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

TO B. STODDERT, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811) [1854]

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. 9.

Part of: The Works of John Adams, 10 vols.

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TO B. STODDERT, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY.

Quincy, 5 August, 1799.

Your two letters of the 29th, and one of the 30th July, are before me. I know not who are meant by G. and C. in Captain Perry’s letter; but I think there ought to be some inquiry into the justice of his insinuations. I fear that the officers and crew of the General Greene were too long on shore at the Havana, and there caught the infection which has obliged him to leave his station and bury so many. The news, however, of the politeness and friendship of the governor and admiral is not the less pleasing. I return you Captain Perry’s letter. Although I am very solicitous to strike some strokes in Europe for the reasons detailed in your letter proposing the expedition, yet I feel the whole force of the importance of deciding all things in the West Indies, if possible, and therefore shall consent to the alteration you propose, if you continue to think it necessary.

There is one alteration in our policy, which appears to me indispensable. Instead of sending the prisoners we take, back into Guadaloupe, there to embark again in the first privateer, we must send them all to the United States, or allow them to work and fight on board our ships. At least, if any are returned, their written parole ought to be taken, that they will not serve until exchanged. One suggestion more. I like your plan of employing all our great frigates on separate stations. I have more ideas in my head on this subject than I am willing to commit to writing. One idea more. I think we must have Bermuda sloops, Virginia pilot boats, or Marblehead schooners, or whaleboats, in one word, some very light small fast-sailing vessels, furnished with oars as well as sails, to attend our frigates, and pursue the French pirates in among their own rocks and shoals to their utter destruction. Talbot’s unwarrantable suspicion of your want of confidence in him shall never be any disadvantage to you. Indeed, I believe I ought not to have let you see that anxious expression of a brave man. I know his opinion of you to be very high as a man of talents and business.