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

TO JAMES WARREN. - 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:

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TO JAMES WARREN.

Braintree, 15 March, 1775.

Dear Sir,—

I have had the pleasure and the honor of several letters from you, and one from an incomparable satirist of our acquaintance, and must own myself very faulty in neglecting so long to answer them; but you know the infirmity of my eyes, which still continues, and renders it very difficult for me to discharge my debts in the literary way. The speculations you read every week, as you say, in the papers, drop down from the clouds.1 Is it not impossible that they should be written without eyes?

As to my being of the Congress, I think our town did right in not choosing me, as they left out Thayer, and as Mr. Palmer is as good a hand as they can employ; and having been for some time in the centre of all their business in the county, town, and province, he is the best man they have. Indeed, I was not at the meeting, and never had been at any meeting in this town for eight years. To say the truth, I was much averse to being chosen, and shall continue so, for I am determined, if things are settled, to avoid public life. I have neither fortune, leisure, health, nor genius for it. Being a man of desperate fortune, and a bankrupt in business, I cannot help putting my hand to the pump, now the ship is in a storm, and the hold half full of water; but as soon as she gets into a calm, and a place of safety, I must leave her. At such a time as this, there are many dangerous things to be done, which nobody else will do, and therefore I cannot help attempting them; but in peaceful times there are always hands enough ready.

The accounts we have from every quarter are agreeable upon the whole. If we are prudent, a war will break out in England first, whatever the sanguine tories may hope, or the timid whigs dread.

Virginia has sown her wheat instead of tobacco; and so many of her planters have desisted from exporting the old crop, that the vessels cannot get freight. Their men are ready to march.

I think the petitions from Jamaica, and the behavior of the other islands, are great events in our favor; and on the whole, that the measures already concerted will as certainly insure us success as sun and rain, a deep soil and strong manure, will produce you a crop of grass. It may take time.

The people this way rather advance in resolution, I think. I have this day attended a town meeting, and we have voted three companies of minute men, and an association comprehending that of the Congress and all the votes of the Provincial Congress, and appointed a committee of thirty persons to see it faithfully observed. We have a few rascally Jacobites and Roman Catholics in this town, but they dare not show themselves.

The lies the tories make and spread to keep up the spirits of their party, are ridiculous enough. Forty thousand Russians, twenty thousand British and Irish troops, and sixteen capital ships and a thousand cutters, and all that. Such steps would produce another revolution.

I hope to have the pleasure of an evening with you in your way to Concord. Pray take a bed here.

My most friendly regards to a certain lady. Tell her that God Almighty (I use a bold style) has intrusted her with powers for the good of the world, which in the course of his providence he bestows upon very few of the human race; that instead of being a fault to use them it would be criminal to neglect them.

[1 ]The papers of Novanglus.