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

TO CHIEF JUSTICE ELLSWORTH. - 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 CHIEF JUSTICE ELLSWORTH.

Quincy, 22 September, 1799.

Dear Sir,—

I received last night your favor of the 18th. Judge Cushing called here yesterday in his way to Vermont. This, however, may not perhaps make any alteration in your views. The convulsions in France, the change of the Directory, and the prognostics of greater change, will certainly induce me to postpone for a longer or shorter time the mission to Paris. I wish you to pursue your office of Chief Justice of the United States without interruption, till you are requested to embark. You will receive from the Secretary of State letters which will occupy your leisure hours. I should be happy to have your own opinion upon all points. We may have further information from Europe. If your departure for Europe should be postponed to the 20th of October, or even to the 1st of November, as safe and as short a passage may be expected as at any other season of the year. This is all I can say at present.1

With great and sincere esteem, &c.

John Adams.

[1 ]Mr. Ellsworth communicated the substance of this letter to Mr. Wolcott, construing it as a suspension of his destiny to France. And it seems to have confirmed the cabinet in their confidence that they should finally defeat the mission. The ministers actually sailed on the 3d of November. Gibbs’s Federal Administrations, vol. ii. p. 266.