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

TO JOHN TUDOR. - 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 JOHN TUDOR.

Braintree, 23 July, 1774.

You will be surprised, I believe, to receive a letter from me, upon a matter which I have so little right to intermeddle with as the subject of this. I am sensible it is a subject of very great delicacy; but as it is of equal importance to your own happiness and that of your only son, I hope and believe you will receive it, as it is really meant, as an expression of my friendship both to yourself and him, without any other view or motive whatever.2

Your son has never said a word to me, but, from what I have accidentally heard from others, I have reason to believe that he is worried and uneasy in his mind. This discontent is in danger of producing very disagreeable effects, as it must interrupt his happiness, and as it may, and probably will, if not removed, injure his health, and, by discouraging his mind and depressing his spirits, disincline him to, or disqualify him for, his studies and business.

I believe, Sir, you are not so sensible as I am of the difficulty of a young gentleman’s getting into much business in the practice of the law. It must, in the best of times and for the most promising genius, be a work of time. The present situation of public affairs is such as has rendered this difficulty tenfold greater than ever. The grant from the crown of salaries to the judges, the proceedings of the two houses of assembly in relation to it, and the general discontent throughout all the counties of the province, among jurors and others, concerning it, had well nigh ruined the business of all the lawyers in the government, before the news of the three late acts of parliament arrived. These acts had put an end to all the business of the law in Boston. The port act of itself has done much towards this, but the other two acts have spread throughout the province such an apprehension, that there will be no business for courts for some time to come, that our business is at present in a manner at an end.

In this state of things I am sure it is impossible that your son’s income should be adequate to his necessary expenses, however frugal he may be, and I have heard that he complains that it is not.

The expenses for the rent of his office, for his board and washing, must come to a considerable sum annually, without accounting a farthing for other transient charges, which a young gentleman of the most sober and virtuous character can no more avoid than he can those for his bed and board. So that it is absolutely impossible but that he must run behind hand and be obliged to run in debt for necessaries, unless either he is assisted by his father, or leaves the town of Boston and betakes himself to some distant place in the country, where, if his business should not be more, his expenses would be vastly less.

I am well aware of the follies and vices so fashionable among many of the young gentlemen of our age and country, and, if your son was infected with them, I would never have become an advocate for him, without his knowledge, as I now am, with his father. I should think, the more he was restrained the better. But I know him to have a clear head and an honest, faithful heart. He is virtuous, sober, steady, industrious, and constant to his office. He is as frugal as he can be in his rank and class of life, without being mean.

It is your peculiar felicity to have a son whose behavior and character are thus deserving.

Now there can be nothing in this life so exquisitely painful to such a mind, so humiliating, so mortifying, as to be distrusted by his father, as to be obliged to borrow of strangers, or to run in debt and lie at mercy.

A small donation of real or personal estate, made to him now, would probably be of more service to him than ten times that sum ten years hence. It would give him a small income that he could depend upon; it would give him weight and reputation in the world; it would assist him greatly in getting into business.

I am under concern lest the anxiety he now struggles with should prove fatal to him. I have written this without his knowledge, and I do not propose ever to acquaint him with it. If you please you may burn this; only I must entreat you to believe it to flow only from real concern for a young gentleman whom I greatly esteem.

[2 ]William Tudor, the young man here mentioned, had been a student in the office of the writer. An interesting biographical memoir of him, from which this letter has been taken, is to be found in the 18th volume of the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society.