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

TO F. A. VANDERKEMP. - 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 F. A. VANDERKEMP.

Quincy, 15 December, 1809.

I have received your kind letter of the 28th of November, and another, some time ago, that I have not answered.

I rejoice with you in your prosperity, particularly in the happy marriage of your son, and sympathize in all your sorrows, more especially in the misfortune of your friend Vreede, whom I remember well.

Happy are you in your various learning, and the enjoyment of your books; I can read but little, on account of my eyes. My wife and children and grandchildren are very good to read to me, but they cannot always read when I want, nor always such books as I should choose.

There is in one of the last Anthologies a handsome character of our friend Mr. John Luzac, which I hope you will read with pleasure. I should be glad to know who wrote it.

It is a little remarkable that you never heard the literary character of my consort. There have been few ladies in the world of a more correct or elegant taste. A collection of her letters, for the forty-five years that we have been married, would be worth ten times more than Madame de Sévigné’s, though not so perfectly measured in syllables and letters, and would, or at least ought to put to the blush Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and all her admirers. So much you will say, for conjugal complaisance. So much, I say, for simple justice to her merit.

What shall I say to you concerning your diploma? I have spoken twenty times to our secretaries to prepare and send it, and have as often been promised. But we are all men of business; our secretaries have been members of Congress, and I begin to think that politicians never should be academicians.

When I was in Leyden, a gentleman was introduced to me, I know not by whom, who presented me with a small volume of Latin poetry of his own composition. In it was the famous compliment to Dr. Franklin,—

Eripuit cœlo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis,

and I always understood that gentleman to be the author of it. Can you tell me his name? It has been, in France and the world, attributed to Mr. Turgot; but I have always understood that Mr. Turgot took it from that volume, and only altered it to “Eripuit cœlo fulmen; mox sceptrum tyrannis.” Pray, tell me, if you can, the name and character of that Leyden Latin poet, and whether my memory has not deceived me.

I am in the last year of my fifteenth lustre, and write with great difficulty. But as long as I can write at all, I shall express to Mr. Vanderkemp my best wishes for his happiness.

Your question, “Through what means the military and commercial spirit can be most effectually entertained, and rendered permanently advantageous to a free nation, under a republican form of government,” is of great importance. But no man would discuss it. Nine tenths of our nation would say the militia, the other tenth a standing army. The merchants would all say, “let commerce alone—merchants do as they please;” others would say, “protect trade with a navy;” others, “let commerce be annihilated.” Such questions would only make of our academies so many political caucuses.

TO BENJAMIN RUSH.

Quincy, 21 January, 1810.

Learned, ingenious, benevolent, beneficent old friend of 1774! Thanks for “the light and truth,” as I used to call the Aurora, which you sent me. You may descend in a calm, but I have lived in a storm, and shall certainly die in one.1

I never asked my son any questions about the motives, designs, or objects of his mission to St. Petersburgh.2 If I had been weak enough to ask, he would have been wise enough to be silent; for although a more dutiful and affectionate son is not in existence, he knows his obligations to his country and his trust are superior to all parental requests or injunctions. I know therefore no more of his errand than any other man. If he is appointed to be a Samson to tie the foxes’ tails together with a torch or firebrand between them, I know nothing of it. One thing I know, we ought to have had an ambassador there these thirty years; and we should have had it, if Congress had not been too complaisant to Vergennes. Mr. Dana was upon the point of being received, and had a solemn promise of a reception, when he was recalled. Under all the circumstances of those times, however, I cannot very severely blame Congress for this conduct, though I think it was an error. It is of great importance to us at present to know more than we do of the views, interests, and sentiments of all the northern powers. If we do not acquire more knowledge than we have, of the present and probable future state of Europe, we shall be hoodwinked and bubbled by the French and English.

Of Mr. Jackson, his talents, knowledge, manners, or morals, I know nothing, but am not unwilling to think favorably of them all. His conduct to our President and his minister is not, however, a letter of recommendation of his temper, policy, or discretion. His lady was an intimate acquaintance of my daughter, and consequently well known to both my sons at Berlin. Thomas speaks handsomely of her person and accomplishments.

I have not seen, but am impatient to see, Mr. Cheetham’s life of Mr. Paine. His political writings, I am singular enough to believe, have done more harm than his irreligious ones. He understood neither government nor religion. From a malignant heart he wrote virulent declamations, which the enthusiastic fury of the times intimidated all men, even Mr. Burke, from answering as he ought. His deism, as it appears to me, has promoted rather than retarded the cause of revolution in America, and indeed in Europe. His billingsgate, stolen from Blount’s Oracles of Reason, from Bolingbroke, Voltaire, Bérenger, &c., will never discredit Christianity, which will hold its ground in some degree as long as human nature shall have any thing moral or intellectual left in it. The Christian religion, as I understand it, is the brightness of the glory and the express portrait of the character of the eternal, self-existent, independent, benevolent, all powerful and all merciful creator, preserver, and father of the universe, the first good, first perfect, and first fair. It will last as long as the world. Neither savage nor civilized man, without a revelation, could ever have discovered or invented it. Ask me not, then, whether I am a Catholic or Protestant, Calvinist or Arminian. As far as they are Christians, I wish to be a fellow-disciple with them all.

TO DAVID SEWALL.

Quincy, 29 January, 1811.

I have received your favor of the 24th, and it revived or restored many of the sensations of my youth.

The last trial before a special court of Vice-Admiralty in Boston, before the revolution, was of Ansell Nickerson for piracy and murder on the high seas.

The case was very singular and unaccountable. Nickerson took a passage on board a small vessel, and sailed from Boston for Cape Cod, with three or four other men. The next day, or next but one, the vessel was found with Nickerson alone on board. All the other men had vanished. No blood or other marks of violence appeared. A sum of money of no great amount had been shipped on board by one of the other men, which was not found. It was suspected that Nickerson had murdered all the other men, for the sake of the money, but no money was found upon him, or hidden in the ship. Nickerson’s character was unimpeachable and irreproachable in all his former life. His account was that a pirate came on board and pressed the men; but that he had leaped over the stern to avoid them, and hung there out of sight, by some thing, the technical term for which, in naval architecture, I have forgotten, till the pirates departed.

Nickerson was libelled in the Special Court of Vice-Admiralty by Jonathan Sewall, Advocate-General, who was aided by Sam. Fitch, if I remember rightly. There was no grand jury nor petit jury. I was of counsel for Nickerson, but was not engaged till the trial came on, when he requested the Court to appoint me. I did not move for any jury in this case. Josiah Quincy, the father of our foremost orator in Congress, was with me.

An act of parliament had provided for the erection of these special courts. They were to consist of fifteen judges, to be chosen out of the governors, lieutenant-governors, and counsellors of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, the Judge of Admiralty, and the Commander-in-chief of the king’s ships on this station. Admiral Montague sat upon this trial with Bernard, Wentworth, Hutchinson, Auchmuty, and others, counsellors from New Hampshire and Rhode Island, &c.

The man was acquitted; but I never knew upon what principle, nor by what majority of votes. The judges in that court did not, in any case that I was concerned in, give their opinions publicly and individually from the bench. They adjourned, consulted together in private, and authorized the president to pronounce the judgment of the court, which was done by Bernard, without informing what was the majority.

I suppose the want of direct evidence afforded room for a doubt in the minds of a majority.

Nickerson lived many years, and behaved well, and is living yet, for what I know.

In a former trial, that of Michael Corbet, and three other sailors, for piracy, and murder of Lieutenant Panton, of the Rose frigate, I demanded juries, grand and petit, and drew a plea in writing for each of the four, demanding juries as a right. I almost killed myself by writing, night and day, four of those pleas of enormous length, in which a number of acts of parliament were recited at large.

These pleas, when they were read, appeared to make a great impression on the court, and even Hutchinson seemed to favor the idea of juries. But before any gentleman had time to speak, he moved an adjournment. The audience believed we should have juries, and Jonathan Sewall said he did not doubt it. But the court met in retirement, and the next morning the judgment of the court was pronounced, without informing us who, or whether any, dissented. Commodore Hood sat upon this trial, and behaved remarkably well. I do not remember that the evidence was reduced to writing by any authority, besides the minutes taken by the counsel and some of the judges.

Our classmate Farrar, of New Ipswich, must be remembered with Wheeler and Cushing. He made me a kind visit a few months before his death. Wentworth, Gardner, Sewall, Dalton, Whittemore, Adams, and Hemmenway, are all that remain; and these seven are a greater number, in proportion, than any other class has preserved. The melancholy news you give me of Dr. Hemmenway afflicts me very much. My affection for him, which began when we first entered college, has continued and increased till it is become veneration. The other six cannot long expect to survive Dr. Hemmenway. I rejoice to see in your handwriting a proof of the firmness of your health, and wish you as many days as you can make useful or agreeable, being your affectionate classmate and sincere friend.

[1 ]“I inclose a few numbers of the Aurora. Shall we descend in a calm or a storm to our graves?” B. Rush to J. A.

[2 ]“We are told your son is gone to Petersburgh to put a torch to the flame of war, and that we are to be allies of France, and of all the powers on the Baltic, in it.” B. R. to J. A.