To James Madison from Henry A. S. Dearborn, 28 March 1814
From Henry A. S. Dearborn
Custom House Boston March 28. 1814.
Respected Sir,
Permit me to transmit a pamplet which has recently been published by the friends of the Government for distribution previous to April elections.1 It was written by a young gentleman, (Mr Everett,) who went out as one of the family of the Hon. J. Q. Adams to Rusia but who is now in the practice of law in this town. He has heretofore been deemed a federalist of the Boston Stamp, but like Dexter & others one not ripe for treason.2 With the highest respect Your obt. Servt.
H.A.S. Dearborn
RC (DLC). Enclosure not found, but see n. 1.
1. Dearborn probably enclosed a copy of Alexander Hill Everett’s Remarks on the Governor’s Speech (Boston, 1814; 31438), in the preface of which Everett observed that rather than genuinely seeking solutions to their complaints against JM’s administration, rebellious New Englanders simply aimed to secede from the United States, a goal “openly avowed” by many and “intimated” in Caleb Strong’s recent speech to the Massachusetts legislature (vi-vii). The body of the work, which had been published in installments in the Boston Patriot from 22 Jan. to 12 Feb. 1814, consisted of Everett’s counter-arguments against Strong’s criticisms of JM’s policy. Everett (1790–1847), a Harvard graduate, had studied law with John Quincy Adams before accompanying him to Russia in 1809. He was legation secretary at The Hague, 1815–16, chargé d’affaires there, 1818–24, U.S. minister to Spain in the late 1820s, and editor of the North American Review, 1830–35. He died at Canton, China, where he had been posted as a U.S. diplomat (Joseph J. Spengler, “Alexander Hill Everett: Early American Opponent of Malthus,” New England Quarterly 9 [1936]: 97 n. 1).
2. Dearborn referred to Samuel Dexter, who unsuccessfully challenged Strong for the Massachusetts governorship in the April 1814 election (Boston Patriot, 2 and 6 Apr. 1814).