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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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TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.

Amsterdam, 25 December, 1780.

Sir,—

Affairs are still in suspense. This day being Christmas, and yesterday Sunday, there was no public exchange held on either. But business, and especially stockjobbing, goes on without ceasing, being done at the coffee-houses on Sundays and holydays, when it cannot be held upon ’change.

The English mail, which had been interrupted by contrary winds for three posts, arrived on Saturday. The English gazettes of the 19th announced that Sir Joseph Yorke was recalled, and a Dutch war was inevitable. Private letters informed that the Count de Welderen was about leaving the British Court, that an embargo was laid on all Dutch ships in Great Britain, that the stocks had fallen two per cent., and that a war was unavoidable. The stockjobbers, Englishmen, and others at the coffee-houses had very melancholy countenances and more than common anxiety. News was also propagated from the Hague, that Sir Joseph Yorke was gone. Others said he had received his orders to go. As there was no exchange, the public judgment is not yet made up, whether there will be war or not. Some gentlemen of knowledge and experience think all this a farce, concerted at the Hague, between Sir Joseph and his friends there, and the ministry in England, in order to spread an alarm, intimidate the States into an answer, which may be accepted with a color of honor, &c., or to do something worse, that is, rouse a spirit among the mobility against the burgomasters of Amsterdam. I cannot, however, but be of opinion, that there is more in this, and that the ministry will carry their rage to great extremities. They have gone too far to look back, without emboldening their enemies, confounding their friends, and exposing themselves to the contempt and ridicule of both. A few hours, however, will throw more light upon this important subject. The plot must unravel immediately.1

I have the honor, to be, &c.

John Adams.

[1 ]I cannot pass this letter without an observation upon it. This conduct of the Court of London and the Court of Holland was very skilfully adapted to the constitution and the state of society in the United Provinces. The sovereignty, by the constitution, is a pure aristocracy residing in the regencies, which consist of about four thousand persons. The common sense, or the common feelings of human nature had instituted, or rather forced up by violence, an hereditary stadtholder, to protect the common people or democracy against the regencies or aristocracy. But as the stadtholdership was always odious to the aristocracy, there had been frequent disputes between them, which must have terminated in the expulsion of the House of Orange and the abolition of the stadtholdership, if it had not been for the interposition of the commons,—the common people. These, having no house of commons, no house of representatives to protect them, or even to petition, had no mode of interposing, but by mobs and insurrections. This kind of democracy has always been dreadful in all ages and countries. Accordingly Barnevelt had been sacrificed at one time, the De Witts at another, and in 1748 more sacrifices would have been made, if the aristocracy had not learned some wisdom by tragical experience, and given way in some degree to the popular enthusiasm. If there is any credit to be given to history or tradition, there has never existed on this globe a character more pure, virtuous, patriotic, or wise, than John De Witt, or a greater hero than Cornelius. Yet these two citizens were murdered by their fellow-citizens at the Hague, with circumstances of cruelty and brutality too shocking to describe. Yet the most savage of these assassins is universally believed in Holland to have received a pension for life from our great deliverer, King William.

The apprehension at this time was very general, that M. Van Berckel and one or two of the burgomasters, Hooft at least, were to be immolated like the De Witts; and not a few expected that the American ambassador would not escape. I do not accuse, nor will I suspect that the two courts wished to proceed to such bloody extremities as in the case of De Witt; but that they expected to excite insurrections that should compel the republic to submit to the English policy, there can be little doubt. There is nothing so instructive to aristocracy and democracy as the history of Holland, unless we except that of France for the last five-and-twenty years; nothing which ought so forcibly to admonish them to shake hands and mutually agree to choose an arbitrator between. Let me not be misunderstood. I have been too often misunderstood already, sometimes ignorantly, and sometimes wilfully. I mean not an hereditary arbitrator. An hereditary executive power can be limited by nothing less than an hereditary aristocracy. When one is admitted the other must be as the only antidote to the poison. A proper equilibrium may be formed between elective branches as well and perhaps better than between hereditary ones. And our American balance has succeeded hitherto as well as that in England, and much better than that in Holland. May it long endure! But to that end, in my humble opinion, the president’s office must be less shackled than it has been.

Letters to the Boston Patriot, 1809.