Papers of John Adams, volume 20
th1789
I have received your letter of the 18th
of this month and have communicated that to the President, which was inclosed in it. The
particular office you sollicit by that letter, will be sought by numbers: and among them
probably will be men advanced in life, incumbered with large families, in necessitous
circumstances, perhaps occasioned by public services, by depreciated public promises
& &— The President will as he ought, weigh all these particulars and give the
preference upon the whole as justice humanity and wisdom shall dictate.
There is another gentleman who has applied for it whose pretensions perhaps will have great weight and will be supported by recommendations of the first sort. I must caution you my dear sir against having any dependance on my influence, or that of any other person— No man I beleive has influence with the President. he seeks information from all quarters and judges more independantly than any man I ever knew. It is of so much importance to the public that he should preserve this superiority, that I hope I shall never see the time that any man will have influence with him beyond the powers of reason and argument.
Who is it, pray that has been honoring—Vice ——— in poetry.1
LbC in CA’s hand (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mr S Bourn”; APM Reel 115.
JA probably saw an advertisement in the 22 Aug. Massachusetts Centinel for a “genuine satire,” an anonymous
poem by Edward Church entitled “The Dangerous Vice ———,” Boston, 1789, Evans, No. 21736. Church
(1740–1816), Harvard 1759, was a Boston 144 merchant whose
repeated rejections for a diplomatic post triggered his attack in print. His popular
poem mocked JA as a royalist who was compromised by pride and a love of
European luxury, calling him “a Stickler for a crown, / Tainted with foreign vices,
and his own, / Already plotting dark, insidious schemes, / Already dubb’d a King, in
royal dreams.” AA, who circulated Church’s name as the author, was
disappointed that JA’s views on presidency and monarchy went unexamined.
“I could wish that the Author might be fully known to the publick with regard to the
subject of a proper title for the Pressident mr A never has or will disguise his
opinion, because he thinks that the stability of the Government will in a great
measure rest upon it,” she wrote (vol. 18:103;
AFC
, 8:404). For JA’s reaction to Church’s piece, see
his letter to Cotton Tufts of 16
Sept., below.
By the operation of the Commercial Regulations of the United
States, those that have been friends, and for adopting the New Constitution in this
State, are like to be exceedingly oppressed as well as Mortify’d. your Laws say that
the productions & Manufactures of the Country shall be imported Duty Free by this
the Farmers (who compose the Anti federal party) are highly favour’d, the Collecter of
New York says that the Coasting and other Vessells that belong to the Citizens of Rd Island must pay the Tonnage as Foreigners this puts an end
to the Coasting Trade among us, and will bring great Distress on the Inhabitants of
the Seaport Towns who almost to a Man have been for establishing the Federal
Government. this operates in so untoward a manner, and is so mortifying to us that we
shall loose all our influence among the people and they will turn their Eyes to the
other kind of people to help them.
Indee I think it must be a verry unnatural and forced
Construction of the Law to make us Foreigners. we certainly were a part of the U— S—
and are liable to a proportion of the Debts. we Live on or within the Lands given up
to the Union and were invited to joyn in mending the old Constitution. but a majority
of the State tho’t it did not need it. you that tho’t it did, have procurd and framed
a New one. you have not so much as given us any Notice of your proceedings nor invited
us to come in and Try the New Government, but on the Contrary have framed a Code of
Laws that shut us out of the Union, and have not waited a propper time for us to
Conquer old prejudics and Recover our Senses.— from the late Election of
Representatives we have every Reason to think that a Convention will be Order’d when
the Genl Assembly meets in October. that, in all Novembr it may be know wheather we adopt it or not, on the whole
we Intreat you in the most earnest manner to attend to the 145 Petitions of the Town of Newport Providence
&c for Releving us at present so far as not to insist on the Foreign Tonnage and
giving us liberty to carry other Merchandize on Paying the Dutis &c. This is a
matter of the greatest importance to the well being of this State in general, and will
operate as sevearly and much in the same way that the infamous Port Bill did against
the Town of Boston.
Dor Isaac Senter and Benjamin Bourne
Esqr. are appointed to come on and present the Petition
your favourable Notice of them will be verry pleasing to one who is with the Highest
Esteem Your Excellency Most Humb Servant
was out of Town when Mr Bourne went
forward.
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Jabez Bowen / ansd. 18.
sept. 1789.”