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

TO T. JEFFERSON. - 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 T. JEFFERSON.

London, 25 August, 1787.

Dear Sir,—

On my return from an excursion to Devonshire with my family, where we have been to fly from the putrefaction of a great city in the summer heats, I had the pleasure to find your favors of the 17th and 23d July.

A million of guilders are borrowed on a new loan in Holland; and I went over lately to subscribe the obligations, a punctilio which the brokers were pleased to think indispensable, to gratify the fancies of the money-lenders. But, as I had no fresh authority from congress, nor any particular new instructions, I have been and am still under serious apprehensions of its meeting with obstacles in the way of its ratification. If it is ratified, congress may, if they please, pay the interest, and principal too, out of it, to the French officers. I presume that if M. Grand should refuse your usual drafts for your salary, Messrs. Willink and Van Staphorst will honor them to the amount of yours and Mr. Short’s salaries without any other interposition than your letter; but if they should make any difficulty, and if it should be in my power to remove it, you may well suppose I shall not be wanting. To be explicit, I will either advise or order the money to be paid upon your draft, as may be necessary, so that I pray you to make your mind perfectly easy on that score.

Mr. Barclay, I agree with you, took the wisest course when he embarked for America, though it will lay me under difficulties in settling my affairs finally with congress.

The French debt, and all the domestic debt of the United States, might be transferred to Holland, if it were judged necessary or profitable, and the congress or convention would take two or three preparatory steps. All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation. While an annual interest of twenty, thirty, and even fifty per cent. can be made, and a hope of augmenting capitals in a proportion of five hundred per cent. is opened by speculations in the stocks, commerce will not thrive. Such a state of things would annihilate the commerce, and overturn the government, too, in any nation in Europe.

I will endeavor to send you a copy, with this letter, of the second volume of the “Defence.” If Frouillé, the bookseller, has a mind to translate it, he may; but it may not strike others as it does Americans. Three editions of the first volume have been printed in America. The second volume contains three long courses of experiments in political philosophy. Every trial was intended and contrived to determine the question whether Mr. Turgot’s system would do. The result you may read. It has cost me a good deal of trouble and expense to search into Italian ruins and rubbish, but enough of pure gold and marble has been found to reward the pains. I shall be suspected of writing romances to expose Mr. Turgot’s system; but I assure you it is all genuine history. The vast subject of confederations remains; but I have neither head, hands, heart, eyes, books, nor time to engage in it; besides, it ought not to be so hasty a performance as the two volumes already ventured before the public.

With perfect esteem, your sincere friend,

John Adams.