Adams Family Correspondence, volume 10
The Pamphlet inclosed may be called “The most astonishing Concentration of Jacobitical Malevolence that ever Scottish Spite exhibited.” I have read it however with Interest and Avidity. It is not badly 276 written— It has, no doubt, too much foundation in Truth. It has little of the Wit and none of the humour of Tom Pain, but has more than his Malice & Revenge. It is sometimes amusing to contemplate Sheer Malignity, especially when it seems not to have any Power to do harm. The Writer is a “Callender” now in this City employed as a Writer of Essays and Paragraphs for his Newspaper by Andrew Brown. We shall soon see the offspring of his Genius applied to Men & Measures in America. very soon will he be a Member of the Democratical society, as I foresee. This Country is to be the Asylum of all the discontented, turbulent, profligate and Desperate from all Parts of Europe and Democratical societies are to raise them to fame, Popularity, Station & Power. How long the People will countenance this I know not. Jefferson it seems is to give the first Passport to these Incendiaries. Malignity seemed to have Seized upon that Mans mind as deeply as upon Paines & Callenders.1
The President and Senate have fixed a Stigma on certain Anarchical societies. The House will do the same though perhaps in feebler terms.2 No Party No Man in either house has justified them—None has even excused them. some have imprudently admitted their Legality. People have a right to meet & consider of Laws express their Opinions and feelings, for the Purpose of petitioning the Legislature for Repeals Or Amendments. But it is not lawful to meet to frame & publish Censures upon Laws, and Libels upon Men or Measures. If when assembled they do an unlawful Act Their Assembly is adjudged to unlawful from the Beginning. The Legality of the Meeting depends upon the Legality of their Conduct. It is incautious and improvident therefore to acknowledge their Legality, without Exceptions Qualifications & limitations as some have done who are no friends to them.
Adieu
My Waggish Friend Fitch of Jamaica applies to me from the Rolliad, or Probationary Odes.
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Novbr / 26 1794.”
The pamphlet has not been found but was presumably James The Political Progress of Britain, Edinburgh, 1792, an attack on the British government. Callender (1758–1803) was indicted for sedition in 1793 for the pamphlet but fled to the United States. There he found support from Thomas Jefferson and other Democratic-Republican politicians, which allowed him to continue as a political writer. He famously attacked JA in The Prospect before Us, 3 vols. in 1, Richmond, Va., 1800–1801, secretly sponsored by Jefferson. Andrew Brown (1744?–1797) was the publisher of the Philadelphia Gazette (
DAB;
Stewart, Opposition Press,
p. 618).
Both George Washington in his address to Congress and the Senate in their reply condemned “self-created societies” for helping to foment the Whiskey Rebellion. The House, in their reply, made no direct reference to such societies, though they debated the topic at length in preparing their response and did in the end agree to language condemning actions “either by individuals or combinations of men … to foment the flagrant outrage which has been committed on the laws” (
Annals of Congress,
3d Cong., 2d sess., p. 788, 794, 899–905, 906–949).
The first ten lines come from “Criticisms on the Rolliad, Part the First,” in The Rolliad, in Two Parts; Probationary Odes for the Laureatship; and Political Ecologues, 21st edn., London, 1799, No. IX; the last two from “Jekyll,” in the same, lines 25–26.
th:Nov
r.1794
I will not add to my offence by troubling you with a long apology for this intrusion on your Valuable time— Suffice it to Say,—that encoraged by the Condesending manner in which you listen’d to my small affairs (interesting however to me in the extreem) I am embolden’d to beg your interest with the General in my behalf, so far as you can do it consistant with your princeples of Propriety—1 a word perhaps from you, thrown in apparently by accident may have great effect.— I had an intervieu with the Secretary at War, after I had the honor of seeing you— after considerable conversation on the Subject, in which he Seem’d doubtful and hesitating—about making an exchange with the person now at Springfield— as I was taking leave he Said—“you would wish an appointment”?— Certainly Sir— “and you prefer Springfield to any other Place[?”]
On my answering in the affirmative—he Said—“you had best write and I will answer you immediately.”—
In compliance with this enjunction, I have wrote by the Same Post which convays this.— and Confess I see not how he can get 278 over the matter without complying with my request; esspecially when he Sees the extracts which I have taken from letters wrote as far back as the years—: 87 &—89—wherin he Says
“Persuaded as I am of your industry Skill and integrity, I Shall be extreamly glad to make a permanent arangement to continue you in the publick Service”.— again he Says—
The new Government will require time before it can obtain so much Vigor as to make the necessary arangements of its arsinals in order to find constant employment for you, whenever this event Shall happen, I Shall, as far as I may be concerned, be glad to give you employment, being confident of your ability and faithfulness to Serve the Publick Permit me Sir to breathe a most fervent wish for the happiness of you and yours—and to Subscribe my Self / your greatly obligd / and most Humble Servt
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “The Honble. John Adams Esqr.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed.
JA, spurred on largely by AA, had previously assisted Joseph Cranch in contacting Henry Knox regarding employment as a gunsmith; see vol. 8:145–146, 148; 9:21–22, 26, 34, 40, 48–49, 50.