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

TO MRS. 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 MRS. WARREN.

Auteuil, 13 December, 1784.

Madam,—

Your favor of the 1st of June has not, I fear, been answered. I have indeed been very happy ever since I received it. I live here on a kind of Penn’s Hill. It is a village, remarkable for the residence of D’Aguesseau, Boileau, Molière, and Helvetius, and for nothing else. I choose it merely for my health, as my constitution is not able to sustain the nauseous air of a great city. Amsterdam and Paris have cost me, each of them, a nervous, putrid fever. Two such broad hints, I think, should be sufficient warning to me to live in a purer air, and in a place where I can have more exercise; but I want my rural occupations, like my friend on Neponset Hill. It is said of a court life, that although it does not render a man happy, yet it hinders him from being ever afterwards happy anywhere else. The same observation is made of a Paris life. Indeed, I can easily conceive that the delights of a court, and at Paris, becoming habitual in early life, should be hardly dispensed with in future. But these delights have taken no hold on me, and I feel myself much more disposed to whine, like Cicero or Bolingbroke, over my exile, than to regret the loss of the pleasures of courts or cities. In short, I take as little of either as possible.

It is ten years and more since I devoted myself wholly to the public. How I should feel in private life, I know not; but I believe that the habits of public life have made no deeper impression. Literary pursuits were the object of my youthful desires; but the turn in public affairs disappointed me, and I am now too old and too blind ever to resume them with much ardor or any prospect of success. My little farm is now my only resource, and books for amusement, without much improvement or a possibility of benefiting the world by my studies.

You have seen Mrs. Macaulay. I should certainly have made a visit to that lady, if she had been in London when I was there. Her literary character, and the honor she has done to those political principles which we profess, should secure her a respectful reception in Boston, which I hope she has found. In England, I think she has not been indulged with so much candor as she ought. If her marriage was not discreet, this is not much to the world, who pardon infinitely greater indiscretions in infinitely less meritorious characters. But whoever in Europe is known to have adopted republican principles, must expect to have all the engines of every court and courtier in the world displayed against him. I wish it may be long otherwise in America.

THE ABBÉ DE MABLY TO JOHN ADAMS.

Paris, 25 Février, 1785.

Je réponds bien tard, Monsieur, à la lettre que vous m’avez fait l’honneur de m’écrire le 14 de ce mois. C’est que j’espérois de vous porter moi-même ma réponse. Je me suis flatté de cette douce espérance, mais de jour en jour la fortune a rompu nos projets. Tantôt le temps a été trop détestable pour oser se mettre en route, et tantôt Messieurs les Abbés de Chalut, Arnoux, et moi, nous avons été condamnés par quelque indisposition à garder la chambre. J’espère qu’à l’avenir nous serons moins contrariés, mais je ne veux plus me confier à des espérances qui pouvoient encore me tromper. Rien n’est plus glorieux pour moi, Monsieur, que l’invitation que vous avez la bonté de me faire. Je ne balancerois point à entreprendre le catéchisme moral et politique dont j’ai eu l’honneur de vous parler dans les lettres qui vous sont adressées,1 si je croyois que ce nouvel ouvrage fut de quelque utilité à votre pays. Si le premier ne produit aucun fruit, le second auroit le même sort; et ce n’est pas la peine de travailler, de chercher, d’arranger et de disposer des vérités qu’on ne voudra pas entendre. Quand j’ai invité le Congrès à cet ouvrage, je n’ai point prétendu que tous les membres de cet illustre corps y travaillassent à la fois. C’est une chose très impossible. Mais j’aurois voulu qu’après avoir chargé un de ses membres de cette besogne, il en eût fait l’examen, et après l’avoir approuvé l’eût fait paroître sous son nom. C’est ainsi qu’en usent nos parlemens, et les autres cours souveraines quand elles ordonnent des remontrances. Vous conviendrez qu’un catéchisme fait et présenté de cette manière au public, auroit un beaucoup plus grand poids, et produiroit sans doute un grand bien. Je suis occupé actuellement à corriger un ancien ouvrage que je veux faire imprimer. Je ne vous fatiguerai pas par un plus long griffonage, et je me réserve le plaisir de vous parler de tout cela la première fois que j’aurai l’honneur de vous voir. J’attends ce moment avec impatience, et je vous prie d’agréer d’avance les assurances du tendre et respectueux attachement, avec lequel j’ai l’honneur d’être, Monsieur, &c., &c.

Mably.

[1 ]This project of a moral catechism, to be drawn up by Congress for the use of schools, makes a leading feature of the writer’s essay upon the government of the United States.