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

TO JAMES BURGH. - 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 JAMES BURGH.

Braintree, 28 December, 1774.

Sir,—

I have had the honor of receiving from you a present, in two volumes of Political Disquisitions. The very polite and obliging manner in which this present was conveyed to me, demands my grateful acknowledgments. But the present itself is invaluable.

I cannot but think those Disquisitions the best service that a citizen could render to his country at this great and dangerous crisis, when the British empire seems ripe for destruction, and tottering on the brink of a precipice. If any thing can possibly open the eyes of the nation, and excite it to exert itself, it must be such a sight of its danger, and of the imperceptible steps by which it ascended to it.

I have contributed somewhat to make the Disquisitions more known and attended to in several parts of America, and they are held in as high estimation by all my friends as they are by me. The more they are read, the more eagerly and generally they are sought for.

We have pleased ourselves in America with hopes that the publication of those Disquisitions, the exertions of the other friends of virtue and freedom in England, together with the union of sentiment and conduct of America, which appears by the proceedings of the Congress of Philadelphia, would have had their full operation and effect upon the nation, during the fall and winter, while the people were canvassing for elections; and that, in spite of bribery, some alteration in the House of Commons for the better might have been made. But the sudden dissolution of parliament, and the impatient summons for a new election, have blasted all these hopes. We now see plainly, that every trick and artifice of sharpers, gamblers, and horse-jockies, is to be played off against the cause of liberty in England and America; and that no hopes are to be left for either but in the sword.

We are, in this province, Sir, at the brink of a civil war. Our Alva, Gage, with his fifteen Mandamus counsellors, are shut up in Boston, afraid to stir, afraid of their own shades, protected with a dozen regiments of regular soldiers and strong fortifications in the town, but never moving out of it. We have no council, no house, no legislative, no executive. Not a court of justice has sat since the month of September. Not a debt can be recovered, nor a trespass redressed, nor a criminal of any kind brought to punishment. What the ministry will do next, is uncertain. Enforce the act for altering our government they cannot; all the regiments upon the establishment would not do it, for juries will not serve nor represent. Whatever Alva and his troops may think of it, it has required great caution and delicacy in the conduct of affairs to prevent their destruction. For my own part, I have bent my chief attention to prevent a rupture, and to impress my friends with the importance of preventing it. Not that I think the lives of five or ten thousand men, though my own should be one of them, would not be very profitably spent in obtaining a restoration of our liberties, but because I know that those lives would never go unrevenged, and it would be vain ever to hope for a reconciliation with Great Britain afterwards. Britons would not easily forgive the destruction of their brethren; I am absolutely certain that New England men never would that of theirs. Nor would any part of America ever forget or forgive the destruction of one New England man in this cause. The death of four or five persons, the most obscure and inconsiderable that could have been found upon the continent, on the 5th March, 1770, has never yet been forgiven by any part of America. What, then, would be the consequence of a battle in which many thousands must fall, of the best blood, the best families, fortunes, abilities, and moral characters in the country?

America never will submit to the claims of parliament and administration. New England alone has two hundred thousand fighting men, and all in a militia, established by law; not exact soldiers, but all used to arms.1

TO JAMES WARREN.

Braintree, 3 January, 1775.

Dear Sir,—

I have this morning received a line from Mrs. Warren, and will inclose her letter to Mrs. Macaulay by the first opportunity. Be pleased to make my compliments to Mrs. Warren.

Yesterday I had a letter from Annapolis, in Maryland, from my friend Mr. Chase, inclosing the resolutions of their provincial convention, consisting of eighty members, representing all their counties. I wish I could inclose it to you, but it must be printed here. They unanimously approve the proceedings of the Continental Congress, and determine to carry them punctually into execution; choose the same delegates, with two new ones, for the next Congress; vote to kill no lambs; to raise flour, cotton, and hemp; and unanimously vote a militia to be established through the whole province by the people themselves, who are to choose their own officers, and all persons between sixteen and fifty are to be embodied; unanimously vote to raise ten thousand pounds, to be laid out by the county committees in arms and ammunition to be kept and disposed of by the committees as they shall think proper; unanimously vote that contributions for Boston be continued as long as wanted; and resolve unanimously, “That if the late acts of parliament relative to the Massachusetts Bay shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force in that colony, or if the assumed power of parliament to tax the colonies shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force in that or any other colony, that, in such case, this province will support such colony to the utmost of their power;” recommend similar resolutions to all the other colonies, and vote similar letters to be sent them.

You will soon see the whole, I hope. There is a charming spirit in the whole, as well as in Chase’s letter. He says, “he thinks we may never have a more favorable crisis to determine the point; I mean the colonies will probably never be so cordially united, and their spirits in a higher tone, than at present.” He says, that “recent advices leave us little room to hope; and we must therefore trust to the goodness of our cause, our own virtue and fortitude.” He says, “he has no doubt that sentiments equally generous and wise prevail in our colony, who have hitherto exhibited an example of wisdom, patience, and fortitude, to the disgrace of the present, and the admiration of the future generations.”

We have no great news. The old rotten rascals are again chiefly chosen.1 I have seen the list; very few new members.

If you see Draper’s papers and Mills and Hicks’s, you will observe that the arch-enemy is at work again2 in his infernal council at Boston.

I never think of the junto there, immured as they are, without recollecting the infernal spirits in Milton after they had recovered from their first astonishment arising from their fall from the battlements of heaven to the sulphurous lake, not subdued, though confounded, and plotting a fresh assault on the skies.

    • “What though the field be lost?
    • All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
    • And study of revenge, immortal hate,
    • And courage never to submit or yield,” &c.
    • “Of this be sure,
    • To do aught good never will be our task,
    • But ever to do ill our sole delight,” &c.

Is not this rather too frolicsome and triumphant for the times, which are dull enough, and as bad as they can be? I doubt whether war, carnage, and havoc would make us more unhappy than this cruel state of suspense we suffer in the contemplation of them in prospect. In haste.

[1 ]Incomplete—the rest on a leaf, which has been torn off.

[1 ]To Parliament.

[2 ]The papers of Massachusettensis were in course of publication.