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

TO WILLIAM TUDOR. - 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 WILLIAM TUDOR.

Philadelphia, 22 March, 1777.

Yours of the 16th I got yesterday. If Howe imagines that one fourth of Pennsylvania are Quakers, he is mistaken one half; for, upon the most exact inquiry, I find there is not more than one in eight of that denomination. If he imagines that ninety-nine in one hundred of those are his friends, he is mistaken again, for I believe in my conscience that a majority of them are friends to nobody but themselves; and Howe will find them full as great an encumbrance and embarrassment to him as we have found them to us.

The acquisition of Philadelphia would give Howe a temporary éclat, it is true, in Europe and America, but it would in the end prove his destruction.

Beware of those who make so free with the epithets of “sordid,” “selfish,” “ungenerous,” and “ungrateful,” &c. Let them look at home. The other colonies, it is true, contributed to support the poor of Boston. But for whose good did Boston resign her whole trade? For the good of all the others, as well as her own. And did not all the others go on with their trade to their vast profit, while Boston lost it all? If Boston had not, with a magnanimity and generosity hitherto without example or parallel in America, resigned its trade, and nobly stood the shock, Boston would have been the undisputed mistress among the slaves of America, and have drawn the wealth of the continent to herself, and so she would now, if the States should submit; because there is no other place that the crown officers of all denominations will resort to in such numbers. There would be the most numerous army, there the most powerful fleet, and there the whole board of excise, customs, duties, and revenues. For whose interest did Boston continue without trade and without government, and submit to a trifling force within herself? I remember a petition from Boston to Congress for leave to cut Gage and his troops to pieces, which was absolutely refused. To whom was it owing that all the rest of the continent besides Boston continued their exports nine months after all imports were stopped? Whereby millions were lost to the continent, whereto, in all probability, this whole war is owing. I am not by this, however, justifying the policy of Massachusetts in regulating the prices of goods, which laid them under the necessity of prohibiting exportations. But other States ought not to complain of this, because the continent is procuring supplies from New England at one third of the price which they give for the same articles in other States. But they found they could not regulate the prices of things without prohibiting exportation, because other States, or persons belonging to them, were about purchasing every thing at the stated prices, and then exporting them at an immense profit.

As to the Massachusetts getting money, it is all a joke. They have lost their staple in this quarrel, which no other State has done. The fishery, I mean, which has destroyed their trade. Indigo, rice, tobacco, wheat, iron, the staples of other States, are not affected by this war like the fishery, the mast-trade, and lumber, which were the trade of Massachusetts. The privateers fitted out in that State belong to Congress, and to persons belonging to other States, I suppose near one half of them; and, besides, the continent could not carry on the war without the Massachusetts. Their seamen have supplied the army with every thing almost. Where, then, is the ingratitude? Do not be concerned about the Union. These peevishnesses I have been a witness to a long time. It is envy at bottom. They see the superiority of the Massachusetts to every one of them, in every point of view, and it frets them; but it will fret away.

Farther, for whose good has the Massachusetts sacrificed their trade, and privateers too, by their embargo? A restraint that others have not been pleased to subject themselves to, although it is more wanted both for manning the army and navy in them than it was in her. I hate disputes of this sort, and I never begin them; but when Massachusetts is attacked, I never have and never will fail to defend her, as far as truth and justice will warrant me, and no farther. There is a narrow spirit in many people, which seems to consider this contest as the affair of Boston and the Massachusetts, not the affair of the continent. All that they have to do is to get the character of heroes by their bravery, to wear genteel uniforms and armor, and to be thought to lay Boston and Massachusetts under vast obligations. For my own part, I think the obligations mutual; but if there is a balance, it is clearly in favor of Massachusetts. I ever disdained, in Congress, in the most decisive terms, all obligations to any State or person, and I ever shall. The cause must be supported as a common cause, or it must fall. I will never solicit charity or favor as a politician, much less acknowledge obligations to others, who are under the strongest of all. Are there not persons who insinuate themselves into your army with a design to foment prejudices, excite jealousies, and raise clamors?