Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO JOHN JAY. ( Private. ) - The Works of John Adams, vol. 8 (Letters and State Papers 1782-1799)

Return to Title Page for The Works of John Adams, vol. 8 (Letters and State Papers 1782-1799)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

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

TO JOHN JAY. ( Private. ) - 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 JOHN JAY.

(Private.)

London, 22 September, 1787.

Dear Sir,—

Your private letter of the 25th of July is very friendly and obliging, as usual. Give yourself no concern about my apprehensions of your want of attention. I know too well your constant and assiduous application to the duties of your public offices, as well as to the just concerns of your private friends, ever to suspect your failing in either.

I shudder when I think of your next volume of my despatches. I shall appear before posterity in a very negligent dress and disordered air. In truth, I write too much to write well, and have never time to correct any thing. Your plan, however, of recording all the despatches of the foreign ministers, is indispensable. Future negotiations will often make it necessary to look back to the past, besides the importance of public history. The true idea of the negotiation with Holland, particularly, will never be formed without attending to three sorts of measures; those taken with the Stadtholder and his party, those taken with the aristocratical people in the regencies, and those taken with the popular party. If any one of these had been omitted, that unanimity could never have been effected, without which the United States could not have been acknowledged, nor their minister admitted.

By obtaining from congress a letter of credence to the Prince of Orange, a measure that the patriots did not like, his party were softened; and by the inclosed letters to Mr. Calkoen, two very important burgomasters of Amsterdam, his intimate friends, and many others of the aristocratics, were kept steady. I had not time to transmit copies of those letters to congress in the season of them, but they ought to be put upon the files or records of congress. I do myself the honor to transmit you a copy for yourself, and another for congress.

Whether it would be in my power to do most service in Europe or at home, or any at all in either situation, I know not. My determination to go home was founded in a fixed opinion that neither the honor of congress nor my own, nor the interest of either, could be promoted by the residence of a minister here, without a British minister at congress; and in that opinion I am still clear. If my poor book does any good, I am happy. Another volume will reach you before this letter. In the calm retreat of Penn’s hill, I may have leisure to write another; but if I should venture to throw together any thoughts or materials on the great subject of our confederation, I shall not dare to do it in such haste as the second volume, already printed, has been done in.

The convention of Philadelphia is composed of heroes, sages, and demigods, to be sure, who want no assistance from me in forming the best possible plan; but they may have occasion for underlaborers, to make it accepted by the people, or, at least, to make them unanimous in it and contented with it. One of these underworkmen, in a cool retreat, it shall be my ambition to become. With invariable esteem and affection,

I am, sir,

John Adams.