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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.

Sir,

I received last night your favor of the 18th. The misfortune of the Hero is much to be regretted.2 The necessary orders, I presume, will be despatched to her at Jamaica; but I am not sufficiently informed of her situation to be able to judge what those orders ought to be.

The anonymous letter you inclosed is curious enough. If it is required of me to procure satisfaction for every family ruined by the French, upon pain of assassination, I believe Mr. Assassin may do his work.3

[2 ]A ship of five or six hundred tons, laden with masts and timber, intended for the regency of Algiers.

[3 ]Of anonymous letters, in every variety of tone, there are numbers among the papers of the Adamses, both father and son. As the one above alluded to is brief, it may serve for a specimen of a class.

“President Adams. Myself and family are ruined by the French. If you do not procure satisfaction for my losses, when a treaty is made with them, I am undone forever, and you must be a villain to your country!!! Assassination shall be your lot, if restitution is lost to America through your means, or if ever you agree to a peace without it. The subsistence of thousands, who have lost their all, depends upon it.

A ruined merchant,alas! with ten children!!!made beggars by the French.