Adams Papers
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John Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 11 July 1801

John Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams

Stony Field July 11. 1801

My dear son

I received yours of the 4th with double pleasure occasioned by the Encouragement you give me to hope that I shall See you Soon at this chosen Spot.1

There are indeed in this Country, all the Characters and humours that you describe, and there will be such for many years to come, which will keep alive the extravagant Spirit of democracy, longer than it would live of itself. Exaggerations of federalism will occasion exaggerations of Equality Levellism, modern Phylosophy and Moblocracy. Hyperfederalists will afford nourishment and Countenance to Hyperrepublicans. Parrallells will not always run upon all fours. How is it Lord Coke expresses it, non quatuor pedibus currunt or some such Phrase.2 Neither Cæsar Cromwell nor Monk, can bear a Parrallell with Bonaparte. No, nor Alexander. Bonaparte is hitherto Sui generis. He may hereafter fall into mere resemblances of all three. But Prophecies are all idle and vain. The French Revolution resembles accurately nothing which we read of. And Bonaparte differs from all the Conquerors We know of. Insurrections, Revolutions and changes of Dynasties happened in all the ancient Empires, among the Egyptians, the Persians the Indians: but We have no histories of any of the details of them. Time alone can reveal to us the March and Conclusion of the Changes in France.

I have read through Hauterives, State of France at the End of the 8th Year, and have a great opinion of the Talents of the Writer. He is a Frenchman: and wishes France to have more Power, than Europe can Safely allow her. But there is matter to excite deep reflection and wide Speculation. The Review of it will be a treasure.

Every thing I read, only Serves to confirm me in the opinion of the Absolute Necessity of our keeping aloof from all European Powers and Influences; and that a Navy is the only Arm by which it can be accomplished. Mr Jefferson has lately Said some very strong Things, in which I feel myself irresistably inclined to agree with him “He wished to see the Naval Force of the United states adequate to the purpose of prescribing a Line of Demarcation on the Ocean to any Naval Power of Europe, and saying thus far shallt thou come and no farther” and [“]that in twenty years time it might be and ought to be created.”— This he Said to Governor Winthrop Sargent who related it to me.3 I mention my authority that you may know it: but I would not have you repeat my authors Name without necessity. The only misfortune of it is that Mr Jeffersons Sayings are never well digested, often extravagant, and never consistently pursued. He has not a clear head—and never pursues any question through. His Ambition and his cunning are the only Steady qualities in him. His Imagination and Ambition are too strong for his Reason.

I have heard a report of a Letter from Mr Jefferson lately to Mr Samuel Adams, which is a Masterpiece. I dare not repeat the Contents as I heard them.— another Letter from Governor McKean too to Mr Samuel Adams is talk’d of.—4 By these Things it should seem that there is much cordial Correspondence and confidential Communication, among the Party. All Communication at least all Confidence is lost among the opposite Party. I Suppose however there is secret Communication, enough between the Juntos of Ultrafederalists, to render the Revival of that the proper fœderal Party totally impracticable and that forever, and I hope it never will be revived without a more common and a more liberal Principle, a more general and more determinate Object, and without Views of a purer Morality and a less selfish Policy, and without a President indeed who shall not be Snubbed by Pickering Hamilton no nor Washington. I need not invoke your discretion, I take it for granted.

affectionately yours

J. A

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “T. B. Adams.”; endorsed: “John Adams Esqr: / 12th: July 1801 / 6th August Recd:.”

1TBA’s 4 July letter announcing his plans to visit his parents has not been found. Letters to others show that he planned to depart Philadelphia on 14 July and travel via New York and Boston. He remained in Quincy until 10 Aug., returning to Philadelphia on the 23d after visiting Margaret Stephens Smith in Newark, N.J. (TBA to Joseph Pitcairn, 11 July, OCHP:Joseph Pitcairn Letters; to William Smith Shaw, 24 Aug., MHi:Misc. Bound Coll.; Margaret Stephens Smith to SSA, 23 Aug., below).

2“No simile runs upon all fours” was included in JA’s “prescious Collection of Cokes sayings,” [ca. 1758] (Sir Edward Coke, First Part of the Institutes of the Lawes of England; or, A Commentarie upon Littleton, London, 1628, Book I, chap. 1, sect. 1; JA, Legal Papers description begins Legal Papers of John Adams, ed. L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller B. Zobel, Cambridge, 1965; 3 vols. description ends , 1:3).

3Winthrop Sargent visited JA at Peacefield on 11 July 1801 and likely recounted conversations that took place in meetings with Thomas Jefferson in Washington, D.C., on 30 May and 1 June. The meetings coincided with the president’s dispatching a U.S. Navy squadron to the Mediterranean on 1 June and the onset of the First Barbary War, for which see TBA to JQA, 8 June, and note 4, above. The looming conflict with Tripoli had prompted an evolution in Jefferson’s thoughts on an American naval force. Although in 1799 he had written that the nation had little need for “a navy which by it’s own expences and the eternal wars in which it will implicate us, will grind us with public burthens, & sink us under them,” in his first annual message to Congress on 8 Dec. 1801 he claimed that Tripoli’s declaration of war “admitted but one answer” and called on Congress to support his naval policy to “place our force on an equal footing with that of it’s adversaries.” Sargent recorded that in his meeting with JA at Peacefield, the former president spoke of Jefferson’s “Duplicity” and “extreme Impropriety of Conduct” over political appointments (OHi: Winthrop Sargent Diary, 1801–1802; Jefferson, Papers description begins The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, James P. McClure, and others, Princeton, N.J., 1950– . description ends , 30:646; 34:217; 36:58, 59).

4In one of his few extant letters to Samuel Adams, Jefferson wrote on 29 March that he planned to remove those “whose misconduct in office ought to have produced their removal even by my predecessor.” Adams replied to Jefferson on 24 April, stating that “the Storm is now over, and we are in port, and I dare say, the ship will be rigged for her proper service” and adding that Jefferson must expect Federalist opposition. On 22 May Thomas McKean also wrote to Adams, noting that Jefferson’s victory halted “the counter-revolution meditated and attempted in the United States during the last four or five years.” McKean also noted that JA’s “alteration of conduct, if not of principle” during his presidential administration caused him considerable distress but added that JA might have been “governed” by his cabinet secretaries (Jefferson, Papers description begins The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, James P. McClure, and others, Princeton, N.J., 1950– . description ends , 33:487–488, 638–639; McKean to Adams, 22 May, NN:Samuel Adams Papers).

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