James Madison Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/03-11-02-0486

To James Madison from John Adams, 22 October 1816

From John Adams

Quincy October 22d. 1816

Dear Sir

Thank you for your favour of the 12th. The Anecdote mentioned in my Letter of the 4th of September is of no Consequence to the Public, though, it may interest the private Feelings of your Family and mine.

Mr Stodert was my Auther. After all possibility of thinking Seriously on the Subject was passed, Mr Stodert informed me of the Letter from Mrs Madison to Mr Steel mentioned in mine to you of the 4th of September last.

I said, this is very extraordinary! If Mr Steel received any Such Letter, he ought to have communicated it to me alone and not to you. (Mr Stodert) or any body else. I surely should have keep the Secret.

I should have called Mr Steel to account for this Conduct on this Occation but it was two late and I had many Morcells of more difficult digestion. Besides, Mr Steel had become my Enemy. I had appointed another Gentleman to be Secretary of the Treasury an Office on which he had Set his Heart. His Resentment was beyond all Prudence and decency. His Anger has left lasting Memorials.1 I am Sir, with my best Compliments to your Amiable Lady, Your Respectful hunble Servant

John Adams

Letterbook copy (MHi: Adams Papers).

1On 24 Oct. 1816, Abigail Adams wrote to Dolley Madison to acknowledge receipt of the latter’s letter of 12 Oct., the subject matter of which was the letter Dolley Madison was supposed to have sent to John Steele (see JM to John Adams, 12 Oct. 1816). Abigail Adams agreed that there “appears now to have been some mistake respecting” this correspondence but added that she had heard her “friend frequently mention the circumstance communicated to him by Mr. Hobart, tho not untill it was out of his power to comply with it and with sincere regret that it was so, for beside the personal regard which he has always entertaind for Mr Madison, he has known how to appreciate his publick services—services which diminish the Epithet ‘of first in War, first in Peace,[’] and leave to him, as many of the Hearts of the people.” Abigail Adams extended her regards to JM, “with whom it is my misfortune to have but a slight personal acquaintance, being sick and absent from Philadelphia the winters he past there—but there is not any one who entertains a higher respect for his publick and private Character” (DMDE description begins The Dolley Madison Digital Edition, ed. Holly C. Shulman (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2004), http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/dmde/default.xqy. description ends ).

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