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

TO JOSEPH HAWLEY. - 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 JOSEPH HAWLEY.

Philadelphia, 25 November, 1775.

This afternoon, at five o’clock, I received your kind letter of November 14th, dated at Brookfield, which was the more agreeable because such favors from you, short as this is, are very rare.

You tell me, Sir, that “we shall have no winter army, if our Congress does not give better encouragement to the privates than at present is held forth to them,” and that “there must be some small bounty given them on the enlistment.” What encouragement is held forth, or at least has been, I know not; but before this time, no doubt, they have been informed of the ultimatum of the Congress. No bounty is offered. Forty shillings lawful money per month, after much altercation, is allowed. It is undoubtedly true that an opinion prevails among the gentlemen of the army from the southward, and indeed throughout all the colonies, excepting New England, that the pay of the privates is too high, and that of the officers too low; so that you may easily conceive the difficulties we have had to surmount. You may depend upon it that this has cost many an anxious day and night; and the utmost that could be done, has been. We cannot suddenly alter the temper, principles, opinions, or prejudices of men. The characters of gentlemen in the four New England colonies, differ as much from those in the others, as that of the common people differs; that is, as much as several distinct nations almost. Gentlemen, men of sense or any kind of education, in the other colonies, are much fewer in proportion than in New England.

Gentlemen in other colonies have large plantations of slaves, and the common people among them are very ignorant and very poor. These gentlemen are accustomed, habituated to higher notions of themselves, and the distinction between them and the common people, than we are. And an instantaneous alteration of the character of a colony, and that temper and those sentiments which its inhabitants imbibed with their mother’s milk, and which have grown with their growth and strengthened with their strength, cannot be made without a miracle. I dread the consequences of this dissimilitude of character, and without the utmost caution on both sides, and the most considerate forbearance with one another, and prudent condescension on both sides, they will certainly be fatal. An alteration of the southern Constitutions, which must certainly take place if this war continues, will gradually bring all the continent nearer and nearer to each other in all respects. But this is the most critical moment we have yet seen. This winter will cast the die. For God’s sake, therefore, reconcile our people to what has been done, for you may depend upon it that nothing more can be done here, and I should shudder at the thought of proposing a bounty. A burnt child dreads the fire. The pay of the officers is raised; that of a captain to twenty-six dollars and one third per month. Lieutenants and ensigns in proportion. Regimental officers not raised.

You then hint that “if Congress should repeal or explain away the resolutions of 18th July, respecting the appointment of military officers, and vest the council with the sole power, it would throw the colony into confusion, and end in the destruction of the council.”

The day before yesterday I wrote a letter to the Honorable Board, in answer to one from their President, by order, to us upon that subject, which letter Revere carried from this city yesterday morning. Therein I candidly gave my opinion to their honors, that our resolution was clear and plain, that the colony might use its own discretion, and therefore that they might yield this point to the House. And that the point was so plain, I did not see the least occasion for laying the controversy before Congress. But, my dear friend, I must take the freedom to tell you, that the same has happened upon this occasion, which has happened upon a thousand others. After taking a great deal of pains with my colleague, your friend Mr. Cushing, I could not get him to agree with the rest of us in writing a joint letter, nor could I get him to say what opinion he would give, if it was moved in Congress. What he has written I know not. But it is very hard to be linked and yoked eternally with people, who have either no opinions, or opposite opinions, and to be plagued with the opposition of our own colony to the most necessary measures, at the same time that you have all the monarchical superstition and the aristocratical domination of nine other colonies to contend with.1

[1 ]Copy incomplete.