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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 7 (Letters and State Papers 1777-1782) [1852]

Edition used:

The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1856). 10 volumes. Vol. 7.

Part of: The Works of John Adams, 10 vols.

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.

Sir,

Looking over the printed journals of the 15th of last April, I find in the report of the committee appointed to take into consideration the foreign affairs of the United States, and also the conduct of the late and present commissioners of these States, the two following articles.

1. “That it appears to them, that Dr. Franklin is Plenipotentiary for these States at the Court of France; Dr. Arthur Lee, Commissioner for the Court of Spain; Mr. William Lee, Commissioner for the Courts of Vienna and Berlin; Mr. Ralph Izard, Commissioner for the Court of Tuscany; that Mr. John Adams was appointed one of the Commissioners at the Court of France in the place of Mr. Deane, who had been appointed a Joint Commissioner with Dr. Franklin and Dr. Arthur Lee, but that the said commission of Mr. Adams is superseded by the plenipotentiary commission to Dr. Franklin.

3. “That in the course of their examination and inquiry, they find many complaints against the said commissioners, and the political and commercial agency of Mr. Deane, which complaints, with the evidence in support thereof, are herewith delivered, and to which the committee beg leave to refer.”

The word “said” in the second article refers to the commissioners mentioned in the first, and, as my name is among them, I learn from hence that there were some complaints against me, and that the evidence in support of them was delivered to congress by the committee.

I therefore pray that I may be favored with copies of those complaints and evidences, and the names of my accusers, and the witnesses against me, that I may take such measures as may be in my power to justify myself to congress.1

I have the honor to be, &c.

John Adams.

[1 ]This letter, growing out of the complaints made by Mr. Izard, already alluded to in a former note, was submitted to congress by the president. But that body, when called upon by Mr. Gerry, refused to take any action upon it, on the ground that Mr. Adams had already, by a formal vote, been excepted from the general censure passed upon the commissioners in Europe, and that their subsequent appointment of him to a new trust had entirely rejected the particular charge.

See in the Journals of Congress, 20 April, 1779, the yeas and nays upon each separate name of the commissioners, and, in the general correspondence in this work, the confidential letters of Elbridge Gerry and James Lovell, under dates 27 and 29 September, 1779, further elucidating these movements.