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

TO COUNT SARSFIELD. - 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.

About Liberty Fund:

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 COUNT SARSFIELD.

Grosvenor Square, 21 January, 1785.

Dear Sir,—

If I were so fortunate as you are, and could pass the water from Dover to Calais in three hours, I would go to Paris and dine with you in some of your American parties; but I can never get over from Harwich to Helvoet, nor from Dover to Calais, in less than seventeen hours, and, sometimes, not under three days.

I have all the pieces relative to the United Provinces, excepting the Pays de Drenthe. I have one piece upon slavery, one upon women, and two introductions to the subject of fiefs. That is all that I have.1

Among all my acquaintance, I know not a greater rider of hobby-horses than Count Sarsfield. One of your hobby-horses is, to assemble uncommon characters. I have dined with you two or three times at your house, in company with the oddest collections of personages that were ever put together. I am thinking, if you were here, I would invite you to a dinner to your taste. I would ask King Paoli, King Brant, Le Chevalier d’Eon, and, if you pleased, you might have Mr. and Mrs.—with whom you dined in America. How much speculation would this whimsical association afford you!

How goes on your inquiry into fiefs? If you do not make haste, I may, perhaps, interfere with you. I have half a mind to devote the next ten years to the making of a book upon the subject of nobility. I wish to inquire into the practice of all nations, ancient and modern, civilized and savage, under all religions,—Mahometan, Christian, and Pagan,—to see how far the division of mankind into patricians and plebeians, nobles and simples, is necessary and inevitable, and how far it is not. Nature has not made this discrimination. Art has done it. Art may then prevent it. Would it do good or evil to prevent it? I believe good, think what you will of it. How can it be prevented? In short, it is a splendid subject; and, if I were not too lazy, I would undertake it.

I want to see nations in uniform. No church canonicals, no lawyer’s robes, no distinctions in society, but such as sense and honesty make. What a fool! what an enthusiast! you will say. What then? Why should not I have my hobby-horse to ride as well as my friend? I’ll tell you what. I believe this many-headed beast, the people, will, some time or other, have wit enough to throw their riders; and, if they should, they will put an end to an abundance of tricks, with which they are now curbed and bitted, whipped and spurred.

John Adams.

[1 ]See volume iii. p. 280, note.