Adams Papers

From Miles Merwin to John Adams, 26 December 1791

From Miles Merwin

Cherry Alley No. 13. Decr. 26th. 1791

May it please Your Excellency

Excuse this address from a person whose station in life is far inferior to Your’s, and who to You is an utter Stranger.1

The address is perhaps impertinent, but necessity is my only appology— I Sir was born in Connecticut, and recieved my education at Yale College, but having nothing on which to rely, but my own exertions, when I left the Seminary, have had many difficulties to encounter, and have struggled both with poverty and sickness— Being a lover of science my attention has generally been fixed on literary objects, and the study of Law has been my main pursuit— To the practice of which I was admited in Connecticut and have also lately been admited in this City— My destination now is to some of the interior Counties of this State, to seek a living from my profession; but can hardly brook the idea of going into the Country without Your most excellent work entitled “A defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United-States,”— it contains such a fund of useful knowledge, that it ought to be the companion of every young man in America who is a well wisher to our prosperity— To purchase it I am unable,—as ten Dollars is all the cash I possess or have it in my power to command— Having no friend in this City of whom I can borrow it Your defence is the reason of my thus troubling You, and if through Your means I can obtain it I shall be laid under the highest obligations of duty and gratitude—

I am / May it please / Your Excelleny / Your Excellency’s / Obeidt & humbl / servt

Miles Merwin

RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “His Excellency John Adams V.P.US”; endorsed: “Miles Merwin / Dec 26th 1791.”

1JA immediately sent a copy of his Defence of the Const. description begins John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, London, 1787–1788; repr. New York, 1971; 3 vols. description ends to Merwin, a Philadelphia lawyer who was originally from Woodbridge, Conn., Yale 1782. Merwin, who reciprocated with a note of thanks for the “treasure of inestimable value” the same day, died of yellow fever in 1793 (from Merwin, 26 Dec. 1791, 2d letter, Adams Papers; Dexter, Yale Graduates description begins Franklin Bowditch Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the College History, New York and New Haven, 1885–1912; 6 vols. description ends , 4:229).

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