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

TO SECRETARY LIVINGSTON. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 8 (Letters and State Papers 1782-1799) [1853]

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. 8.

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

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TO SECRETARY LIVINGSTON.

Paris, 21 November, 1782.

Sir,—

We live in critical moments. Parliament is to meet, and the King’s speech will be delivered, on the 26th. If the speech announces Mr. Oswald’s commission, and the two houses in their answers thank him for issuing it, and there should be no change in the ministry, the prospect of peace will be flattering. Or if there should be a change in the ministry, and the Duke of Portland, with Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke, should come in, it will be still more so. But if Richmond, Camden, Keppel, and Townshend, should retire, and my Lord North and company come in, with or without the Earl of Shelburne, the appearances of peace will be very unpromising. My Lord North, indeed, cannot revoke the acknowledgment of our independence, and would not probably renounce the negotiations for peace, but ill-will to us is so habitual to him and his master, that he would fall in earnestly with the wing-clipping system; join in attempts to deprive us of the fisheries and the Mississippi, and to fasten upon us the tories; and in every other measure to cramp, stint, impoverish, and enfeeble us. Shelburne is not so orthodox as he should be, but North is a much greater heretic in American politics.

It deserves much consideration what course we should take, in case the old ministry should come in, wholly, or in part. It is certain, at present, that to be obnoxious to the Americans and their ministers is a very formidable popular cry against any minister or candidate for the ministry in England, for the nation is more generally for recovering the good-will of the Americans than they ever have been. Nothing would strike such a blow to any ministry as to break off the negotiations for peace; if the old ministry come in, they will demand terms of us at first, probably, that we can never agree to.

It is now eleven or twelve days since the last result of our conferences was laid before the ministry in London. Mr. Vaughan went off on Sunday noon, the 17th. So that he is, no doubt, before this time, with my Lord Shelburne. He is possessed of an ample budget of arguments to convince his Lordship that he ought to give up all the remaining points between us.1 Mr. Oswald’s letters will suggest the same arguments in a different light, and Mr. Strachey, if he is disposed to do it, is able to enlarge upon them all in conversation.

The fundamental point of the sovereignty of the United States being settled in England, the only question now is, whether they shall pursue a contracted or a liberal, a good-natured or an ill-natured plan towards us. If they are generous, and allow us all we ask, it will be the better for them; if stingy, the worse. That France does not wish them to be very noble to us may be true. But we should be dupes indeed, if we did not make use of every argument with them, to show them that it is their interest to be so. And they will be the greatest bubbles of all, if they should suffer themselves to be deceived by their passions or by any arts to adopt an opposite tenor of conduct.

I have the honor to be, &c.

John Adams.

[1 ]At a late period of his life, Mr. Vaughan deposited with the late John Quincy Adams, copies of his confidential letters addressed to Lord Shelburne during the period of this private mission. It was originally the intention to have added them in the form of an appendix to this volume, but the mass of valuable materials for the present work, has proved to be so large as to require serious reduction from the first plan.