George Washington Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-21-02-0315

From George Washington to John Adams, 16 February 1797

To John Adams

[Philadelphia, 16 Feb. 1797]1

Compliments to the Vice-President.

Enclosed is the curious and Insulting Letter mentioned yesterday Evening.2

AL, MHi: Adams Papers.

1The date is taken from the docket, which reads: “16 Feb. 1797”.

2GW enclosed a copy of Thomas Paine’s letter to him of 20 Sept. 1795. In that letter, Paine denounced GW’s alleged indifference and inaction vis-à-vis his imprisonment in France, and accused GW of “Treachery.” The copy of Paine’s letter filed with the present document is in Adams’s writing (MHi: Adams Papers). For Paine’s more recent letter to GW, which proved highly critical of the president, see Paine to GW, 30 July 1796, source note.

GW already had sent to Adams the 20 Sept. 1795 letter from Paine. On 4 Dec. 1796, Adams wrote his wife, Abigail, from Philadelphia: “To Day he [GW] has Sent me a Letter to him from Mr T. Paine dated at Paris 20 of September 1795 which he Said was the most insulting Letter he ever recd.

“Paine accuses the President of Connivance at his Imprisonment in France thinks he ought to have interposed in his behalf and reclaim’d him” (Adams Family Correspondence description begins Lyman H. Butterfield et al., eds. Adams Family Correspondence. 13 vols. to date. Cambridge, Mass., 1963–. description ends , 11:430–32).

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