John Adams to William Stephens Smith, 26 February 1803
John Adams to William Stephens Smith
Quincy Feb. 26. 1803
Dear Sir
I duely recd yours of the 16th with the Paper enclosed. I had given no Attention to the Attack upon you in Cheethams Paper, because I know that no Integrity of heart, no Purity of Conduct, or Innocence of Life can protect any Man from the Shafts of Calumny, in these times of party rage and under an elective Government, which breeds Passions and prejudices as fast as ever the sun upon the Slime of the Nile brought forth frogs:1 especially if a Man holds an office, which is covetted by numbers, and has Ennemies on both Sides.2 Our Papers are good for nothing but Advertisements, and I doubt whether We could get it printed. indeed I believe it is Scarcely worth while to excite any public Attention to the subject here. Your Character has not suffered here, on Account of it.
I recd and read with Attention Coriolanus. It is well written in a Simple clear and nervous Style, with a Knowledge of the subject, and with a Spirit, Decision and Intrepidity that I admire. I wish that our Government may not find reasons by a dear bought Experience to wish to regret that they did not at first adopt your the Project. The Compliments you pay to particular Characters you will not expect that I should approve or disapprove in this Letter. Your Faith in our Constitution that it can govern Canada, the West India Islands &c is Stronger than my grain of Mustard seed. your frank dissertation on an Alliance with England, altho it is not improper that our Nation should consider Such a contingent Possibility, I should not have thought it prudent to produce.3
The Pamphlet has raised your Reputation in this part among all who know the author: and it is written with so much respect to Authority that no reasonable Man can censure so frank and candid a submission of his sentiments to the public Opinion, by any free Citizen.— Since you have begun the Career of the Press I hope you will persevere: if you had begun twenty Years ago you might have done great things, eer now.
I rejoice to hear of the Welfare of my Daughter and your sons & Daughter. Make them Schollars. A taste for Letters, is a never failling source of Entertainment, and is usefull in every Station of Life. I am with the best Wishes for your Prosperity, sir your friend & sert
John Adams
RC (MH-H:Autograph File, A); internal address: “Col. smith.”; endorsed: “26th. Feby. 1803. / Jno. Adams / Quincy—” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 118.
1. Exodus, 8:3.
2. In his letter to JA of 16 Feb. (Adams Papers), WSS described attacks on his character in the New York American Citizen, 14, 18 Jan., a newspaper edited by James Cheetham. The attacks stemmed from allegations made by New York lawyer Robert Troup in a ship seizure case in which WSS had a role as surveyor for the port of New York. WSS was alleged to have improperly seized $500 from the plaintiff, merchant Ephraim Hart. WSS probably enclosed to JA the New York Evening Post, 15 Feb., which printed a series of five letters between WSS and Troup in which Troup withdrew his claims (, , 2:761–763).
3. WSS published nine letters under the pseudonym Coriolanus in the New York Morning Chronicle, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 27, 30 Dec. 1802; 1, 10, 11, 12 Jan. 1803. He wrote the pieces in reaction to a 16 Oct. 1802 decree by the Spanish intendant of Louisana ending the right of American merchants to deposit goods duty-free in New Orleans warehouses. Spain, which continued to administer Louisiana after the territory’s 1800 retrocession to France, issued the decree to extract new duties on American goods. WSS echoed Federalist sentiment in declaring that the United States should join with Great Britain to wrest Louisiana and the Floridas from Spain and France, thus inaugurating a constitutional republic that would stretch from the West Indies to the Mississippi as “the largest empire that ever existed” (Morning Chronicle, 18 Dec. 1802). The Morning Chronicle, 24 Jan. 1803, announced that the series would be published as a pamphlet, Coriolanus, Remarks on the Late Infraction of Treaty at New-Orleans, N.Y., 1803, , No. 5075. On the same day the New York American Citizen printed a letter also signed Coriolanus that promised future letters on plans to colonize Louisiana by a “hopeful little band, with the brave, the humane and generous Col. W. S. S. at their head.” Objections by the Jefferson administration against a backdrop of Federalist calls for military action prompted Spain to reverse the decree on 1 March (Coriolanus, Remarks on the Late Infraction of Treaty at New-Orleans, p. 4–5, 6, 33, 41; David A. Carson, “The Role of Congress in the Acquisition of the Louisiana Territory,” Louisiana History, 26:372, 376, 380 [Autumn 1985]; , 39:72).