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

TO INCREASE SUMNER. - 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 INCREASE SUMNER.

Dear Sir,

I have received the letter your Excellency did me the honor to write me, dated the 18th, by mistake I presume, as I am told it was written this morning. I have read all the papers, and return them. I think it will be advisable that your Excellency should communicate them to the Attorney-General of the State, and the District-Attorney, Mr. Davis, at Boston, that both those gentlemen may write to the attornies who act for the State and the district in Maine. An investigation ought to be set on foot; but I am not alarmed at such information, having received much of it in other places, which has not amounted to any thing serious in the end.1 Mrs. Adams joins me in respects to your Excellency’s lady. She has not been out of her chamber since she first entered it after our arrival, and is still very weak.

With great regard, &c.

John Adams.

[1 ]Governor Sumner’s letter gives a curious account of a rumored French invasion of the district of Maine, and of the presence of some agent disseminating treason. All this, based upon the deposition of a single person! It furnishes a remarkable illustration of the disturbed condition of the times.