Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 25 February 1803
Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams
25th: February 1803.
Dear Sir
Your two letters on La Harpe, I have taken the liberty to publish in the Port Folio, and I have now to ask the favor of you, as your leisure & inclination may serve, to pursue your extracts & comments upon any portion of that great work, which you may find agreeable or think useful.1 I make this request in behalf of the Editor of the Port Folio, who will be flattered & obliged by any literary communication. If you should write again upon any of the subjects, which fall within the investigation of La Harpe, there need be neither date nor name to your letter. Care was taken to erase both, in the former letters received;
I have also received two other letters from you, controverting one
of Paine’s aphorisms, or, as you call it; “airy anticks,” with which the arch Apostate
Callender seems so well satisfied.2 There
is such an abundance of false philosophy in every thing written by Paine on the subject
of government, that whole volumes of refutation might grow out of a single page; but the
letters he has written since his return from France have given the finishing stroke to
his “reputation as an author,” let him discuss what topic he may. His former admirers
have abandoned him to his fate which without
independent of this last effort of his own, had consigned his works to a remorseless
oblivion. His slanders against you, in some of those letters, were so gross &
blackguard, that though I felt the utmost indignation at the author of them, I could not
publicly notice, without making them of more consequence than they deserved, or could
ever derive, while resting on the credit of Paine’s testimony. There was however one
barefaced lie, which Paine asserted as a fact, and which Blake of Worcester attempted to
circulate with his comments. This I undertook to contradict, and you may possibly have
seen in the Port Folio No 2. of Volume 3. the manner in which it was done. The intrigue
against Genl: Washington, which I think I have heard you
say, did exist about the beginning of 1778, does not appear on the journals, by any
express marks of disapprobation towards him, and the transactions of that period being
with closed doors, must depend as you have expressed it,
upon tradition. The System of closed doors appears to be revived in the present session
of Congress, and it is presumable with similar views as formerly existed; viz, to
confound the traitor & the patriot in a general conclave, &
leave it to the chapter of accidents, to ascribe the merit of patriotic exertions to
treasonable Counsellors.3 If you feel no
restraint imposed upon you at this distance of time, as to the propriety of disclosing
the transactions of early times, I should be very glad to receive from your pen, for my
private satisfaction some traditional notes upon the
characters, who composed the first Congress. I would hold them as a sacred deposit
With best love & duty I am, dear sir, / Your Son
Thomas B Adams.
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “John Adams Esqr:.”
1. JA’s letters reviewing the early volumes of , have not been found, but extracts from them attributed to “an ancient scholar, in our own country” appeared in the Port Folio, 2:374–375 (27 Nov. 1802); 3:58, 66 (19, 26 Feb. 1803). In the first installment JA declared that “I have read nothing with so much pleasure” and advised students of literature to read all the works reviewed by La Harpe. The author, JA wrote, was especially astute in capturing the “genius” of Voltaire while refusing to ignore “his immorality, his impiety, his mendacity, his perfidy, his brutality, his universal rascality” ( p. 460, 476).
2. For JA’s letters on Thomas Paine, see his letter to TBA of [ante 25] Feb., and note 1, above.
3. The House of Representatives met in secret sessions on 31 Dec. 1802 and 5, 6, and 18 Jan. 1803, and the Senate did likewise on 14 and 15 February. The clearing of the galleries to discuss relations with France and Spain and “several bills of a private and local nature” engendered debate in both houses and in the press, including in the Philadelphia Gazette, 4 Feb., which speculated on what actions Congress had “committed in the dark.” TBA alluded to the closure of all Senate sessions prior to a resolution on 20 Feb. 1794 that opened regular sessions to the public (vol. 10:82–83; New York Commercial Advertiser, 12 Jan. 1803; Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 24 Jan.; Philadelphia Gazette, 25 Feb.; , 39:236, 237, 354, 584; 40:202; , 3d Cong., 1st sess., p. 34).