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

TO BENJAMIN STODDERT. (Private.) - 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 BENJAMIN STODDERT.

(Private.)

Quincy, 4 September, 1799.

Sir,—

I have received your kind letter of the 29th of August, and I thank you for the friendly sentiments expressed in it, in your private character.

You urge me to join you and the other public officers at Trenton, before our ministers depart for France, and this from considerations which relate more immediately to myself, as well as others of a public nature.

For myself, I have neither hopes nor fears. But if I could see any public necessity or utility in my presence at Trenton, I would undertake the journey, however inconvenient to myself or my family. I would not, indeed, hesitate, if it were only to give any reasonable satisfaction to the “best disposed and best informed men.” But you must be sensible that for me to spend two or three months at Trenton with unknown accommodations, cannot be very agreeable. Alone, and in private, I can put up with any thing; but in my public station, you know I cannot. The terms of accommodation with France were so minutely considered and discussed by us all, before I took leave of you at Philadelphia, that I suppose there will be no difference of sentiments among us. The draught will soon be laid before you. If any considerable difference should unexpectedly arise between the heads of department, I will come at all events. Otherwise, I see no necessity for taking a step that will give more éclat to the business than I think it deserves. I have no reason nor motive to precipitate the departure of the envoys. If any information of recent events in Europe should arrive, which, in the opinion of the heads of department, or of the envoys themselves, would render any alteration in their instructions necessary or expedient, I am perfectly willing that their departure should be suspended, until I can be informed of it, or until I can join you. I am well aware of the possibility of events which may render a suspension, for a time, of the mission, very proper.1 France has always been a pendulum. The extremest vibration to the left has always been suddenly followed by the extremest vibration to the right. I fear, however, that the extremest vibration has not yet been swung.

Upon this subject I solicit your confidential communications by every post. As I have ever considered this manœuvre of the French as the deepest and subtlest, which the genius of the Directory and their minister has ever invented for the division of our people, I am determined, if they ever succeed in it, the world shall be convinced that their success was owing either to want of capacity, or want of support, in

John Adams.

P. S. Though I have marked this letter private, you may use it at your discretion for the purposes intended.

[1 ]Out of this obviously just and natural view of possible contingencies, Mr. Hamilton and his friends in the cabinet endeavored to construct a charge against Mr. Adams, of misleading them as to his design that the mission should proceed. Nothing is more clear throughout this correspondence than the fixedness of the policy pursued by Mr. Adams, subject to modification only by circumstances which could not be foreseen. Mr. Wolcott was the authority for Mr. Hamilton’s statement. His wishes evidently biased his judgment. Hamilton’s Works, vol. vi. p. 471.