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

17 June 1782: 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.

The Hague, 17 June, 1782.

Broken to pieces and worn out with the diseases engendered by the tainted atmosphere of Amsterdam operating upon the effects of fatiguing journeys, dangerous voyages, a variety of climates, and eternal anxiety of mind, I have not been able to write you so often as I wished; but now I hope the fine season and the pure air of the Hague will restore me. Perhaps you will say that the air of a Court is as putrid as that of Amsterdam. In a moral and political sense, perhaps; but I am determined that the bad morals and false politics of other people shall no longer affect my repose of mind nor disturb my physical constitution. What is it to me, after having done all I can to set them right, whether other people go to heaven or to the devil? I may howl and weep, but this will have no effect. I may then just as well sing and laugh.

Pray, how do you like your new allies the Dutch? Does your imagination rove into futurity, and speculate and combine as it used to do? It is a pretty amusement to play a game with nations as if they were fox and geese, or coins upon a checker-board, or the personages at chess, is it not? It is, however, the real employment of a statesman to play such a game sometimes; a sublime one, truly; enough to make a man serious, however addicted to sport. Politics are the divine science, after all. How is it possible that any man should ever think of making it subservient to his own little passions and mean private interests? Ye baseborn sons of fallen Adam, is the end of politics a fortune, a family, a gilded coach, a train of horses, and a troop of livery servants, balls at Court, splendid dinners and suppers? Yet the divine science of politics is at length in Europe reduced to a mechanical system composed of these materials. What says the muse, Mrs. Warren?

What is to become of an independent statesman, one who will bow the knee to no idol, who will worship nothing as a divinity but truth, virtue, and his country? I will tell you; he will be regarded more by posterity than those who worship hounds and horses; and although he will not make his own fortune, he will make the fortune of his country. The liberties of Corsica, Sweden, and Geneva may be overturned, but neither his character can be hurt, nor his exertions rendered ineffectual. Oh peace! when wilt thou permit me to visit Penns-hill, Miltonhill, and all the blue hills? I love every tree and every rock upon all those mountains. Roving among these, and the quails, partridges, squirrels, &c., that inhabit them, shall be the amusement of my declining years. God willing, I will not go to Vermont.1 I must be within the scent of the sea.

I hope to send along a treaty in two or three months. I love the Dutchmen with all their faults. There is a strong spirit of liberty among them, and many excellent qualities. Next year their navy will be so strong as to be able to do a great deal. They may do something this.

I am going to Court to sup with princes, princesses, and ambassadors. I had rather sup with you at one of our hills, though I have no objection to supping at Court. Adieu!

TO JAMES WARREN.

The Hague, 6 September, 1782.

Dear Sir,—

I thank you for the papers and your card of July 22d. The letters inclosed I shall send along. My friends have all become as tender of me as you are, and, to save me trouble, send me no letters, so I know nothing about you. I hope you have not been all sick, as I have been. I hope you have not all quite so much business as I have to do. At least, I hope it is to better effect, and to more profit both public and private. To negotiate a loan of money, to sign the obligations for it, to make a thousand visits, some idle, some not idle, all necessary, to write treaties in English, and be obliged to have them translated into French and Dutch, and to reason and discuss every article to—to—to—to—to—&c., &c., &c., is too much for my patience and strength. My correspondence with Congress and their ministers in Europe is a great deal of work; in short, I am weary, and nobody pities me. Nobody seems to know any thing about me. Nobody knows that I do any thing or have any thing to do. One thing, thank God, is certain. I have planted the American standard at the Hague. There let it wave and fly in triumph over Sir Joseph Yorke and British pride. I shall look down upon the flagstaff with pleasure from the other world.

Not the declaration of American independence, not the Massachusetts Constitution, not the alliance with France, ever gave me more satisfaction or more pleasing prospects for our country than this event. It is a pledge against friends and enemies. It is an eternal barrier against all dangers from the house of Bourbon as well as a present security against England. Perhaps every imagination does not rove into futurity as much as mine, nor care so much about it.

TO JONATHAN JACKSON.

Paris, 17 November, 1782.

Sir,—

Upon my arrival here, I found Mr. Jay in very delicate health, in the midst of great affairs, and without a clerk. He told me he had scarcely strength to draw up a state of the negotiation hitherto, but that he must do it for Congress. I offered him the assistance that Mr. Thaxter could afford him in copying, which he accepted.

Mr. Jay, as well as Dr. Franklin and myself, are exceedingly embarrassed by some of our instructions. The other gentlemen will speak for themselves.

No man has a higher sense than I have of the obligation of instructions given by the principal to a deputy. It is a point of duty to observe them. A French minister has only to ascend a pair of stairs to propose a doubt, to offer reasons, to lay open facts for the advice or the orders of his master and his councils; a Spanish, Dutch, or English ambassador has only to send a courier, and receive an answer in a few days. But we are at a vast distance. Despatches are opened, vessels are taken, and the difficulties of communication are innumerable. Facts, unknown when instructions were given, turn up; whole systems of policy appear in a striking light, which were not suspected. Yet the time presses, all Europe waits, and we must act. In such a case, I know of no other rule than to construe instructions, as we do all other precepts and maxims, by such limitations, restrictions, and exceptions, as reason, necessity, and the nature of things point out.

When I speak of this Court, I know not that any other minister is included but that of foreign affairs. A whole system of policy is now as glaring as the day, which, perhaps, Congress and the people of America have little suspicion of. The evidence now results from a large view of all our European negotiations. The same principle and the same system has been uniformly pursued from the beginning of my knowledge of our affairs in Europe, in April, 1778, to this hour; it has been pursued in France, in Spain, in Holland, in Russia, and even in England. In substance it has been this; in assistance afforded us in naval force and in money, to keep us from succumbing, and nothing more; to prevent us from ridding ourselves wholly of our enemies; to prevent us from growing powerful or rich; to prevent us from obtaining acknowledgments of our independence by other foreign powers, and to prevent us from obtaining consideration in Europe, or any advantage in the peace but what is expressly stipulated in the treaty; to deprive us of the grand fishery, the Mississippi River, the western lands, and to saddle us with the tories. To this end, by all I have learned of Mr. Dana’s negotiations in Russia, Mr. Jay’s in Spain, and my own in Holland, it is evident to me that the Comte de Montmorin, the Marquis de Verac, and the Duke de la Vauguyon, have been governed by the same instructions; to wit, instead of favoring, to prevent, if possible, our success. In Holland, I can speak with knowledge, and I declare that he did every thing in his power to prevent me, and that I verily believe he had instructions so to do, perhaps only from the minister, until I had declared to him, that no advice of his, or the Comte de Vergennes, nor even a requisition from the king should restrain me; and, when he found that I was a man not to be managed, that I was determined, and was as good as my word, and, further, thought I should succeed, he fell in with me, in order to give the air of French influence to measures that French influence never could have accomplished, and which, he thought, would be carried, even if he opposed them. This instance is the stronger, as the Duke is an excellent character, and the man I wish to meet everywhere in the affairs of France and America.

I must go further, and say that the least appearance of an independent spirit in any American minister has been uniformly cause enough to have his character attacked. Luckily, Mr. Deane out of the question, every American minister in Europe, except Dr. Franklin, has discovered a judgment, a conscience, and a resolution of his own, and, of consequence, every minister that has ever come, has been frowned upon. On the contrary, Dr. Franklin, who has been pliant and submissive in every thing, has been constantly cried up to the stars, without doing any thing to deserve it.

These facts may alarm Congress more than they ought. There is nothing to fear but the want of firmness in Congress. French policy is so subtle, penetrating, and enervating a thing, that the only way to oppose it, is to be steady, patient, and determined. Poland and Sweden, as well as Corsica and Geneva, exhibit horrid effects of this policy, because it was yielded to; whereas Switzerland, who never was afraid of France, and was always firm, has found her an excellent ally for one hundred and fifty years. If we are steadily supported by Congress, we will go clearly to the windward of them; but if Congress wavers and gives way, the United States will receive a blow that they will not recover in fifty years.

The affair of the refugees, I think, will divide us from the English at present, and precisely because the English are encouraged to insist upon a compensation by this Court; if it depended on my vote, I would cut this knot at once. I would compensate the wretches, how little soever they deserve it, nay, how much soever they deserve the contrary. I foresee we shall be prevented by it from agreeing with Britain now, and be intrigued into the measure at last, and that by this Court.

We have nothing to fear from this Court but in the particulars above mentioned. The alliance is too necessary to them, we are too essential to them, for them to violate the treaties, or finally disgust and alienate us. But they have not known, any more than England, the men with whom they have to do. A man and his office were never better united than Mr. Jay and the commission for peace. Had he been detained in Madrid, as I was in Holland, and all left to Franklin, as was wished, all would have been lost. If he is not supported in Congress, we will both come home together, and see if we cannot have better luck by word of mouth than we have had by letter, to convince our countrymen. The thanks of Congress ought, in sound policy and in perfect justice, to be given to Mr. Jay for his able and faithful execution of his trust both in Spain and for peace.

When we see the French intriguing with the English against us, we have no way to oppose it but by reasoning with the English to show that they are intended to be the dupes. Inclosed are a few broken minutes of conversations, which were much more extended and particular than they appear upon paper. I submit them to your discretion.1

I am amazed to see New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Delaware, where I find them sometimes, in the yeas and nays. Those gentlemen and their States mean well, but are deceived.

[1 ]Mrs. Adams during his absence had purchased wild lands in Vermont, and had suggested a removal at some future time.

[1 ]This alludes to the extracts from the Diary. See vol. iii. p. 349, note.