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

TO JOHN SULLIVAN. - 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 SULLIVAN.

Philadelphia, 23 June, 1776.

Your agreeable favor of May 4th has lain by me unanswered till now. The relation of your negotiations at New York in order to convince the people of the utility and necessity of instituting a new government, is very entertaining; and if you had remained there a few weeks longer, I conjecture you would have effected a change in the politics of that region.1 Is it deceit or simple dulness in the people of that colony, which occasions their eccentric and retrograde politics?

Your late letter from Sorel gave us here many agreeable feelings. We had read nothing but the doleful, the dismal, and the horrible from Canada for a long time.

The surrender of the Cedars appears to have been a most infamous piece of cowardice. The officer,2 if he has nothing to say for himself more than I can think of, deserves the most infamous death. It is the first stain upon American arms. May immortal disgrace attend his name and character! I wish, however, that he alone had been worthy of blame. We have thrown away Canada in a most scandalous manner. Pray did not opening the trade to the upper country, and letting loose the tories, bring upon us so many disasters? For God’s sake explain to me the causes of our miscarriages in that province. Let us know the truth, which has too long been hidden from us. All the military affairs in that province have been in great confusion, and we have never had any proper returns or regular information from thence. There is now a corps of officers who will certainly act with more system and more precision, and more spirit. Pray make us acquainted with every thing that is wanted, whether men, money, arms, ammunition, clothing, tents, barracks, forage, medicines, or whatever else. Keep us constantly informed; give us line upon line.

I fear there is a chain of toryism extending from Canada through New York and New Jersey into Pennsylvania, which conducts misrepresentation and false information, and makes impression here upon credulous, unsuspecting, ignorant whigs. I wish it may not have for its object treasons and conspiracies of a deeper die.

There is a young gentleman bred at college and the bar, an excellent soldier, a good scholar, and a virtuous man, in your brigade, who deserves a station far above that in which he stands, that of adjutant to Colonel Greaton’s regiment. Any notice you may take of him will be gratefully acknowledged by me as well as him.1 Pray let me know the state of the smallpox, an enemy which we have more cause to fear than any other. Is it among our troops? Is it among the Canadians? I mean the inhabitants of the country. Can no effectual means be used to annihilate the infection? Cannot it be kept out of the army? The New England militia will be of no use, if they come in ever so great numbers, if that distemper is to seize them as soon as they arrive.

[1 ]The greater part of the letter referred to is printed anonymously in Gordon’s History, vol. ii. p. 269. It is a curious specimen of the political manœuvring of that day.

[2 ]Major Butterfield.

[1 ]Nathan Rice, who had been a student in the office of Mr. Adams at the breaking out of the revolution, and left it to join the army, in which he served with credit and distinction.