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

TO ROBERT MORRIS. - 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 ROBERT MORRIS.

Paris, 5 July, 1783.

Sir,—

Your favors of the 12th and 29th of May were delivered to me on the 3d of this month by Captain Barney. Every assistance in my power shall be given to Mr. Barclay. Mr. Grand will write you the amount of all the bills which have been paid in Holland, which were accepted by me. You may banish your fears of a double payment of any one bill. I never accepted a bill without taking down in writing a very particular description of it, nor without examining the book to see whether it had been accepted before. I sent regularly, in the time of it, copies of these acceptances to Dr. Franklin, and I have now asked him to lend them to me, that I may copy them and send them to you. The doctor has promised to look up my letters, and let me have them. The originals are at the Hague, with multitudes of other papers, which I want every day.

Among the many disagreeable circumstances attending my duty in Europe, it is not the least, that instead of being fixed to any one station, I have been perpetually danced about from “post to pillar,” unable to have my books and papers with me, unable to have about me the conveniences of a housekeeper, for health, pleasure, or business, but yet subjected in many articles to double expenses.

Mr. Livingston has not informed me of any determination of congress upon my letter to you of the 17th of November, which distresses me much on Mr. Thaxter’s account, who certainly merits more than he has received, or can receive, without the favor of congress.

I thank you, sir, most affectionately, for your kind congratulation on the peace. Our late enemies always clamor against a peace, but this one is better for them than they had reason to expect after so mad a war. Our countrymen, too, I suppose, are not quite satisfied. This thing and that thing should have been otherwise, no doubt. If any man blames us, I wish him no other punishment than to have, if that were possible, just such another peace to negotiate, exactly in our situation. I cannot look back upon this event without the most affecting sentiments. When I consider the number of nations concerned, the complication of interests extending all over the globe, the characters of actors, the difficulties which attended every step of the progress, how every thing labored in England, France, Spain, and Holland, that the armament at Cadiz was upon the point of sailing, which would have rendered another campaign inevitable, that another campaign would have probably involved France in a continental war, as the Emperor would in that case have joined Russia against the Porte, that the British ministry was then in so critical a situation, that its duration for a week or a day depended upon its making peace, that if that ministry had been changed, it could have been succeeded only either by North and company or by the coalition, that it is certain that neither North and company, nor the coalition, would have made peace upon any terms that either we or the other powers would have agreed to, and that all these difficulties were dissipated by one decided step of the British and American ministers, I feel too strongly a gratitude to heaven for having been conducted safely through the storm, to be very solicitous whether we have the approbation of mortals or not.

A delay of one day might, and probably would, have changed the ministry in England, in which case all would have been lost. If, after we had agreed with Mr. Oswald, we had gone to Versailles to show the result to the Count de Vergennes, you would have been this moment at war, and God knows how or when you would have got out. What would have been the course? The Count de Vergennes would have sprinkled us with compliments, the holy water of a court. He would have told us, “you have done, gentlemen, very well for your country. You have gained a great deal. I congratulate you upon it, but you must not sign till we are ready; we must sign altogether here in this room.” What would have been our situation? We must have signed against this advice, as Mr. Laurens says he would have done, and as I believe Mr. Jay and I should have done, which would have been the most marked affront that could have been offered, or we must have waited for France and Spain, which would have changed the ministry in England, and lost the whole peace as certainly as there is a world in being. When a few frail vessels are navigating among innumerable mountains of ice, driven by various winds and drawn by various currents, and a narrow crevice appears to one, by which all may escape, if that one improves the moment and sets the example, it will not do to stand upon ceremonies, and ask which shall go first, or that all may go together.

I hope you will excuse this little excursion, and believe me to be, with great respect and esteem, &c.

John Adams.