Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO T. PICKERING, SECRETARY OF STATE. - The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811)

Return to Title Page for The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

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

TO T. PICKERING, SECRETARY OF STATE. - 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.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO T. PICKERING, SECRETARY OF STATE.

Quincy, 23 September, 1799.

I return you Mr. Murray’s letters of May 28th, June 13th and 22d, and July 13th and 15th, and the parts of newspapers inclosed with them. The private letter you sent me from Mr. Murray, some time ago, contained much such a review of the pamphlet of Boulay de la Meurthe. I have been anxious to see it, but it is not yet arrived. A parallel between the English republic and the French must be a curious thing. I have long thought that the present generation in France, England, Ireland, and America, had never read Lord Clarendon. I am afraid Mr. Murray has not. If he had, he would be less sanguine about so early a restoration in France.2

For my own part, I have more anxiety about the English than the French. Chance, or, if you will, Providence, has added to two Scotchmen a Godwinian descendant of a French refugee, and justice, I fear, will not be heard.1 I own, I doubt whether we had not better meet the result in all its deformities. I am determined, so far as depends upon me, to execute the treaty in its full extent. If it costs us four millions sterling, when it ought not to cost us one, I had rather pay it than depart from good faith or lie under the suspicion of it. If the judgment of Messrs. McDonald, Rich, and Guillemard, finally prevails, British equity will never be forgotten in America. The court have us in their power. If we believe Britons less hungry for plunder than Frenchmen, we shall be deceived.

I shall be with you between the 10th and 15th of October.

[2 ]“Mr. Murray (in letters, mostly private, which I have laid before the President) viewing the State of France within, and its foreign relations, from a near station, supposes the republic will not survive six months; the President supposes it will last seven years, and desires his opinion may be remembered.” T. Pickering to G. Washington, in Gibbs’s Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 281.

The republic lasted about five years. The restoration took place sixteen years afterwards.

[1 ]This refers to the commission under the sixth article of Jay’s Treaty.