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

TO T. PICKERING, SECRETARY OF STATE. - 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 T. PICKERING, SECRETARY OF STATE.

Quincy, 25 August, 1797.

Dear Sir,—

I have received, in course, your favors of July 28th, August 1st, 3d, and 17th. That of July 28th only inclosed a letter from Mr. Gerry.

The Mediterranean passports, mentioned in your letter of August 1st, I signed, as soon as possible, and returned them to you in three packets by the post.

I saw Mr. Howell at Boston, Providence, and Quincy; but as he said nothing to me on the subject of his salary, I thought it unnecessary for me to mention it to him. The commissioners have now adjourned for another year.

I have read the deposition of James Wallis, and the letter of Judge Sitgreaves,1 inclosed in yours of August 3d. The measures you have taken, are the most prudent that could have been taken, I believe; and no proclamation appears to be necessary for the present. A proclamation would excite and spread alarms, and make more of the thing than there appears to be in it. It is very strange that the officers of justice cannot make discoveries and obtain evidence, if there are facts. When witnesses talk about agitations and prevailing reports, it may be ground for inquiry to an attorney-general. But, certainly, armies cannot be levied without witnesses; and witnesses may prove crimes; and crimes may be punished, unless our country is abandoned of God.

With great regard, &c.

John Adams.

P. S. I thank you for sending the brigantine Sophia to the relief of our suffering seamen.2

[1 ]The letter and deposition gave notice to the government of enlistments making in North Carolina for some secret purpose. Mr. Pickering, in his letter, says:

“I answered the Judge that the papers would be submitted to your consideration; and that, perhaps, you might think it proper to issue a proclamation to check the evil, and warn the people of their danger.”

“I shall write advice of this discovery to the judges and district attorneys of South Carolina and Georgia, and probably to the governors of the three southern States, that they cooperate in counteracting such pernicious designs. The instructions, given by the Secretary of War to the officer commanding the troops in Tennessee, may supersede the necessity of any other measures. And, by all these steps, perhaps a proclamation may be rendered unnecessary.”

[2 ]This is in answer to Mr. Pickering’s letter of the 17th, in which he says:

“Recent intelligence of the wretched condition of numbers of our seamen, cast ashore, by French privateers, at St. Jago de Cuba (a place of no trade), who for want of means of returning, were constrained to enter on board the privateers, joined to the former accounts of the ill treatment of others and their imprisonment by Victor Hugues, determined me, with the concurrence of the Secretary of War, to send the Sophia on this voyage without more delay. She will sail this day.”