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

JOSEPH HAWLEY TO JOHN ADAMS. - 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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JOSEPH HAWLEY TO JOHN ADAMS.

Brookfield, 14 November, 1775.

En passant, as Church said in his letter to the regulars, “remember, I never deceived you.” If your Congress does not give better encouragement to the privates than at present is held forth to them, you will have no winter army. There must be some small bounty given them on the enlistment. A strange mistaken opinion obtains among the gentlemen of the army from the southward, and if I mistake not, in your Congress, that our privates have too high wages, and the officers too low.

Another thing I just hint. That if your Congress go about to repeal or explain away the resolutions of the 18th of July last, respecting the method of appointing military officers, and vest our council solely with that power, it will throw the colony into the utmost confusion, and end in the destruction of the council.1 I have wrote Mr. S. Adams on the last head. I am with great regard,2 &c.

Joseph Hawley.

[1 ]The resolutions relating to this point are as follows:

“That all officers above the rank of a captain be appointed by the respective provincial assemblies or conventions, or in their recess by the committees of safety appointed by said assemblies or conventions.

“Where, in any colony, a militia is already formed under regulations approved of by the convention of such colony, or by such assemblies as are annually elective, we refer to the discretion of such convention or assembly, either to adopt the foregoing regulations in the whole or in part, or to continue their former, as they, on consideration of all circumstances, shall think best.”

[2 ]Indorsed on the back of this letter by Mr. Adams:

“Received this letter at dinner, 4 o’clock, Saturday, 25th November, 1775. Yesterday morning, i. e. Friday, November 24th, Paul Revere went off from this place with my letter to the Board, in which I gave it as my opinion that the council might give up the point in dispute with the House about the appointment of militia officers, and that the resolution of Congress mentioned in this letter was so clear that we need not apply to that assembly for any explanation.”