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

TO SAMUEL ADAMS. - 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 SAMUEL ADAMS.

The child whom you used to lead out into the Common, to see with detestation the British troops, and with pleasure the Boston militia, will have the honor to deliver you this letter. He has since seen the troops of most nations in Europe, without any ambition, I hope, of becoming a military man. He thinks of the bar and peace and civil life, and I hope will follow and enjoy them with less interruption than his father could. If you have in Boston a virtuous club, such as we used to delight and improve ourselves in, they will inspire him with such sentiments as a young American ought to entertain, and give him less occasion for lighter company.

I think it no small proof of his discretion, that he chooses to go to New England rather than to Old. You and I know, that it will probably be more for his honor and his happiness in the result; but young gentlemen of eighteen do not always see through the same medium with old ones of fifty.

So I am going to London! I suppose you will threaten me with being envied again. I have more cause to be pitied; and although I will not say with Dr. Cutler, “I hate to be pitied,” I do not know why I should dread envy. I shall be sufficiently vexed, I expect. But as Congress are about to act with dignity, I do not much fear but that I shall be able to do something worth going for. If I do not, I shall come home, and envy nobody, nor be envied. If they send as good a man to Spain, as they have in Jay for their foreign department, and will have in Jefferson at Versailles, I shall be able to correspond in perfect confidence with all those public characters that I shall have most need of assistance from, and shall fear nothing.