It is true she has some general knowledge of several of the most prominent characters you have named as your enemies, but she knows not either the modes of life or the manner of death of but few of the characters that complete your long list of culprits; nor does she tremble at the most terrible denunciations of your pen—
I shall, therefore, now close after a question or two, and some subsequent observations which naturally arise. You have observed in your letter of August the fifteenth, thus: “It is my opinion, and that of all others of any long experience that I have conversed with, that your History has been written to the taste of the nineteenth century, and accommodated to gratify the passions, prejudices, and feelings of the party who are now predominant. The characters are not such as you once esteemed them in the times when they acted, but such as will please the present fashion.”—
Pray, sir, who are the wise and experienced characters whose sagacity has discovered that Mrs. Warren’s History was written to the taste of the nineteenth century, and was accommodated to gratify the passions, prejudices, and feelings of the party predominant? Do they not belong to that description of persons you once so emphatically denominated “Summer-flies, Blood-suckers &c.”?—If you have forgotten the conversation to which I allude, I will remind you when it took place, and with whom. It was with a particular and very dear friend of mine, a few weeks before it was ascertained that you had been elected Vice President of the United States. Your mind was then in a perturbed state, or you would not have made use of very many expressions which were penned down, and transmitted to me within a few days after the conversation. Shall I refresh your memory with a small part of this curious conversation?—You spoke of Mr. King with a great deal of passion, and pronounced a philippic against him, in which were these expressions,—“If such men as King had been in Government ten years ago, we should now be trampled, (stamping hard with your foot) under the feet of the British Lyon.”—This might be true enough.—You went on, in answer to an observation of the gentleman, that “Mr. King was popular in some parts of the State”—“don’t tell me of his popularity, Sir,—it originated in deception—He obtained it by opposing the continental impost; and now he comes forward the most strenuous supporter of it;—“such Summer-flies,—such Blood-suckers—it would take fifty such men as King to make a Josiah Quincy, and five hundred of him to make a James Otis.—I never saw any thing original from him yet.—What is it has given him this reputation? And who is it that is puffing him in all the papers?—Who are your Sedgwicks and your Kings?”—
“Mr. King and Mr. Sedgwick are disappointed in the election for Senators, are they not, Mr. ———?”—“Mr. Sedgwick to be Speaker of the House of Representatives, and member of Congress for this State, is quite too much for him. What, in God’s name, gave him a right to become a Senator for this State?”—
It is not difficult to prove that Mr. Adams himself has often changed his opinion of men and measures;—An instance or two is sufficient to evince this truth.—About the time his own son was appointed to reside as a public minister in the Batavian Provinces, Mr. Adams asserted that, this same Mr. King, “this summer-fly,” this “blood-sucker,”—should be promoted to the rank of Ambassador from the United States of America to the Court of Great Britain.—Thus, it is clear that he has not always estimated characters just as they were in the times when they acted, but such as would please the present fashion.—
I will only add one instance more to the same point.—Compare a letter from Mr. Adams to Mr. Warren, dated Paris, April 13, 1783, with an extract of a letter of his to the same gentleman, dated July, 1775, in the last of which Mr. Adams says:“Franklin’s character you know,—his masterly acquaintance with the French language; his extensive correspondence in France; his great experience in life; his wisdom, prudence, caution; his engaging address, united to his unshaken firmness in the present American system of politics and war,—point him out as the fittest character for this momentous undertaking.
   to go into Canada
 Nothing more need to be said:, there is no abler or better American that I know of.” Again: “I assure you, the old gentleman is as firm as a mountain, and very serviceable to us. His head is clear, and his heart strong. I wish the multiplicity of business at his age may not deprive his country of his services too soon.”
When you compare the two letters above alluded to, in the first of which, dated April 13, 1783, no language is too severe in which to draw the character of Doc. Franklin, you may perhaps justify a change of opinion relative to the characters of men, when time has developed alterations which sanction a different portrait of them, without a conformity to present fashions or modes of thinking.
You have informed me that some of your friends have observed to you that my History was calculated for the taste of the nineteenth century. Whatever deference might have been due to the judgment of some of them, before their hearts were perverted by party rancour, you may be assured I have now very little consideration for their opinions. I have had reason to suppose for several months, that there has been a combination to sink into oblivion, or to destroy the validity of a late History of the Revolution; but until recently I did not suspect that Mr. Adams had any hand in the authorcide.
The History has gone forth to the world, with my settled and fixed determination to disregard its censure or applause. Mr. Adams’s opinions might have defeated this determination, had they not have been so marked with passion, absurdity, and inconsistency as to appear more like the ravings of a maniac than the cool critique of genius and science. Criticism, in order to be useful, should always be decent, as has been said by some of my “French friends.”
You know, sir, that the History under consideration, was written before the Commencement of the Nineteenth Century, and even before Mr. Adams was President of the United States. Did you not often urge Mrs. Warren to “continue her annals,” and add, as a reason for urging this, that “no one had more authentic materials, and that you knew of no one that would do it better.” This opinion might have induced you to write thus to Mrs. Warren: “Heague, Aug. 19, 1782. I hope Mrs. Warren will give my Dutch negotiation a place in her History: it is one of the most extraordinary in all the diplomatic records. But it has succeeded to a marvel.”
There is a meanness as well as malignancy in striving to blast a work that many of the best judges of literary merit that even yourself have been acquainted with in America have spoken of in a manner very flattering to the author. Nor has your correspondent ever been charged with a want of veracity until you have unkindly done this; and no part of her deportment through a long life has ever been suspected to spring from malignancy of heart.
If there is not sufficient merit in the History of the American Revolution to establish its reputation, the author ought not to endeavour to impose it on society. If there is, it will not be in the power of enmity to sink it into oblivion. If I should live to see another edition called for of the work you have been vilifying, and should be fully convinced of any mistake, I feel myself ready to correct any error that may inadvertently have crept in, but am persuaded I shall never be obliged to contradict myself.
I have heretofore been fond of perusing your opinions on any work or any subject. This has never been done with feelings so deficient in the benign and heavenly spirit of friendship as I think have appeared in the letters recently received from the late President of the United States. I think I shall ever be a stranger to those intemperate passions that have guided his pen.
I now forbear further remarks. The lines with which you concluded your late correspondence cap the climax of rancor, indecency, and vulgarism. Yet, as an old friend, I pity you, and as a Christian, I forgive you; but there must be some acknowledgment of your injurious treatment or some advances to conciliation, to which my mind is ever open, before I can again feel that respect and affection towards Mr. Adams which once existed in the bosom of
Mercy Warren.


Title: From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 1 September 1807
From: Adams, John
To: Rush, Benjamin

Dear Friend
Quincy September 1, 1807

It is rare, that a Letter of yours remains so long upon my Table unacknowledged as has that of July 9th. Crudens Apophthagm is well worthy of your Remembrance and that of your Posterity for forty times forty years more. It is the only Clue to the Labyrinth of the World, the only key to the Riddle of the Universe. “Some Crimes are punished to prove a Providence; others escape to teach a future State.” In attempting to Shorten it, I see I have weakened it.
When General Lee called Prudence “a rascally Virtue” his meaning was good. He meant the Spirit which evades danger, when Duty, requires us to face it. This is Cowardice not Prudence, for he meant that Subtility which consults private Interest, ease, or safety, by the sacrifice or the neglect of our Friends or our Country. This may be Cunning, but is more properly called Knavery than prudence.
Your Complaint against the Director might be prudent and necessary and probably did much good by checking abuses, notwithstanding its  apparent ill success. Caveat Successibus apto, quisquis ab aventu facta notanda putat. Luther and Harvey were prudent, because they saw farther into the State of Things than those who reproached them. You was prudent in discharging your own mind and Character of all responsibility for the consequences of those Errors in Theory and Practice, which you saw prevailing in the management of the yellow Fever. Those who gave their Advice for a defensive War in 1775 had more carefully attended to the Character and Conduct of the Government  and People of England on one hand, and the People of the Colonies on the other, and had penetrated deeper into the designs and Power of both, than those who were afraid of War and advised against it. The Event has shewn that their prudence was consummate. Those who advised to early overtures of Friendship to France, had considered the State of France, humiliated by the Commerce and Naval power of Great Britain, and the irresistable temptation which the opportunity presented to the former, to disarm the latter of half her Power and acquired a share  of it to herself. They had better information and a clearer foresight, and therefore more Prudence than their Antagonists. You heard in Congress I believe  in 1776 the debate between Mr Dickinson and me, upon the question of Independence. Recollect the arguments of both and then Say which of Us discovered the most prudence. No honest Man can read the History of your Executorship without pronouncing your conduct infinitely more prudent than that of your Colleague.
By Prudence I mean that deliberation and caution, which aims at no Ends but good ones; and good ones by none but fair means, and then carefully adjusts and proportions its good means to its good Ends. Without this Virtue there can be no other. Justice itself cannot exist without it. A disposition to render to every one his right is of no Use with out prudence to judge of what is his right and skill to perform it.
When in 1797, 8, and 9. I promoted the Fortification of our Sea ports, the purchase of Navy yards, the Building  a Navy &c. I think I was more prudent that those who opposed me: though my popularity was Sacrificed to it, and my Ennemies rose to power by their imprudent opposition. Their prudence, I agree with Lee was a rascally Virtue.
I am anxious to see the Progress of Burr’s Tryal: not from any Love or hatred I bear to the man, for I cannot Say that I feel either. He is, as you say a Nondescript in natural History. But I think something must come out on the Tryal, which will strengthen or weaken our Confidence in the General Union. I hope something will appear to determine clearly, whether any foreign Power has or has not been tampering with our Union. If it should appear that he is guilty of Treason and in Concert with any foreign power, you and your twelve thousand copetitioners might petition as earnestly as you did for Fries, if I was President, and the Gallows Should not loose its prey. An ignorant Idiot of German is a very different Being from a vice President of the United States. The one knew not what Treason was: the other knows all about it. The one was instigated by Virginians and Pensilvanians who deserved to be hanged much more than he did. The other could be instigated only by his own Ambition Avarice or Revenge. But I hope his Innocence will be made to appear, and that he will be fairly acquitted.
War? or No War? That is the question. Our Monarchical, Antirepublican Administration conceal from Us the people all that information that I a zealous Republican was always prompt to communicate: So that we can only Say “what can the matter be”? If an express stipulation is demanded and insisted on by Us, that our Flagg on board Merchantmen as well as Ships of War Shall protect all British Subjects, Deserters from their Navy and all others I am apprehensive the English will not agree to it. A little Prudence such as I have defined above might accommodate matters. But our People will not Suffer their Government to be prudent. They will clamour for the protection and Hospitality of every foreign miscreant. Prudence would dictate that our Government should forbid all its Naval officers to recruit a Deserter from any Nation, in any case: and if the President has not the Power  Congress should enact it. But our People have Such a Predilection for Runaways of ever description except Runaway Negroes that I Suppose Congress would think it too unpopular, to abridge this right of Man.
How We Shall get out of the Scrape I know not. I would not give up the Principle by an express Stipulation. But I see no necessity for Stipulation on either Side. The principle is already Sufficiently established by the Law of Nations, And I think the Question might be waived by a little Skill and mutual Understanding tho’ I carry the Principle by the Law of Nations, to as great an extent as Mr. Jefferson does.
If the English fly into a Passion and with or without declaring War seize every Ship and Cargo we have at Sea, I dont believe our present Congress would declare War against them. I am sure they cannot consistently with  their avowed System, which is to defend nothing but our Farms. If our Commerce is captured and our Seaport destroyed taken or laid under contribution We Shall have a Scene of Universal distraction: But unless the people alter their Sentiments, I See no Remedy. I do not believe, however that any necessity exists to give a colour to the Pretensions of the English. They have the means of preventing the desertion of their own Seamen.
Parting with your Daughters and their suit must have been a tender Scene in your Family, and the more affecting for the present critical State of our Affairs. I have Suffered these pangs So often that I know how to Sympathize with every Sufferer in any Such Occurrences.
We are So ready for War that many of our Country Towns have voted five Dollars bounty and Sixteen Dollars pay a Month. to all their proportions of the hundred thousand Militia. You may judge what a pleasant Scene is opened to our View. We Shall have the most costly Army of Defenders that ever existed in this World, or any other I believe.
Your Fellow Citizens were disappointed as I am informed in not having you for their Moderator as they wished and intended. I think however you was right.
I am as ever

J. Adams


Title: From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, September 1807
From: Adams, John
To: Rush, Benjamin

Dear Sir
Quincy September 1807

I want to write an Essay.—Whom Shall I choose for a Model?—Plutarch, old Montaigne, Lord Bacon, Addison, Johnson, or Franklin? The last, if he had devoted his Life to the Study might have equalled Montaine in Essays or La Fontaine in Fables: for he was fitter more fitted for either or both than to conduct a Nation like Prony or Colbert. I am however too round about, to imitate the close, direct and Sententious manner of any of them. I am stumbled at the very Threshold. My Subject is Disinterest or Disinterestedness. I must leave you to decide, for I cannot Say which is the most proper Word.
Mirabeau said of La Fayette “Il a affiché desinteressement” and he added “this never fails.” You know the sense of the Word “affiché”? It is as much as to say “he advertised” his Disinterestedness. That is equivalent to saying that he employed a Crier to proclaim through the Streets O yes! O yes! O yes! All manner of Persons, may have the benefit of my Services, Gratis, provided allways and only, that they will yield me their unlimited and unsuspecting Confidence, and make me Commander in Chief of five hundred thousand Men, and after I shall have gained a few Victories make me a King or an Emperor, when I shall take a fancy to be either. This has been the amount and the Result of most of the Disinterestedness that has been professed in the World. I say most, not all. There are exceptions and our Washington ought to pass for one. La Fayette imitated his Example. So have Jefferson, Hamilton, Governor Strong Fisher Ames and many others; Some with and others without success.
Washington had great Advantages for obtaining Credence. He possessed a great Fortune, immense Lands, many Slaves, an excellent Consort no Children. What could he desire more for Felicity here but one? His Professions therefore of attachment to private Life, fondness for Agricultural Employments and rural Amusements, were easily believed: And We all agreed to believe him and make the World believe him. Yet We see he constantly betrayed apprehensions, that he Should not be Seriously believed by the World. He was nevertheless believed, and there is not an Example in History of a more universal Acknowledgment of Disinterestedness in any Patriot or Hero, than there is and will be to the latest Posterity in him. La Fayette had not the Same Felicity. His Fortune in France bore no proportion to Washingtons in America: and Frenchmen had not the same faith with Americans, in the Existence or Possibility of Disinterestedness, in any Man. His Professions therefore did not produce Such an Enthusiasm as Washingtons. Jefferson resigned his office as Secretary of State and retired and his Friends Said he had Struck a great Stroke to obtain the Presidency. I heard Some of them Say this, particularly Edmund Randolph who was his great friend. The whole Anti federal Party at that time considered this retirement as a Sure and certain Step towards the Summit of the Pyramid: and accordingly represented him as unambitious unavaricious and perfectly disinterested in all parts of all the States in the Union. When a Man has one of the two greatest Parties in a Nation, interested in representing a Man him to be disinterested, even those who believe it to be a lie will repeat it so often to one another that at last they will seem to believe it to be true. Jefferson has Succeeded, and multitudes are made to believe that he is pure Benevolence: that he desires no Profit: that he wants no Patronage: that, if you will only let him govern, he will rule only to make the People happy. But you and I know him to be an Intriguer. Hamilton had great disadvantages. His original was infamous: His Place of Birth and Education were foreign Countries: His Fortune was Poverty itself: The Profligacy of his Life: his fornications Adulteries and his Incests were propagated far and wide: Nevertheless he “affiched” Disinterestedness as boldly, as Washington. His Mirmidons asserted it, with as little Shame, tho’ not a Man of them believed it. All the rest of the World ridiculed and despized the Prætext. He had not therefore the Same Success. Yet he found means to fascinate Some and intimidate others. You and I know him also to have been an Intriguer. Governor Strong retired and Succeeded: He acquired the Reputation of being destitute of Ambition and was chosen Governor by fair means, and was a very good one. Ames miscarried. He was obnoxious to one Party, and by placing all his hopes on Hamilton, lost the Confidence of the Soundest Portion of the other Party, and is now dying, as I fear, under the gloomy feelings of his Disappointments.
I have Sometimes amused myself with inquiring where Washington got his system. Was it the natural Growth of his own Genius? Had there been any Examples of it in Virginia? Instances enough might have been found in History of excellent Hypocrites, whose Concealments, Dissimulations and Simulations had deceived the World for a time. And Some great Examples of real disinterestedness, which produced the noblest Effects and have always been acknowledged. But you know that our beloved Washington was but very Superficially read in History of any Age Nation or Country. Where then did he obtain his Instruction? I will  tell you what I conjecture.Rollins ancient History you know is very generally diffused through this Country, because it has been and is in England. The Reading of most of our Men of Letters extends little further than this Work and Prideaux’s Connection of the old and New Testament. From Rollins I Suspect, Washington drew his Wisdom, in a great measure. In the third Chapter of the third book, i.e in the Second Volume page forty three, in the History of the Kingdom of the Medes, there are in the Character of Dejoces, Several Strokes, which are very curious, as they resemble the Politicks of So many of our Countrymen, though the whole Character taken together is far inferiour in Purity and Magnanimity to that of Washington. “He retired from Public Business, pretending to be over fatigued with the Multitude of People that resorted to him.” “His own Domestic Affairs would not allow him to attend those of other People” &c “The licentiousness of Dejoces which had been restrained for Some time by the Management of Dejoces, began to prevail more than ever, as Soon as he had withdrawn himself from the Administration of Affairs; and the evil increasd to Such a degree, that the Medes were obliged to assemble, and deliberate upon the means of curing so dangerous a Disorder.”“There are different Sorts of Ambition: Some violent and impetuous carry every Thing as it were by Storm, Sticking at no kind of Cruelty or Murder: another Sort more gentle, puts on an Appearance of Moderation and Justice, working under ground, and yet arrives at her Point as Surely as the other.”“There is nothing, certainly nobler or greater, than to See a private Person eminent for his merit and Virtue, and fitted by his excellent Talents for the highest Employments, and yet through inclination and modesty preferring a life of Obscurity and Retirement; than to See Such a man Sincerely refuse the offer made to him, of reigning over a whole Nation, and at last consent to undergo the toil of Government, upon no other motive than that of being Serviceable to his Fellow Citizens. His first disposition, by which he declares that he is acquainted with the Duties and consequently the dangers annexed to a Sovereign Power, Shews him to have a Soul Superiour to all Ambition more elevated and great than greatness itself; or to Speak more justly, a Soul Superiour to all Ambition: Nothing can Shew him so perfectly worthy of that important Charge, as the Opinion he has of his not being So, and his fears of not being equal to it—But when he generously Sacrifices his own quiet and Satisfaction, to the Welfare and tranquility of the Publick, it is plain he understands what that Sovereign Power has in it, really good, or truly valuable; which is, that it puts a Man in a Condition of becoming the Defender of his Country, of procuring it many Advantages, and of redressing various Evils; of causing Law and Justice to flourish, of bringing Virtue and Probity into reputation, and of establishing Peace and Plenty: And he comforts himself for the cares and troubles, to which he is exposed, but the prospect of the many Advantages Benefits resulting from them to the Publick.—Such a Governor was Numa, of Rome and Such have been Some other Emperors, whom the People have constrained to accept the Supreme Power.”
“It must be owned, (I cannot help repeating it,) that there is nothing nobler or greater than Such a disposition.
“He commanded his Subjects to build a City, marking out himself the Place and Circumference of the Walls.” “Within the last and Smallest Enclosure Stood the Kings Palace. In the next there were Several Appartments for lodging the officers. The Name of the City was Ecbatana.” &c Tom Paine represents me as exulting at Washington “Is not this great Babylon that I have Builded?” &c. The Scoundrel knows it was Washington and Jefferson that built this Ecbatana: and he might have known that I opposed it, in every step of its Progress and voted against it in Senate on all occasions. But Truth has no Esteem in his Eyes. No more.
Tell me, has not our American System of Politicks and Ambition been copied from this very passage? If not from whence did it come? Read the Chapter in Rollin. Washington was more sincere than Dejoces: but I am persuaded he had read this description of him.
J. Adams


Title: To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 31 October 1807
From: Rush, Benjamin
To: Adams, John

My Dear Sir
Philadelphia October 31st: 1807

I am ashamed of my long silence after the receipt of the two last letters from my kind friend and benefactor. The hurry introduced into my ordinary mass of business by the Influenza and its Consequences, must be my apollogy for my seeming inattention to your interesting favors.—
You have happily distinguished between Prudence and Art. I agree with you in your history of Disinterestedness. It is indeed a rare Virtue. An Englishman died a few years ago near this city who left the interest of £1500 to be appropriated Annually to reward Acts of disinterestedness. One of our Lawyers has declared the design of the testator cannot be fulfilled—and the Brother of the deceased, as heir of at law, has claimed the legacy. I do not think the Gentleman you alluded to in your letter upon this subject, formed himself, or his Conduct upon the model of the Character described in Rollin. He was selftaught in all the Arts which gave him his immense elevation above all his fellow Citizens. An intimate friend of Col: Hamiltons informed me, that he once told him that he had never read any other a single military book except Sims’s Guide. Sir Hanse Sloan used to show among the Curiosities of his Museum, a list of Dr Ratcliff’s library, which consisted only of a half a dozen practical books upon medicine. A friend of Ratcliff’s told him of this Satire upon his medical character, and spoke at the same time of the large size of Sir Hans’s library. “That is all right said Dr Ratcliff. D——n the fellow he requires books.”—The same remark has been applied to many other men who possess learning and reading, and the same preeminence over them by men who never read, has often been ascribed to the Gentleman mentioned in your letter. While the resources of Genius,—reading, and reflection has each had its specific Advocates for fame, perhaps Dr Clarks opinion of the means of becoming eminent in a profession deserves the most credit—it consists he says in “reading much—thinking much and writing much.” They mutually assist each Other in giving the greatest expansion & correctness, to the human mind. For this purpose they should bear a due proportion to each other. Dr Priestley read & wrote a great deal. but Had he thought more he would probably have corrected many of the errors which he defended upon several Subjects. Dr Franklin thought a great deal, wrote occasionally, but read, during the middle & latter years of his life very little & hence the errors of several of his opinions upon Government. Our great man wrote  constantly a great deal, thought constantly, but read (it is said) very little; and hence the questions of disrespect with which his talents & character have been treated by his Aid de Camp. But eno’ of great men! especially to one who has ceased to believe in them, and to be known from knowing so well, how much littleness is mixed with human Greatness,—how much folly—with human Wisdom, and how much Vice—with the greatest Attainments in human Virtue.
While thousands in our city spend their whole time in speculating upon peace or War, I am quietly pursuing all the objects of my profession. On Monday next I expect to begin my annual Course of lectures. The subject of my introductory lecture is “the duty & Advantages of studying the diseases of domestic Animals, and the remedies proper to cure them.” I have given the following reasons for urging the subject upon my Class. 1 our relation to domestic Animals f arising from our being formed at the same time & from the same dust—possessing bodies capable like theirs, of pain, and Subject like theirs to death, and from the dominion over them given to man at the Creation. 2 Our Obligations to them generally & particularly. 3 The inability of Nature to cure their diseases. 4 Their Sufferings from Quacks. 5 The necessity of knowing their diseases, in order to prevent our being injured by the flesh of such of them as compose a part of our Aliment. 6 The necessity of preserving the Character of their flesh as important and profitable Articles of Commerce. 7 The Advantages to be derived from a knowledge of their diseases, in aiding our inquiries into the diseases of the human body. 8 The precepts of the Old & new testament which inculcate tenderness to, & Care of them. My 9th reason is as follows. “I proceed in the last place to mention a reason for making the health of domestic Animals, the subject of our studies & care, which I should hesitate in delivering, were it not sanctioned by the name of a man whose discoveries in physiological, metaphysical & theological science, mark an Æra in the Atchievements of the human mind, I mean the great & good—I had almost said—the inspired Dr Hartley, and that is, their probable relation to us in a resurrection after death, and an existence in a future state. I shall read a short passage from the Doctors Works upon this Subject. After expressing a doubt concerning the redemption of the brute creation he adds “However;—their fall with Adam, the Covenant made with them after the deluge, their serving for sacrifices for the sins of men, and as types and emblems in the prophesies, and their being commanded to praise God, seem to intimate that there is Mercy in store for them, more than we may expect to be revealed in due time. The Jews considered the Gentiles as dogs compared with themselves, and the brute creatures appear by the history of Association that has been given, to differ from us in degree, rather than in kind.”
In favor of these remarks of Dr Hartley, it many be said, that as moral evil and death accompanied each other in the human race, they are probably connected in the brute Creation,—that they possess nearly all our Vices & Virtues,—that the perfection of the divine Government requires that their Vices should be punished, and their Virtues rewarded,—that reparation should be made to them for their accumulated sufferings in this World, and that the divine bounty discovered in the gift of their pleasures, would be rendered abortive unless they were placed in a situation to make returns for them in praise and gratitude in a future state of existence. It is alike foreign to my inclinations, and the design of this lecture to enter further into this question. To such of you as wish to see all the Arguments from reason & revelation that are urged in its favor, I beg leave to recommend the perusal of an essay in the Works of Dr Hildrop a learned and pious Clergyman of the Church of England entitled “free throughts upon the brute creation.” In whatever way the controversy may be decided, I shall only add that a belief in the opinion that has been suggested by the physician, & defended by the divine whose names have been mentioned, is calculated in no one instance to do any harm, but on the Contrary, much good, by encreasing our obligations to treat them our domestic subjects with tenderness, and care.  If the Opinion be erroneous, let the justice & mercy of the supreme Being in his Conduct to his brute creation remain unimpeached. The divine government in this World may be compared to a dreary prospect of an extensive and highly cultivated Country on a Winter-day. The last revolution of our Globe will cloathe this prospect with all the beauties of the Vernal, & all the products of the Autumnal months. It will then appear that the apparent discord of in the being of and end of all intelligent and animated Creatures, was “harmony not understood” and that all their sufferings were a necessary part of “Universal good.”
I was much gratified by your approbation of my declining to preside over our town meeting last Summer. I was invited to it by the heads of all the three parties in our city, and urged to it by all my family & several of my friends. My feelings revolted against it, and my judgment disapproved of it. My family & friends now think I acted properly. My ever honoured preceptor the Revd: Dr Finley I well recollect when a Schoolboy in taking leave of one of his Scholars who was coming to live in Philada: laid before him the temptations to Vice to which he would be exposed from the solicitations of bad company—and concluded his advice to him by saying in an emphatical tone “learn to pronounce that bold Word—no.” Happy—happy had it been for me—had I upon a hundred occasions used that bold monosyllable with the same decision that I did upon the Occasion to which I have alluded.—The misfortunes of most men in moral, commercial, and political life, arise from their inability to pronounce that Ark-like Word.
What would have been the present state of our country—had you used that word half a dozen times at the time the appointments were made of in the late American Army? One of your letters to me two years ago—has answered this question. Adieu—Adieu with love as usual, I am my Dr friend ever yrs

B: Rush
PS: My son Richard has just returned from Norfolk, where he went to take a part in the inquiry into the Conduct of Cap: Banon. On his way home, he stopped at Richmond where he saw and heard many things which it is not lawful to tell. Federalists! Democracy! law! Order! “Libertas et natale solum”!—all fine very fine words. I wonder in the language of Dean Swift “where we stole them.”