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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.

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TO JAMES WARREN.

Philadelphia, 27 July, 1776.

I have directed a packet to you by this day’s post, and shall only add a few words by Fessenden. I assure you the necessity of your sending along fresh delegates here is not chimerical. Mr. Paine has been very ill for this whole week, and remains in a bad way. He has not been able to attend Congress for several days, and if I was to judge by his eye, his skin, and his cough, I should conclude he never would be fit to do duty there again, without a long intermission, and a course of air, exercise, diet, and medicine. In this I may be mistaken. Mr. S. Adams, between you and me, is completely worn out. I wish he had gone home six months ago, and rested himself. Then he might have done it without any disadvantage. But, in plain English, he has been so long here, and his strength, spirits, and abilities so exhausted, that a hundred such delegates here would not be worth a groat. My case is worse. My face is grown pale, my eyes weak and inflamed again, my nerves tremulous, and my mind weak as water. Night sweats and feverous heats by day are returned upon me, which is an infallible symptom with me that it is time to throw off all care for a time, and take my rest. I have several times, with the blessing of God, saved my life in this way, and am now determined to attempt it once more.

You must be very speedy in appointing other delegates, or you will not be represented here. Go home I will, if I leave the Massachusetts without a member here. You know my resolutions in these matters are as fixed as fate; or if you do not know it, I do. I know better than anybody what my constitution will bear, and what it will not, and, you may depend upon it, I have already tempted it beyond prudence and safety. A few months’ rest and relaxation will recruit me, but this is absolutely necessary for that end. I have written a resignation to the General Court, and am determined to take six months’ rest at least. I wish to be released from Philadelphia forever, but in case the General Court should wish otherwise, which I hope they will not, I do not mean surlily to refuse to serve them. If you appoint such a number that we can have a respite once in six months at least, or once in three, if that is more convenient, I should be willing to take another trick or two. But I will never again undertake upon any other terms, unless I should undertake for a year, and bring my wife and four children with me, as many other gentlemen here have done. Which, as I know it would be infinitely more agreeable, and for the benefit of my children, so in my sincere opinion it would be cheaper for the province; because I am sure I could bring my whole family here and maintain it cheaper than I can live here single at board with a servant and two horses.