11From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 12 May 1809 (Adams Papers)
In a A Letter from Alexander Hamilton concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams Esq. President of the United States printed at New York for John Lang, by George F. Hopkins, 1800. Copy right Secured; the Subject of the Negotiation with France in that year is considered. In the twenty fourth page it is Said that “The Session which ensued the Promulgation of the Dispatches of our...
12From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 17 May 1809 (Adams Papers)
Another of my crimes, according to my great accuser, page 28, was nominating Mr. Murray, without previous consultation with any of my ministers. To this charge I shall say but little at present. In England the first magistrate is responsible for nothing; his ministers for every thing: Here according to the practice, if not the constitution, the ministers are responsible for nothing; the...
13From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 18 May 1809 (Adams Papers)
Mr. Hamilton, in his pamphlet, page 28, speaking of Talleyrand’s dispatches, says, “overtures so circuitous and informal, through a person who was not the regular organ of the French government for making them, to a person who was not the regular organ of the French government for receiving them, &c. were a very inadequate basis for the institution of a new mission.” Here, again, Mr....
14From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 26 May 1809 (Adams Papers)
In pamphlet , page 27, it is said that the great alteration in public opinion had put it completely in the power of our executive to control the machinations of any future public agent, of France. Therefore Philadelphia was a safer scene of negotiation than Paris. Mr. Hamilton’s erroneous conceptions of the public opinion may be excused by the considerations that he was not a native of the...
15From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 29 May 1809 (Adams Papers)
Mr. Hamilton , in his pamphlet, page 21, speaks of the anterior mission of Messieurs Pinckney, Marshall and Gerry, and says, “it was resolved to make another, and a more solemn experiment in the form of a commission of three.” When I first read this sentence, I am not certain whether it excited most of astonishment, indignation, contempt, or ridicule. By whom was this Measure resolved ? By...
16From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 5 June 1809 (Adams Papers)
IN page 25, is a strain of flimsy rant, as silly as it is indecent. “The supplement to the declaration was a blameable excess.” It waved the point of honor, which after two rejections of our ministers, required that the next mission, should proceed from France. Where did he find this point of honor? If any such point had existed, it had its full force against the second mission: and its...
17From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 6 June 1809 (Adams Papers)
In page 28, Mr. Hamilton acknowledges that "the President had pledged himself in his speech, (he should have said in his message) to send a minister, if satisfactory assurances of a proper reception were given." Notwithstanding this, Mr. Hamilton, and all his confidential friends, exerted their utmost art and most strenuous endeavors to prevail on the President to violate this pledge. What can...
18From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 7 June 1809 (Adams Papers)
In page 26, Mr. Hamilton says, that the mission “could hardly fail to injure our interests with other countries.” This is another of those phantoms which he had conjured up to terrify minds and nerves as weak as his own. It was a common place theme of discourse, which, no doubt, the British faction very efficaciously assisted him in propagating. I know it made impression on some, from whose...
19From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 8 June 1809 (Adams Papers)
IN page 20, Mr. Hamilton says, my "conduct in the office of President was a heterogeneous compound of right and wrong, of wisdom and error." As at that time, in my opinion, his principal rule of right and wrong, of wisdom and error, was his own ambition and indelicate pleasures, I despise his censure, and should consider his approbation as a satire on my administration. “The outset," he says,...
20From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 10 June 1809 (Adams Papers)
IN page 29. Mr. Hamilton says, "when an ordinary man dreams himself to be a Frederick," &c. To this I shall make but a short answer. When a Miss of the street shall print a pamphlet in London, and call the Queen of England an ordinary woman, who dreams herself a Catharine of Russia, no Englishman will have the less esteem for his queen for that impudent libel. There is something in the 24th...