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THE PROPERTY OF A CALIFORNIA COLLECTOR
ADAMS, John (1732-1826). Autograph letter signed ("John Adams"), to Dr. Benjamin Rush (1746-1813), Quincy, 8 January 1812. 4 full pages, 4to, nearly invisible mends to small tears at creases.
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ADAMS, John (1732-1826). Autograph letter signed ("John Adams"), to Dr. Benjamin Rush (1746-1813), Quincy, 8 January 1812. 4 full pages, 4to, nearly invisible mends to small tears at creases.
"'GENERAL WASHINGTON WAS A HYPOCRITE!'" AND HE THOUGHT 'DR. RUSH A VILLAIN'..." FOR "MORE THAN FIFTY YEARS I HAVE LIVED IN AN ENEMIES COUNTRY."
One of the most remarkable Adams letters to come to auction, as Adams mocks the "absurd and ridiculous stories" that constitute the history of his era. This lengthy, high-spirited letter from one of the great American epistolary exchanges is by turns satirical, comical, contemptuous, and sometimes bitter--the full gamut of Adams's emotions are on display--as he talks of the long pattern of lies and slander in American political life. For "more than fifty years," he says, "I have lived in an enemies country."
He starts by disclaiming any knowledge of English writer (and one-time American pamphleteer) William Cobbett: "Now I assure you upon my honour and the faith of the friendship between us; that I never saw the face of that Cobbet; that I should not know him if I meet him in my Porridge Dish; that I never wrote one word in his paper and had no more connection with him than with Philip Freneau or with Mr. Wm. Duane....Another thing, Dr. Rush! You know it was circulated and believed throughout the City of Philadelphia, that I had set up and established John Fenno and his United States Gazette; to introduce Monarchy. I say you know it, because you told me so yourself at the Sanatorium said that Freneau's National Gazette was set to oppose the Vice President [i.e., Adams] and his United States Gazette. Now I disclose to you I never knew anything of Fenno till I found him established in New York and his paper established; that I never contributed a farthing to his establishment or support, and that I never wrote a line in his paper but the Discourses on Davila. You know too the time when there was not a Quaker or Proprietary Partisan in Pennsylvania who would not gladly have seen my neck in a halter and me kicking in the air...and merely because I was suspected of having Independence in view as a last resort."
Nothing embittered Adams more than the political abuse printed against him in the Jeffersonian press by the likes of Freneau, Duane or Benjamin Franklin Bache. That vitriol had caused the decade-long breach in his friendship with Jefferson. Thinking of this puts him in a self-pitying frame of mind. "You know that I have lived in an enemies country in France and Holland and in England, as well as in Boston, Massachusetts and throughout the Union, and am so to this day. What of all this? Such are the Terms upon which an honest man and real friend to his country must live in times such as those we have been destined to witness. And what is worse than all we must leave those prejudices and enmities to our children as their inheritance. From the year 1761, now more than fifty years, I have constantly lived in an enemies country. And that without having one personal enemy in the world, that I know of. I do not consider little flirts and spats and miffs and piques forgotten by me in a moment as enmities tho others may have remembered them longer."
One might call this letter part of the therapy Adams needed to be able to repair his friendship with Jefferson--something Rush avidly sought, and, indeed, was actively working to bring about at this time. A more forbearing side of Adams comes out when he turns next to an amusing and instructive story of a conversation with a gentleman who claimed to have solid proof that "General Washington was a hypocrite!" because he appointed Rush Treasurer of the Mint, even though "'he thought Dr. Rush a villain...It was Hypocrisy,'" said the man, "'to appoint him to such an office of trust.'" Adams had the great satisfaction of informing him that it was he, not Washington, who appointed Rush to that post. Not surprisingly the gentleman clung to his low opinion of Washington in spite of this clarification (although Rush, in his next letter to Adams, explained in great detail that Washington did indeed hate him, on account of Rush's criticism of the poor state of the military hospitals during the Revolution).
"Your posterity and mine," Adams resumes, "I doubt not my friend, will be teased and vexed with a million of such stories concerning us, when we shall be no more. In the struggles and competitions of fifty or sixty years in times that tried men's hearts and brains and spine and marrow it could not be otherwise. The petts of friends no less than the hatred of enemies, could not fail to produce a great deal of such erroneous froth. You forgot to mention one of your earliest offences, that was your opposition to Negro slavery...Let me hear no more of your Jeremiads. Let us sing O be joyful all the rest of our lives. Read Dr. Barrow and rejoice always for all things, and again I say rejoice. Rejoice in the promotion of your son...He is in the road of honor and will do a great deal of good." He takes a few swipes at Albert Gallatin, then, spent, closes with: "I am tired with writing but shall never be weary of assuring you and yours of my esteem and affection." Excerpts published in Schultz & Adair, The Spur of Fame, 204-206.
A wonderful example of the rich correspondence enjoyed by the two retired patriots. After leaving the White House in 1801, Adams "turned to some of the relationships which had meant much to him before and which had been strained by political battles"; in February 1805 he had written to Rush, his old compatriot from the Continental Congress. "The correspondence of the two men became the principal pleasure and resource of each," obeserves one historian: "the country, the world, and man with all his foibles passed in review through a correspondence wonderfully rich in wisdom, humor, and insight..." (Page Smith, John Adams, New York, 1962, 2:1082-1085). It was largely Rush who successfuly masterminded the eventual renewal of correspondence between Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
"'GENERAL WASHINGTON WAS A HYPOCRITE!'" AND HE THOUGHT 'DR. RUSH A VILLAIN'..." FOR "MORE THAN FIFTY YEARS I HAVE LIVED IN AN ENEMIES COUNTRY."
One of the most remarkable Adams letters to come to auction, as Adams mocks the "absurd and ridiculous stories" that constitute the history of his era. This lengthy, high-spirited letter from one of the great American epistolary exchanges is by turns satirical, comical, contemptuous, and sometimes bitter--the full gamut of Adams's emotions are on display--as he talks of the long pattern of lies and slander in American political life. For "more than fifty years," he says, "I have lived in an enemies country."
He starts by disclaiming any knowledge of English writer (and one-time American pamphleteer) William Cobbett: "Now I assure you upon my honour and the faith of the friendship between us; that I never saw the face of that Cobbet; that I should not know him if I meet him in my Porridge Dish; that I never wrote one word in his paper and had no more connection with him than with Philip Freneau or with Mr. Wm. Duane....Another thing, Dr. Rush! You know it was circulated and believed throughout the City of Philadelphia, that I had set up and established John Fenno and his United States Gazette; to introduce Monarchy. I say you know it, because you told me so yourself at the Sanatorium said that Freneau's National Gazette was set to oppose the Vice President [i.e., Adams] and his United States Gazette. Now I disclose to you I never knew anything of Fenno till I found him established in New York and his paper established; that I never contributed a farthing to his establishment or support, and that I never wrote a line in his paper but the Discourses on Davila. You know too the time when there was not a Quaker or Proprietary Partisan in Pennsylvania who would not gladly have seen my neck in a halter and me kicking in the air...and merely because I was suspected of having Independence in view as a last resort."
Nothing embittered Adams more than the political abuse printed against him in the Jeffersonian press by the likes of Freneau, Duane or Benjamin Franklin Bache. That vitriol had caused the decade-long breach in his friendship with Jefferson. Thinking of this puts him in a self-pitying frame of mind. "You know that I have lived in an enemies country in France and Holland and in England, as well as in Boston, Massachusetts and throughout the Union, and am so to this day. What of all this? Such are the Terms upon which an honest man and real friend to his country must live in times such as those we have been destined to witness. And what is worse than all we must leave those prejudices and enmities to our children as their inheritance. From the year 1761, now more than fifty years, I have constantly lived in an enemies country. And that without having one personal enemy in the world, that I know of. I do not consider little flirts and spats and miffs and piques forgotten by me in a moment as enmities tho others may have remembered them longer."
One might call this letter part of the therapy Adams needed to be able to repair his friendship with Jefferson--something Rush avidly sought, and, indeed, was actively working to bring about at this time. A more forbearing side of Adams comes out when he turns next to an amusing and instructive story of a conversation with a gentleman who claimed to have solid proof that "General Washington was a hypocrite!" because he appointed Rush Treasurer of the Mint, even though "'he thought Dr. Rush a villain...It was Hypocrisy,'" said the man, "'to appoint him to such an office of trust.'" Adams had the great satisfaction of informing him that it was he, not Washington, who appointed Rush to that post. Not surprisingly the gentleman clung to his low opinion of Washington in spite of this clarification (although Rush, in his next letter to Adams, explained in great detail that Washington did indeed hate him, on account of Rush's criticism of the poor state of the military hospitals during the Revolution).
"Your posterity and mine," Adams resumes, "I doubt not my friend, will be teased and vexed with a million of such stories concerning us, when we shall be no more. In the struggles and competitions of fifty or sixty years in times that tried men's hearts and brains and spine and marrow it could not be otherwise. The petts of friends no less than the hatred of enemies, could not fail to produce a great deal of such erroneous froth. You forgot to mention one of your earliest offences, that was your opposition to Negro slavery...Let me hear no more of your Jeremiads. Let us sing O be joyful all the rest of our lives. Read Dr. Barrow and rejoice always for all things, and again I say rejoice. Rejoice in the promotion of your son...He is in the road of honor and will do a great deal of good." He takes a few swipes at Albert Gallatin, then, spent, closes with: "I am tired with writing but shall never be weary of assuring you and yours of my esteem and affection." Excerpts published in Schultz & Adair, The Spur of Fame, 204-206.
A wonderful example of the rich correspondence enjoyed by the two retired patriots. After leaving the White House in 1801, Adams "turned to some of the relationships which had meant much to him before and which had been strained by political battles"; in February 1805 he had written to Rush, his old compatriot from the Continental Congress. "The correspondence of the two men became the principal pleasure and resource of each," obeserves one historian: "the country, the world, and man with all his foibles passed in review through a correspondence wonderfully rich in wisdom, humor, and insight..." (Page Smith, John Adams, New York, 1962, 2:1082-1085). It was largely Rush who successfuly masterminded the eventual renewal of correspondence between Adams and Thomas Jefferson.