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

26 Jan. 1802: TO SAMUEL A. OTIS. - 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 SAMUEL A. OTIS.

Quincy, 26 January, 1802.

I received your favor of December 16th, and presented the inclosed letter from Mrs. Otis to Mrs. Adams. I congratulate you on your continuance in office.1 It would not have raised the reputation of any set of men to have made unnecessary changes in such kinds of offices. Even in England, where party and self have at least as much energy as they have here, removals are uncommon in the army, navy, revenue, as well as in the subordinate offices in the great departments. The Marquis of Carmarthen introduced to me Mr. Fraser, an under secretary of State, and afterwards said to me that Mr. Fraser was the cleverest man in England; that in all the changes of administration he had remained in office since the duke of Newcastle’s time, above thirty years. I do not mean by this to say that you are the cleverest man in the United States, but I will say you are so clever that it would have been ungenerous, indiscreet, in the present majority to have removed you.

TO THOMAS TRUXTUN.

Quincy, 30 November, 1802.

I have many apologies to make for omitting so long to acknowledge the receipt of your obliging favor of the 10th of July. The copy you have done me the honor to present to me of the medal voted by Congress, and executed according to my directions to the Secretary of the Navy, I accept with great pleasure, not only from my personal regard to the giver, but because I esteem every laurel conferred upon you, for the glorious action of the 1st of March, 1800, as an honor done to our beloved country. From both of these motives I have been highly gratified with the honor the gentlemen of Lloyd’s Coffee House have done themselves in the handsome acknowledgment they have made of their obligations to you. I regret that the artist had not completed the medal in season, that I might have had the satisfaction of presenting it to an officer who has so greatly deserved it; and I lament still more that I had not the power of promoting merit to its just rank in the navy, that of an admiral.

The counsel which Themistocles gave to Athens, Pompey to Rome, Cromwell to England, De Witt to Holland, and Colbert to France, I have always given and shall continue to give to my countrymen, that as the great questions of commerce and power between nations and empires must be decided by a military marine, and war and peace are determined at sea, all reasonable encouragement should be given to the navy. The trident of Neptune is the sceptre of the world.

TO JOSHUA THOMAS, JAMES THACHER, AND WILLIAM JACKSON.

Quincy, 20 December, 1802.

Gentlemen,—

Nothing could afford me more pleasure than to visit my friends in Plymouth (where I formerly so much delighted to reside) on the 22d instant, according to your polite and obliging invitation, but various circumstances will oblige me to deny myself that gratification.

I feel a well-grounded conviction, that the best principles of our great and glorious ancestors are inherited by a large portion of the American people. And if the talents, the policy, the address, the power, the bigotry, and tyranny of Archbishop Laud, and the court of Charles the First, were not able to destroy or discredit them in 1630 or 1635, there is little cause of apprehension for them from the feeble efforts of the frivolous libertines, who are combining, conspiring, and intriguing against them in 1802. These principles are a file that has broken the teeth of many a viper. Or, to borrow a figure from one of the reformers, they are an anvil which has broken to pieces or worn out a long succession of hammers of firmer metal and more formidable weight than any that have been or can be wielded by the present effeminate and profligate race of their enemies.

While I concur in your opinion, that our free Constitution and elective government can exist no longer than these principles, and must be destroyed in their fall, and although I have sometimes been staggered in my faith for a moment by the license of calumny, I still entertain a pleasing hope that this nation will long enjoy a continuance of felicity and prosperity under their pure principles and representative governments.

Your benevolent wishes for my happiness I with great sincerity reciprocate to you, to the town of Plymouth, to the Old Colony, and to all who rejoice in the day and event you so wisely celebrate.

[1 ]Mr. Otis was Clerk of the Senate of the United States.