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

TO M. DE LA LUZERNE. - 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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TO M. DE LA LUZERNE.

Sir,

I have the honor of your letter from Philadelphia of the 29th of September, and return you my sincere thanks for your kind congratulations on the honor which has been done me in my election to an important negotiation in Europe. The sentiments your Excellency is pleased to express of my character and of the good opinion of my own countrymen in general, are exceedingly flattering to me.

There is no character in which I could act with so much pleasure as in that of a peacemaker. But alas! sir, when I reflect upon the importance, the delicacy, intricacy, and danger of the service, I feel a great deal of diffidence in myself. Yet, when I consider the remarkable unanimity with which I was chosen, after congress had been so long distressed with the appearance of their foreign affairs, and so divided in sentiment about most other characters, I am penetrated with a sense of the honor done to me, more than I can express.

Your Excellency may be assured that, wherever I go, I shall carry with me the highest opinion of the wisdom, the equity, and policy of the present minister from France, and the fullest persuasion that his negotiations will be reciprocally advantageous to the allies, and incessantly tending to strengthen the ties of interest and good-will that at present unite them.

Your Excellency will be pleased to accept of my thanks for the favor of a passage in the frigate, the Sensible. I have not yet received from congress any despatches. As soon as they arrive, I shall immediately wait on Captain Chavagnes, and the frigate shall not be unnecessarily detained on my account. I will either embark immediately, or inform the captain that I cannot have the pleasure to go with him.

I must also request of your Excellency to present my respectful compliments and thanks to M. Gérard for so obligingly joining his instances with yours to the captain of the frigate for my passage in her.

I have the honor to be, with the sincerest attachment, &c.

John Adams.