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

TO THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE. - 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 THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE.

I have received from Mr. Pichon your favor of the 10th of January, and, while I feel my obligations to you for your kind remembrance of me, I very heartily rejoice with you in your return to your native country. The new superintendent of the commercial relations between France and the United States, will, I presume, be very well received here, and the better by most men for the part he acted in Holland, in promoting the late negotiation.

“I live” also “with my family in a rural, solitary place of retirement,” after an uninterrupted toil of six-and-twenty years in the service of the public. Like you, also, “I preserve the love, the doctrines, and the independence of true liberty.” It is a lamentable truth, that mankind has always been ill treated by government, and a most unfortunate circumstance, which renders the evil totally desperate, is, that they are never so ill used as when they take the government into their own hands. The doctrines of sans-culotteism are productive of more plagues than those of Sir Robert Filmer, while they last.

I am glad you are on good terms with your principal deliverer from Olmutz, who did honor to his own head and heart by his wise and generous conduct upon that occasion. How extraordinary that character! Is it not unique? As it has been my fortune to conduct a negotiation with him, I may, without offence, wish him a greater glory than ever yet fell to the lot of any conqueror before him, that of giving peace to Europe, and liberty and good government to France.

Your country by adoption has grown and prospered since you saw it. You would scarcely know it, if you should make it a visit. It would be a great pleasure to the farmer of Stony field to take you by the hand in his little chaumière.

Mrs. Adams, who is all the family I have, joins me in respectful attachment to you and your lady and family. With great regard, &c.