On 3 January 1817 John Quincy Adams from west London
wrote in a letter to his father John Adams:
I have briefly replied to my Mother upon the advice, which
you and she have given me to return to the United States—
It may be proper for me to say something further upon
the subject to you, for whose constant solicitude and
kindness, as for my Mother’s, I can never be sufficiently
grateful, and for whose approbation not only of my
conduct, but of its motives I am earnestly anxious.
I am and have been well aware, that in consulting
only personal views of political ambition, my plainest
and most obvious course would have been to return home
immediately after the conclusion of the Peace of Ghent—
I knew that I could then return with some éclat, and that
while neither honor nor profit of any kind was to be acquired
in a Mission to England, it was at home alone that I could
be in the way of advancement, for the prospect of which
I should never again have so favorable an opportunity
of presenting myself to the notice of my Country—
But upon the appointment of the first Mission for the
pacific Negotiation, it had been officially intimated to me,
as the President’s intention, in the Event of the conclusion
of a Peace, to place me as the Representative of the
United States in this Country—
I accepted the appointment, because I have made it
the general principle of my life to take the station
assigned to me, by the regular authority of my Country,
and because I perceived no decisive reason for declining it;
and having accepted it, I have thought that a term
of three years, was as short, as I could with propriety
hold it before asking to be recalled.
My expectation and intention was to return to private life,
not from any settled purpose of relinquishing the service
of the Public, but from the knowledge that in my native State
my Services are not held in much estimation by those who
could alone exercise at least for the present the power of
calling them forth, and with regard to the Government of
the Union, although very shortly after my arrival in this
Country I had received an intimation, through a stranger,
that it was the intention of the Administration to reserve
as long as might be compatible with the public Convenience,
an important Office for me, yet as the person who made
me this communication, did not profess to have been
authorized to make it, I neither understood precisely
what it meant, nor paid much attention to it.
From that time until within these six weeks,
I thought no more of it—
About the middle of November last, Mr. George Boyd
arrived here, and among the rumors of news circulating
at Washington, at the time of his departure told me
it was said by some, that the State Department
would be offered to me by the next President—
Since them numerous suggestions to the same effect
have reached me, and the report has finally been
distributed throughout this Country, by paragraphs of
Newspapers, extracted from those of the United States—
Although these Circumstances have been sufficient
to induce me very seriously to deliberate in my own mind
upon the determination which it may be proper for me
to come to, if the proposal should really be made to me,
yet nothing has yet occurred which would justify me
in taking any step on the presumption that it will—
No direct Communication either from the present
President or from his expected successor has made it
necessary or proper for me to inform either of them
what my decision would be upon it, and I think it due
both to them and to myself, to reserve my answer,
and even my resolution upon the offer, until it is made.
You caution me against commencing to be the
champion of Orthodoxy, without first reading more
than would consume all the leisure of the remnant
of life which I have any reasonable prospect
of enjoying, even if it were to be all leisure—
I think I shall neither commence champion of Orthodoxy,
nor as your old friend Franklin
used to say of any man’s doxy.
If after sixty years of assiduous study and profound
meditation, you have only to come to the result of
trusting the Ruler with his skies, and adhering to the
Sermon upon the Mount, I may be permitted
to adopt the same conclusions by a shorter
and more compendious process—
But you observe again that Mosquitos are not competent
to dogmatise “περι του παντος”—
I have in a former Letter contested the application
of this remark to our own species—
To compare man with a mosquito, an eel in vinegar
or a mite in cheese, shoots as wide of the
mark of reality, as to suppose him an Angel—
You and I are competent to dogmatize, taking
the word in the sense of its derivation,
that is, to hold opinions, about the “το παν.”—
To hold opinions; but not to attain perfect knowledge—
Mosquitos hold no opinions—
Now in the Sermon upon the Mount, much is said
about the kingdom of Heaven,
and those who alone shall enter into it—
The preacher of that Sermon, announced himself
as a being superior at least to human Nature—
If you say that he was a mere ordinary man,
you include him also in the class of those who are not
competent to dogmatize upon the system of the Universe—
You, or at least I can by no possible process of
reasoning consider him as a mere Man,
without at the same time pronouncing him an Imposter—
You ask me what Bible I take as the standard of my faith—
The Hebrew—the Samaritan—
the old English Translation—or what?—
I answer, the Bible containing the Sermon upon the Mount—
Any Bible that I can read and understand—
The New Testament I have repeatedly read in the original
Greek, in the Latin, in the Genevan protestant,
and in Sacy’s Catholic French translations,
in Luther’s German Translation, in the common
English protestant, and in the Douay English,
Catholic (Jesuitical) Translations—
I take any one of them for my standard of faith—
If Socinus or Priestley had made a fair Translation
of the Bible, I would have taken that,
but without their Comments—
I would also give up, all the passages, upon which
any sound suspicion of interpolation can be fastened—
But the Sermon upon the Mount commands me to lay up
for myself treasures, not upon Earth, but in Heaven—
My hopes of a future life are all founded
upon the Gospel of Christ—
and I cannot cavil or quibble away, not single words and
ambiguous expressions, but the whole tenor of his conduct,
by which he sometimes positively asserted, and at others
countenanced his disciples in asserting that he was God.
You think it blasphemous to believe that
the omnipotent Creator could be crucified—
God is a Spirit—
The Spirit was not crucified—
The body of Jesus of Nazareth was crucified—
The Spirit whether eternal or created
was beyond the reach of the Cross.
You see my Orthodoxy grows upon me; but I still unite
with you in the doctrine of Toleration and benevolence—
You will marvel perhaps that with these Sentiments
I have been recently falling in with some of the broadest
Unitarians, such as Mr. Frend, and Mr. Aspland, who has
obligingly presented me several Sermons and
Tracts of his own upon the Unitarian faith.
I shall send you by the Galen or some other
opportunity a work of a different kind.
I mean the Private Correspondence of Dr. Franklin,
one Quarto Volume of which has at length
been published by his Grandson—
I have not seen this Gentleman since my present
residence in England, though we have
more than once exchanged visits.
But he lately sent me a copy of the Book
with a very polite Letter in which he speaks
in the most respectful terms of you—
The first Volume, containing the Memoirs
of the Drs.’ Life has not yet been published.
We have just received the President’s Message
at the opening of the Session of Congress, and it has
extorted a few sentences of unwilling and sulky approbation
from the Ministerial paper here.
Its contents are in a high degree
gratifying to the friends of our Country.
Mr. Madison has the happiness of leaving the Union
in a state of prosperity and of tranquility,
which did not accompany the retirement
of either of his Predecessors.
For that very reason he leaves
a more doubtful prospect to his Successor.
In the Political as well as in the physical world
the tempest must always alternate with fair weather.
Hitherto, blessed be God, all our Pilots
have succeeded in weathering the Storm
There are Breakers ahead, and all around us however,
and I hope your Letter to the perpetual-peace-mongers,
will give a lesson of useful instruction to our Countrymen—
By the returns for Congress, I perceive that
Hartford Convention federalism is still upon
the decay in Massachusetts, though I hear the
Roman Senators, are still firm and vigorous in their
resistance against the factious tribune of the People.1
J. Q. Adams wrote this letter from Ealing in London to William Eustis on January 13:
The American newspapers have announced and some
private letters have given countenance to the rumor that
I am to be recalled from the mission here upon the entrance
of the new President into office, and I perceive by your
favor of 28 December that you also give credit to the report.
My principal reason for entertaining any doubt
upon the subject is the silence hitherto both of
the present chief, and of his apparent successor
in their direct communications to me.
I shall have several strong person motives
for accepting it, with others both of public
and private consideration for declining it.
Whether the latter will have the weight upon my mind which
they ought, I can scarcely promise myself, for on consulting
my own feelings and opinions I find the pro and the con
so nearly balanced that I willingly postpone the decision
until there shall be a certainty that it will be called for.
The change of public sentiment in our section
of the Union, and particularly in our native state,
is evidently though slowly progressive.
The party which as you justly observe had of late
years degenerated into a faction, still however
control the legislature of the Commonwealth,
although the good sense and integrity of their governor
has in a great measure extricated him from their hands.
The most violent men are dropping off
from the representation in Congress,
and the trimmers are preparing to stop to
windward while the ship is in the very act of tacking.
If the separation of Maine should not be consummated
before the next election for the legislature,
I should hope the majority in both branches
will be friendly to the national government.
The leaders and instigators of the faction are incorrigible,
because their errors are errors of principles, and because
they are honest in the belief that all the wisdom of the
nation is in their heads, and all its virtue in their hearts.
They have erected their whole political system upon the
perverted axiom that a part is greater than the whole.
They see nothing in the American Union but New England.
They have no country distinct from their party.
As soon as they have sunk into a minority, they will
fall into hypochondriac fits, and fancy the world is
coming to an end for want of putting its trust in them….
The contingent charges upon our foreign missions
are the payments for postage, stationery, yearly fees
to court servants, and in this country for office rent,
a charge that I never made elsewhere, because
I never had occasion for a separate office but here.
I should think there ought to be an allowance for the
expense of your removing, and that you would do well
to ascertain what the allowance is to the other foreign
ministers respectively, and state it to our government.
There was formerly something similar to your case in Spain,
where the court had four residences to which they
removed in the course of every year, and to all of which
the foreign ministers were obliged to follow them.
Perhaps Mr. Erving can inform you whether
our ministers there were allowed to charge
for the expense of those removals.
If they were, I should think the precedent decisive.2
In this letter to William Plumer on January 17
Adams reviewed the current political situation:
I am yet to acknowledge the receipt of your two
obliging favors of 6 March and 30 July last, the latter
enclosing a copy of your speech to the legislature.
During the whole time that I have enjoyed the happiness
of an acquaintance and friendship with you, there has
been so general a coincidence of sentiment between us
upon all the objects of concernment to our country,
which have successively arisen, that I can ascribe it
to no other cause than to the similitude, or rather
the identity, of our political and moral principles.
It was therefore not possible for me to read
your excellent speech without great pleasure,
and I was much gratified to see that its merits
did not escape public notice even in this country.
It was republished entire in one of the newspapers of
most extensive circulation, not as during our late war
some of our governor’s speeches were republished,
to show the subservience of the speakers to the bulwark
of our holy religion and to the press gang,
but professedly for the pure and patriotic and
genuine republican sentiments with which it abounded.
It has been a truly cheering contemplation to me to see
the people of New Hampshire have recovered from the
delusions of that unprincipled faction, which under the name
of Federalism were driving to the dissolution of the Union,
and under the name of Washington to British reconciliation;
to see them returning to the counsels of sober and moderate
men, who are biased by no feelings but those of public
spirit, and by no interests but those of their country.
Such a person I well knew they had found in you, and such
I hope you will find in your present and future coadjutors.
Although the progress of reformation has not been so rapid
and effectual in our native state as it has been with you,
yet the tendency of the public opinion has been steadily
since the peace in that direction, as it has been throughout
the Union; and as that faction cannot fail to sink in
proportion as the country prospers, I do not despair
of seeing the day when the policy of all the state
governments will be in union with that of the nation.
We have lately received what may be termed
President Madison’s valedictory message to Congress,
and grateful indeed must it be to his feelings to
compare the condition of the country at the close
of his administration with the turbulent and perilous
state in which it was at the period of his first election.
It will be the great duty of his successor, and
of the Congress with which he is to cooperate,
to use diligently the days of peace to prepare the nation
for other trials which are probably not far distant,
and which sooner or later cannot fail to arise.
Your speech most justly remarks that the late war raised
our public character in the estimation of other nations; but
we cannot be too profoundly impressed with the sentiment
that it has by no means added to the number of our friends.
In this country more particularly, it is impossible for me
to disguise to myself that the national feeling of animosity
and rancor against America and the Americans is more
universal and more bitter than it was before the war.
A considerable part of the British nation then despised us,
and contempt is a feeling far less active in spurring to acts
of hostility, than hatred and fear which have taken its place.
No Briton of any party ever imagined that we should
be able to sustain a contest against them upon the ocean.
Very few among ourselves expected it.
Our victories both by sea and land, though intermingled with
defeats and disasters which we ought to remember more
studiously than our triumphs, have placed our character
as a martial nation upon a level with the most respectable
nations of Europe; but the effect here has been to unite all
parties in the conviction that we are destined to be the most
formidable of the enemies and rivals of their naval power.
Now the navy is so universally the idol of this nation
that there is not a stateman of any description or
party who dares befriend anything opposed to it,
or look with other than hostile eyes to anything
that threatens its glory or portends its downfall.
The opposition party and its leaders before the war
were much more liberally disposed towards America
than the ministerialists; but after the war commenced,
they joined the ministers in full pack, and since the peace
their party tactics have constantly been to cavil against
any liberality or concession of the ministers to America.
The issue of the late European wars had been to give
for the moment (though it will not last long) to the
British government an ascendency of influence over
the whole continent of Europe which they will naturally
use to inspire prejudices and jealousies against us.
There is already in all the governments of Europe
a strong prejudice against us as Republicans, and as
the primary causes of the propaganda of those political
principles, which still make the throne of every European
monarch under him as with the throes of an earthquake.
With Spain we are and have been on the verge of war.
Nothing but the impotence of the Spanish government
has hitherto prevented the explosion, and we have
so many collisions of interest as well as of principles
with Spain, that it is not only the Court
but the nation which hates and fears us.
In France the government, besides being in
tutelage under Britain, have feelings against
America more venomous even than the British.
The mass of the French nation have no such feelings;
but they have no attachment to us, or friendship for us.
Their own condition absorbs all their feelings;
but they would delight in seeing us at war with Great Britain,
because they flatter themselves that would operate
as a diversion in their favor, and perhaps enable them
to break the yoke under which they are groaning.
We have claims for indemnification against the governments
of France, Spain, the Netherlands, Naples, and Denmark,
the justice of which they do not admit, and which nothing
but necessity will ever bring them to acknowledge.
The very pursuit of those claims has a tendency to
embroil us with those nations, as has been fully exemplified
in the result of Mr. Pinkney’s late mission to Naples; and yet
as the claims are just, they ought not to be abandoned.
The states of Barbary owe as a heavy grudge for
the chastisements we have inflicted upon all of them,
and for the example first set by us to the European nations,
of giving them battle instead of tribute,
and of breaking up their system of piracy.
We have therefore enemies in almost every part
of the world, and few or no friends anywhere.
If there be an exception it is in Russia;
but even there the shameful misconduct of the
Russian Consul General at Philadelphia, and the
infamous manner in which he has been abetted
by the Minister Daschkoff, have produced a coldness
on the part of the Emperor which endangered at least
the harmony of the relations between the two countries.
Add to all this, that there is a vague and
general sentiment of speculative and fomenting
jealousy against us prevailing all over Europe.
We are considered not merely as an active and
enterprising, but as a grasping and ambitious people.
We are supposed to have inherited all the bad
qualities of the British character, without some
of those of which other nations in their dealings
with the British have made their advantage.
They ascribe to us all the British rapacity,
without allowing us the credit of the British profusion.
The universal feeling of Europe in witnessing
the gigantic growth of our population and power
is that we shall, if united, become a very
dangerous member of the society of nations.
They therefore hope what they confidently expect,
that we shall not long remain united.
That before we shall have attained the strength
of national manhood, our Union will be dissolved,
and that we shall break up into two or more
nations in opposition against one another.
The conclusion from all which that we must draw
is to do justice invariably to every nation;
and at the same time to fix our military, naval,
and fiscal establishment upon a foundation adequate
to our defense and enabling us to obtain justice from them.
I have not yet been able to procure for you Adair’s History
of the Indians, but I have found at a very moderate price
a complete set of the Remembrancer, including the
Prior Documents, all in eleven volumes, which I propose
to send you by the Galen, to sail about the first of March.3
On 21 January 1817 John Quincy Adams in London
wrote to Secretary of State James Monroe:
I have the honor of enclosing copies of two notes which
I have addressed to Lord Castlereagh, one respecting
the revenue bonds taken at the capture of Moose Island,
and the other on the case of the sloop Mary and cargo
belonging to Clark and Kempton of Philadelphia,
seized and confiscated in the island of Jamaica.
Parliament is to assemble on the 28th of this month,
and the session is by all parties here anticipated
as likely to be of the highest importance.
But the opposition to the ministry in that body stands upon
a foundation so different from that which exists among the
people, and separated from it, is so essentially weak that
I cannot even now divest myself of the opinion that the
session will pass over without any essential change.
A distinguished member of the opposition has very lately
said that this difficulty will be not to turn the Ministers out,
but to keep them in; and this sentiment discloses at once
that much of the ministerial strength lies in the weakness
of their Parliamentary opponents, and that both parties
have an external opposition to encounter which
may be found equally unmanageable to both.
At the last winter session the whole amount of parliament
opposition was concentrated in the effort to throw off the
property tax and in objections to petty items of expenditure.
Many speeches were made about the distresses
in the country, but so little were any of the members
disposed to probe the wound to the bottom,
that when Lord Castlereagh confidently asked
if wheat should rise to eighty shillings a quarter
where would be the distress?
Not a man was found in the House of Commons
to answer him.
There had been to that time no deficiency in the revenue,
and so long as that state of things continued the ministry
might be quite easy at the effect of opposition speeches.
At the July quarter appeared the first falling off
in the receipt of the taxes.
In October they seemed to be recovering, but the January
quarter has been again largely deficient, and that which is to
terminate on the 5th of April will probably be still more so.
The Ministers will have no difficulty in providing for
this deficiency, either by loans or by issuing exchequer bills;
and although this, while affording momentary relief,
will ultimately but aggravate the distemper,
yet the parliamentary opposition will have
no other effectual remedy to propose.
The plain state of the fact appears to me to be that the
load of taxation to pay the interest upon the national debt is
greater than the nation can bear, and that the only possible
remedy will be a composition with the public creditors, or an
authoritative reduction of the debt in one form or another.
But this neither the ministers nor the opposition
in Parliament are yet prepared to admit.
One member the last session distinctly hinted that a
reduction of the interest of the debt might in the end
become necessary; but he found no supporters,
and the very suggestion was deprecated by
the Chancellor of the Exchequer as dishonorable.
At the meeting of Parliament an amendment
to the address is to be moved by the opposition, and
a circular from the Treasury to the ministerial members
has been issued, earnestly calling for their attendance
the first day of the session avowedly on that account.
This amendment will doubtless contain the pledges
of the opposition and will give the measure of what
they are willing to do for the relief of the nation;
but there is not a man possessed of any weight
or influence in either house who is not already pledged
to the principles of the present system, and neither
the condition of the country nor the temper of the people
will admit at this time of an opposition merely of detail.
The external opposition is of character altogether
different from that which will be seen in Parliament.
Among the people the party attached to the support
of the government is almost universally ministerial.
The Whig party so called is almost a nullity—
that portion of the people who, dissatisfied
with the leading parliamentary members of opposition.
The discontented part of the nation have been
led to the conclusion that the great source of their
calamities has been the defective representation
in the House of Commons, and that their only
effectual remedy will be a parliamentary reform.
This opinion has evidently gained
the ground within the last year.
The meetings to petition for reform have already been
called, and the object is assuming a consistency which
it has not had certainly for these twenty years, if ever.
Some correspondence between different meetings
has been established, and there has been even a
delegated meeting of deputies from several popular
meetings with a view to concert the future measures
to be adopted in the pursuit of their object.
In this cause of parliamentary reform there are out of
Parliament three men at this time peculiarly conspicuous:
Major Cartwright, whose principal weight arises
from the steadiness with which he has adhered
to this particular pursuit for the last forty years;
Cobbett, who notwithstanding that he has successively
defended almost every possible change of opinion,
is now beyond all question and spurning all comparison
the most popular writer in the British Islands;
and a Mr. Henry Hunt, who has distinguished
himself by the violence of his speeches
at the public meetings on various places.
The most powerful and most active person of this
triumvirate is Cobbett who, having declared open and
inveterate hostility to both the Parliamentary parties,
and having attacked indiscriminately individuals of
every description, is equally hated and dreaded
by all the prominent political characters, but has acquired
by his weekly political Registers, which he has lately
published in a cheap form accessible to all classes of people,
an influence over the indigent and suffering multitude
possessed by no other person in the kingdom.
But while the general impulse of the external
opposition is towards a reform of Parliament,
there are in Parliament itself not more than two or three
noted members of the House of Commons, and perhaps
not one of the Peers, cordially friendly to the cause.
Cobbett says that the petitions for reform
have been signed by more than half a million people.
They will be presented at an early period of the session
and may prove embarrassing to both parties.
They will probably be most so to the opposition, because the
resistance on the ministerial side will be open and explicit,
and consistent with the system they have always pursued;
while the only ground upon which the opposition can assail
the ministers is a reform of some kind, and they cannot
withstand the great and essential reform from which alone
all others can proceed without disabling their own argument,
and at the same time sinking themselves still further in the
estimation of that part of the people, without whose support
they could not maintain themselves in power, even if
they could drive the present ministers from their seats.
This view of things will explain the apprehension expressed
by a leading opposition member, that the difficulty would
be not to turn the ministers out but to keep them in.
On the whole it is scarcely to be doubted that the
established political system of this kingdom and
of all Europe depends on the single question
of the productiveness of the British revenue.
The symptoms of the year just expired have indicated
that in this country taxation has overstepped its practicable
boundaries, and that a revenue cannot during peace be
raised sufficient to defray the interest of the public debt
and the current expenses of the government.
That the deficiency in the revenue will be permanent
and progressive is, however, by no means ascertained.
Cobbett in his strongest tone of confidence
predicted that the revenue of the year 1816
would not yield forty millions sterling.
It has yielded more than fifty-seven millions.
He now says that 1817 will not yield thirty-five millions.
If it should fall even as low as fifty, it will not defray
all the charges of the year, and the distress
of the country will be greater than it is now.
But if, as is probable, the revenue of this year should be
more rather than less productive than that of the last,
the system may still hang together a little longer.
There is no prospect that the burden of the public debt
will be lessened this year, but expedients to get
through the year will be found with perfect ease.
The payment of nearly forty millions yearly to the
public creditors forms a great mass of capital, a large
portion of which is constantly seeking employment.
The government might borrow money to any
amount they would want, and upon terms more
advantageous than those of these late war loans.
So great is the tendency of this capital to find employment
that the French government has succeeded
in negotiating a loan here, it is said,
of twelve millions sterling or 300 millions of francs.
How far this measure has had the sanction
of the British government is not fully known.
The agents of it and the Houses of
Baring, Hope, Parish, and La Fitte.
The terms are understood to be
very burdensome to the borrowers.
The British ministers disavow all connection with it
on their part, but it probably could not have been
accomplished without at least their tacit approbation.
The first application for it was declared
to have been unsuccessful because
they declined affording the guarantee to it.
Immediately afterwards the Duke of Wellington very
suddenly and unexpectedly made an appearance here
of three or four days only, and then returned to Paris.
The general impression is that he came to show
the indispensable necessity that this loan should
be accomplished, and it has accordingly been effected.
The experiment may perhaps hereafter be repeated,
and it affords an additional and a striking proof how
indissolubly the present establishment of politics throughout
Europe is connected with the state of British revenue.4
Adams wrote this shorter letter to Abigail Adams on January 25:
Scarcely a day passes without the arrival of vessels
from the United States, but they are principally
from New York or more southern ports.
The failure of the harvests in this country
has much contributed to their frequency.
Two years ago the British Parliament made a law
to raise the price of bread, having discovered that
if that first necessary of life should be cheap,
the country would be irretrievably ruined.
This act prohibited the importation of grain
from foreign countries until wheat should
for six weeks successively be at an average price
throughout England and Wales of ten shillings a bushel.
From the time of the passing of the bill
this event did not occur until last November.
Since then wheat has constantly been above
the price which admits of importation.
It is now about at thirteen shillings sterling
and likely to be higher.
The importations have already commenced and
many vessels laden with flour have arrived from America.
We have accounts from New York almost to the
close of the year, but I have nothing from you
later than your letter of November 26.
I am reading at once two Unitarian pamphlets—
steering from grave to gay, from lively to severe,
tragedy and comedy, my very good friend the
Reverend Robert Aspland’s plea for Unitarian dissenters,
and that most laughing and laughable philosopher
Basanistes, recommended to me by my father.
The project of putting down the Trinity
by a joke amuses me much.
Voltaire wrote two huge volumes to put down
the whole Bible by jokes, and the hundred volumes
of his works are a sort of joking encyclopedia
against the Christian religion, which nevertheless,
strange to say, flourishes in despite of them.
And now I remember me the imperial
philosopher Julian cracked his joke upon the Trinity too.
“Eis prion, trion en!”
But Plato says that one implies another.
Now if God is one, who is the other?
A profound question, which I leave for Unitarian solution,
being ever faithfully yours.5
On 6 March 1817 President James Monroe in this short letter
asked John Quincy Adams to be Secretary of State:
Respect for your talents and patriotic services
has induced me to commit to your care,
with the sanction of the Senate, the Department of State.
I have done this in confidence that it will be agreeable
to you to accept it, which I can assure you
will be very gratifying to me.
I shall communicate your appointment by
several conveyances to multiply the chances
of your obtaining early knowledge of it, that,
in case you accept it, you may be enabled to return
to the United States and enter on the duties
of the office with the least delay possible.6
Adams in London sent this report on March 20
and addressed it to Secretary of State Monroe:
The day before yesterday I had an interview with
Lord Castlereagh, when he informed me that the British
government had come to a determination respecting
the commercial part of the proposals for the negotiation
of a further treaty which I had made last September.
That they were yet not prepared to abandon their
ancient colonial system, but they were willing to extend
to the United States the benefits of the free port act to
the same extent that they were now enjoyed by the
vessels of European nations, and to give a partial admission
of our vessels to the island of Bermuda and to Turks Island.
And with regard to the intercourse between the
United States and the adjoining British provinces,
they would renew a proposal heretofore made
founded altogether upon the principle of reciprocity.
Which proposal he read to me from a paper,
which he said was not quite finished, but which
would be sent me in the course of the next day.
Last evening I received a note from Mr. Hamilton,
the under Secretary of State in the Foreign Department,
with a draft of four articles, a copy of which hastily made
I now enclose, as Mr. Everett leaves town this morning.
The part read to me by Lord Castlereagh was
the fourth article, excepting the last paragraph.
I do not think it possible to make anything out of these
articles to which I can under my present instructions agree.
I therefore enclose copies of them with the
request of immediate further instructions.
Lord Castlereagh informed me that they had received
information that the act of Congress prohibited the
clearance for ports to which vessels renewed the assurance
that this government considered it as perfectly proper and
as giving them no cause of complaint or dissatisfaction.
It seems to me, however, that the very slight and partial
concessions in the enclosed articles are intended to
counteract its effects, and this opinion contributes to caution
me against subscribing to them without your further orders.
Lord Castlereagh offers to make them supplementary
to the convention of 3 July 1815,
and to be in force for the same time.7
Adams received the news in the mail arriving in London on April 16.
On the same day he also received a letter from Secretary of State Monroe
dated February 5 about the fisheries which he said had not succeeded.
John Quincy Adams in London on 17 April 1817
wrote this letter to President James Monroe:
I had the honor of receiving yesterday the quadruplicate
of your favor of 6 March, informing me that you have
been pleased with the concurrence of the Senate to
commit to me the Department of State.
For this distinguished mark of your confidence,
and for the obliging terms in which you have
the goodness to communicate it, I pray you
to be assured of the grateful sense which I entertain.
I accept it with no other hesitation than that with which
I cannot but be affected in contemplating the arduous
duties assigned to me by this appointment, and the
consciousness of needing your indulgence and that of
our country in the endeavor faithfully to discharge them.
I hope to be able to embark for the United States
in the course of the next month, and have the
honor to remain with perfect respect, sir,
your very humble and obedient servant.8
On that day he realized that he did not always agree with Monroe on issues,
and he noted
that so far of the first four Presidents only Thomas Jefferson had a harmonious cabinet.
In his Memoirs John Quincy Adams wrote,
For myself, I shall enter upon the functions of my office
with a deep sense of the necessity of union with my
colleagues, and with a suitable impression that my place
is subordinate; that my duty will be to support,
and not to oppose, the President’s administration,
and that if from any cause I should find my efforts
to that end ineffectual, it will be duty seasonably
to withdraw from the public service and leave
to more competent persons the performance
of the duties to which I should find myself inadequate.9
While Adams was waiting for a ship going to America, he had dinner with the
British reformer Jeremy Bentham; and for several days they went on three-hour walks.
Bentham had founded utilitarian philosophy and advocated utopian socialism.
He wrote many books including The Principles of Morals and Legislation
and A Catechism of Parliamentary Reform.
His ideas would be carried on by the utilitarian John Stuart Mill
and the socialist Robert Owen.
Before Adams left, Bentham presented him with 25 copies of his
Principles of Morals and Legislation with one for each governor in the United States.
On 3 May 1817 Adams wrote this in his Memoirs
about his conversation with the Spanish minister in London:
3rd. In Hyde Park I met Count Fernan Nuñez,
who stopped his curricle and spoke to me.
He told me he had had his audience to take
leave of the Prince Regent yesterday,
and was no longer Ambassador here.
He should proceed for Paris tomorrow morning.
He assured me that I should be “très-content” with Onís,
and that our affairs with Spain should be settled entirely
to our satisfaction; that we should have what we wanted,
and secured to us in the most effectual manner.
“Seulement—de lautre coté—les voisins.”
He himself had lately received instructions upon the subject,
and was glad to let me know it before my return to America.
Spain was resolved to give us full and entire satisfaction.
It might not suit at all the views of some others,
but I might depend upon it; Spain was firmly
resolved to settle all affairs amicably with us.
There was much nodding of the head, much
significance of look, and much show of mysterious
meaning in all this, but nothing specific or precise.
What he meant me to understand him as saying was,
that Spain would cede to us the Floridas, although
England was taking all possible pains to prevent it;
but that we must satisfy Spain
about the South American insurgents.
Neither the time nor place would admit of my asking
further explanations, and it was evident he meant to
raise expectations in me without saying anything explicit.
I answered him in general terms with strong assurances of
our earnest desire to settle everything amicably with Spain,
with my thanks for his communication, the great pleasure
which I took in learning from that the policy of Spain
towards the United States was thus decidedly pacific
and friendly, and my best wishes that he might
have a prosperous negotiation at Paris.10
The British usually provided a gift of money to ambassadors who were leaving.
Adams was aware that such gifts were often accepted
despite their prohibition by the United States Constitution.
On May 14 he wrote in his Memoirs how he explained to the
Prince Regent Chester why he would not accept such a gift:
I told him that by the Constitution of the United States
no person in their service was permitted to accept a
present from any foreign sovereign, and I must therefore
decline any one that might be offered me here.
He said that, having had some idea of the existence
of such a regulation in America, he had made enquiries
at the office how the fact had been in the cases of former
American Ministers, and had found the present had been
in some instances accepted, and in others declined.
I told him I supposed the cases of acceptance were
prior to the Constitutional prohibition;
that I must for my part decline it, and would explain
to Lord Castlereagh my motives for so doing.
He acquiesced in this with apparent cheerfulness,
though probably not without reluctance.
The prohibition of the Constitution of the United States
in this case has my hearty approbation,
and I wish it may be inflexibly adhered to hereafter.
The usage itself, as practiced by all European Governments,
is, in my judgment, absurd, indelicate,
with at least very strong tendencies to corruption.
On the part of the United States there is a peculiar reason
for prohibiting servants from taking such gifts, because,
as they never make presents to the Ministers of foreign
powers who have been accredited to them, there is not
even the plea of reciprocity to allege for allowing it.
For American Ministers to be receiving gifts from foreign
powers whose diplomatic agents in America never receive
anything in return, would exhibit them rather as beggars
receiving alms from opulent princes,
than as the independent representatives
of a high-minded and virtuous republic.
The governments of Europe are themselves
becoming ashamed of this despicable custom.
Count Romanzoff, since his resignation as Chancellor of the
Russian Empire, has made up a fund from the value of all
the presents granted to invalid and wounded soldiers.
I have a strong impression that the peculiar propriety
of this patriotic sacrifice was suggested to him by the
example of the principle established by this regulation
in the Constitution of the United States.11
On 15 June 1817 John Quincy Adams and his family
embarked on the USS Washington at Cowes, Isle of Wight.
On that day he completed his long chapter on “The Mission to Great Britain”
at the end of Volume III in his Memoirs.
The ship arrived at the New York harbor on August 6.
Governor DeWitt Clinton provided a dinner to honor Adams at Tammany Hall,
and John Jacob Astor was hoping to get support
for his fur business from the new Secretary of State.
In Washington on 20 September 1817 John Quincy Adams in his Memoirs wrote:
The President James Monroe, returned last Wednesday
from a tour of nearly four months to the eastern
and western parts of the United States.
He is in the President’s House, which is so far restored
from the effects of the British visit in 1814 that
it is now for the first time again habitable.
But he is apprehensive of the effects of the
fresh painting and plastering, and very desirous
of visiting his family at his seat in Virginia.
He is therefore going again to leave the city in two or three
days, but said his absence would only be for a short time.
He told me that Mr. Rush was to be my successor
at the Court of Great Britain, and directed me
to make out instructions to him.
He also entered largely upon the motives of the
mission which he had contemplated sending to
South America, which has, however, failed for the present,
and upon which, he said, he should converse
further with me before his departure.
After some general conversation upon the state of the public
relations with Great Britain, Spain, and France, I left him.
Mr. Rush gave me some account of the present situation
of the Department of State,
a subject to be hereafter resumed.12
Here is what Adams wrote in his Memoirs on Sunday September 21:
O God, my only trust was thou
Through all life’s scenes before:
Lo, at thy throne again I bow,
New mercies to implore.
Thy aid, O Father, wilt thou lend?
My thoughts wilt thou inspire?
My heart to do thy pleasure bend?
My breast to virtue fire?
Thy gracious wisdom to fulfill
My constant aim incline,
Grant for my feeble, faltering will
The unerring strength of thine.
Grant active powers, grant fervid zeal,
And guide by thy control,
And ever be my country’s weal
The purpose of my soul.
Thine be the purpose, thine the deed,
Which thou alone canst bless,
From thee all perfect gifts proceed,
Oh, crown them with success.
Extend, all-seeing God, thy hand,
In mercy still decree,
And make to bless my native land
An instrument of me.From the information given me by Boyd, the path for
me is beset with thorns, and it becomes more doubtful
than ever whether I shall be able to continue long in it.
At two distinct periods of my life heretofore my position
has been perilous and full of anxious forecast,
but never so critical and precarious as at this time.13
Adams and his wife Louisa arrived at Washington on September 20, and he reported
to President Monroe the next day in the White House which was still being painted.
Adams learned that the ambitious William H. Crawford
had become Secretary of the Treasury.
Monroe selected the westerner William Wirt to be Attorney General.
The influential Henry Clay had been elected Speaker of the House again,
and he helped Monroe’s bills get passed.
Adams was sworn in as Secretary of State on September 22.
The current budget of the Department of State was only $123,062.
His salary was only $6,000 a year,
and he had to spend at least $4,000 more for his own expenses.
John Quincy talked with everyone who came to see him.
In this post-war period the presidency of Monroe
had become recognized as an “Era of Good Feelings.”
Adams became a closer advisor to Monroe, and let the President make the decisions.
Adams rented a place a mile and a half from the building
of the State Department, and he walked back and forth.
John Quincy Adams in Washington became Secretary of State on 22 September 1817,
and on the 24th he wrote this letter to the French Minister Hyde de Neuville:
I have been directed by the President of the United States
to acknowledge the receipt of your written communication
to the Department of State of the 12th instant, accompanied
with copies of certain documents indicating the existence
in America of an association organized under the name
of a Napoleonian confederation; from which documents
you conceive it results that a very considerable levy of
men is on the eve of taking place in some of the western
states or territories of the Union, for objects prohibited
by the laws of the United States and hostile to France.
From the nature of the institution and laws of this
country you will be aware that the repressive powers
of the government, in their application to the freedom
of individuals, are limited to cases of actual transgression,
and do not extend to projects which, however exceptionable
in their character, have not been matured at least
into an attempt or a commencement of execution.
The vigilance of the government will, however, be peculiarly
directed to every object of information disclosing designs
illegal in their character, or tending to disturb the public
tranquility by menacing the peace of friendly nations.
In this view your communication has not failed to meet
the special attention of the President, and I am directed,
in answering it, to repeat the assurances which you
have received personally from him, that every measure
within the competency of the government and compatible
with the rights of individuals shall be adopted, that
may be necessary to maintain or to vindicate the
honor of the laws, and to manifest the friendliness
of its disposition towards your government.
Should any further information reach you, tending to
establish the fact of illegal combinations, whether of citizens
of the United States or of strangers amenable to their laws,
to invade the territories bordering upon those of the
United States, or of any other purpose forbidden by the
laws of this Union, you are invited to a free communication
of it to this Department, and assured that it will be received
with all the interest which its importance will inspire,
and acted upon with an earnest desire of evincing the
determination of this government to cause the laws to be
inviolably respected, and at the same time to fulfil the good
offices of a disposition sincerely friendly towards France.
Be pleased to accept the assurances, etc.14
The next day Adams wrote this letter to President James Monroe:
I should have been desirous of submitting in like manner
the answer to Mr. de Neuville, particularly as it refers
to assurances which he received personally from you.
But as he had been earnest in the request of an
immediate answer to be transmitted to his government,
I acquiesced in the opinion of Mr. Rush, to whom
the paper was communicated, and who thought
advisable that it should be sent immediately.
After it was prepared, I had occasion to see
Mr. de Neuville and had some conversation with him
on the subject; in which he expressed the wish for
a publication of his letter to the Department,
of the documents by which it was accompanied,
and of the answer he should receive from me;
and observed that no other measure on the part of this
government would be desired by him, as he supposed that
alone would be sufficient to break up the whole project.
At the same time he intimated that his government
might perhaps demand the arrest of Joseph Bonaparte,
and the seizure of his papers.
I understood from Mr. Rush, who was present at this
conversation, that the idea of publishing the papers
had been thrown out at the audience you had given
to the minister, and that it had obtained your assent.
To this, the draft of the answer to the Spanish minister
refers, and although Mr. de Neuville had admitted that
the arrest of Joseph Bonaparte and the seizure of his papers
would be inconsistent with the spirit of our institutions
(which, he added, he was far from disapproving),
yet, as he did suggest that such a demand might be made,
and as there is in the Spanish minister’s letter,
a sort of precursory hint to the same effect,
it seemed to me a suitable occasion for meeting
such intimations at the threshold, and for giving
to the governments of those gentlemen,
as well as to themselves, a warning, that as arbitrary
seizures must not be expected from this government,
it will be, to say the least, useless to require them.15
On September 27 Secretary of State Adams
wrote this letter to President James Monroe:
I have the honor of enclosing a copy of a letter received
the evening before from the French Minister, in reply to
that which I had addressed to him the preceding day.
Yesterday morning I received a note from him,
stating that he found himself obliged to leave
the city sooner than he had expected,
and requesting to see me before his departure.
I received him immediately, and he recurred again
to the idea of seizing upon the person and papers of the
writer of the papers communicated by him, of if that was
impracticable, at least he urged the immediate publication of
the documents, with an introductory commentary descanting
upon the wickedness and the absurdity of the conspiracy.
He remarked upon the turn of expression in my
letter to him, as importing that he conceived the
levies of men, etc. were about to take place,
and said that he had the most perfect certainty of it—
that they were recruiting the men; that they were marching;
that he had men of his own among them,
and was perfectly informed of their movements.
That he knew individual American citizens who were
engaged in the plot, but could not make known who
they were; and that after the verification of the writing by
the comparison of hands, the existence of the conspiracy
and of its real motives could be no subject of question.
He also much insisted upon the opinion that this
was a subject much more interesting to the
government of the United States than to that of France.
I observed that the fact of the levy of men and
of its motives had been mentioned as his allegation
and not as a positive fact, because this government
could not hold itself pledged to the reality of the facts,
or to the authenticity of the papers.
That even admitting the papers to contain, if authentic,
evidence of criminal actions, this government had
no evidence of their authenticity, but comparison
of handwriting, which in the judicial tribunals
upon criminal prosecution would not be admissible.
That the individual whose signature appeared to the
papers might in the event of their publication deny
publicly that he had written them, and perhaps even
prosecute the printer of them for a libel; in which case
the government could not escape the censure of having
assumed and published as authentic, papers deeply
affecting the character of an individual, without possessing
evidence which could legally establish their authenticity.
He then said that if this was a consideration of weight
to this government, it ought to be still more so to him.
That of his own authority he could not publish
these papers consistently with the respect
due from him to the government.
That he had no other evidence to prove the
writing of the individual than the comparison
of hands, and that he could not compromit the
dignity of his own government by entering into a
controversy with that individual in the public prints.
He asked me how this government would under these
circumstances make the publication of the papers.
I told him that my opinion was that they might be
published with an introductory notice as papers, copies
of which had been transmitted to the government by him.
That although by the comparison of the handwriting they
had every appearance of authenticity, the projects which
they disclosed were at once so wicked and so ridiculous that
the hope might yet be entertained that they were spurious.
He said he should be satisfied with this; but with the
further caution and notice that the original papers,
together with other indisputable writings by the
same person, should be deposited in the hands
of some public officer, open to the inspection of anyone
disposed to contest or to verify their authenticity.
It was therefore agreed between us that the
publication should be suspended until I can
receive your further directions concerning it.
This delay was proposed and even urged by him;
for upon my observing that I foresaw no inconvenience in it,
except that his letters appeared to apprehend the
explosion to be so near at hand that, unless the
publication should be immediate, it might come too late
to answer its purpose of breaking up the whole conspiracy,
he replied, that there was yet time; that he had,
by his frigates and by other measures that he had taken,
given them the alarm and put a check upon their progress.
In the meantime, I think it necessary to suggest
to you that indications are coming in from various
quarters that projects are in agitation among some
emigrants from Europe to which it will be necessary
for the government to put a stop as soon as possible.
I also had an interview yesterday
with Mr. Bagot at his request.
He referred to several communications from him to the
department to which he was expecting definite answers.
One of them related to a question upon the construction
to be given to the term country, in the first section of
the navigation act passed at the last session of Congress
and to go into operation the first of next month.
Mr. Crawford had already mentioned the question
to me and asked my opinion of it, which coincided
with his own, that the expression included the colonies.
Mr. Bagot was anxious to receive the answer on this point
in time for making up his dispatches to go by the packet.
He spoke also of the proposal to be made respecting
the fisheries, which I assured him should be communicated
to him as soon as possible after your return.
He likewise alluded to the project of four additional
articles for the commercial convention;
upon which I told him my apprehension was that
they could not be matured into anything that would
meet the concurrence of the two governments.
There were some other objects of minor importance
upon which he touched, but with which it is
not necessary to trouble you at present.
The commission of governor of the Alabama territory
has been made out and forwarded to Mr. Bibb;
and the instructions for Mr. Prevost have been
prepared from minutes drawn up by Mr. Rush.16
On 11 October 1817 Secretary of State Adams wrote in a letter to Thomas Jefferson:
The Senate of the United States have thought proper
to assign to the Secretary of State the same task
which the House of Representatives in the year 1790
required of you, and which was then so faithfully and
ably performed—a report upon weights and measures.
The resolution of the Senate is indeed more extensive
than that upon which your report was formed, as it
requires an account of what has been done by
foreign nations for establishing uniformity in
weights and measures; and a statement of the
regulations and standards as established in the several
states of this union, together with such propositions
as may be proper to be adopted in the United States.17
On October 24 Secretary of State Adams urged President Monroe to
acknowledge the government of Buenos Aires, and Adams in his Memoirs
described the Cabinet meetings on October 25, 28, 29 and 30.
25th. At eleven o’clock I went to the office and
immediately afterwards to the President’s,
where there was a Cabinet meeting.
Mr. Crawford, Mr. Rush, and the acting
Secretary at War, G. Graham, were there.
The President proposed a series of questions,
relating chiefly to Spain and the South American insurgents.
They were discussing until half-past three o’clock.
No decision was taken upon any of the questions,
but the President adjourned the meeting to next Tuesday.
28th. At twelve o’clock I attended the
Cabinet meeting at the President’s.
It continued till near four, and a further meeting
was fixed for the day after tomorrow at eleven.
In the meantime I am to see the agent from the
Buenos Aires Government tomorrow morning, and
to hear and report at the next meeting what he has to say.
29th. At twelve o’clock General Mason came with
Don Manuel Hemenegildo Aguirre, the person sent
as an agent from the Government of Buenos Aires.
He gave me a letter to the President, containing
the declaration of independence of Buenos Aires
with an exposition of the motives of that act,
written by himself and two commissions to himself,
enclosed in a sealed packet addressed to me.
One commission was from the United Provinces
of South America (Buenos Aires), signed by the
Supreme Director Puyerredon, styling Aguirre
Commissary-General of the war, and constituting him
agent of the Government near that of the United States.
The other was from the Government of Chile,
signed by the Supreme Director O’Higgins, and
was merely an authority for purchasing warlike stores.
I had a conversation with him of more than an hour
and after he left me, took to the President
the letter for him together with many other papers.
The President had sent me this morning the
draft of instructions for Mr. Rush with a
memorandum for alterations on three points.
On conversing with him and recurring to the Commercial
Convention of 3rd July, 1815, he directed me to leave
the draft on that point as it stands without alteration.
On the second, the allowance of necessary
expense for office rent, he reserved the decision
but inclined to leave it as it stands.
The other alteration that he desired was inconsiderable.
I proposed to him to add a standing instruction
against accepting the bauble presents that the
European sovereigns offer to Ministers accredited
to them when they take leave or upon the
conclusion of treaties; to which he readily assented.
30th. The Cabinet meeting at the President’s
was fixed for twelve o’clock, but it was half-past twelve
before I got to the office, and the President
sent a message to say he was waiting for me.
I attended immediately, and the meeting sat till near four.
The President had presented several written questions
for consideration, relating to South American affairs,
to our relations with Spain, and to a piratical
assemblage at Amelia Island and at Galveston.
This day Mr. Graham, who is Chief Clerk in the
War Department and acting Secretary, observed
that the six months allowed by law for substitutes
to act instead of heads of Departments had
expired in his case, and he had scruples as
to his right of assisting any longer at the meetings.
Mr. Rush observed that he was under a similar
embarrassment, considering his office of
Attorney-General as vacated by his new
appointment of Minister to Great Britain.
The President said he had offered the office of
Secretary of War to Mr. Calhoun of South Carolina
and was daily expecting his answer.
Mr. Crowninshield, the Secretary of the Navy,
was on his way to the city and expected here
in a few days, and he (the President) had written
this morning to Mr. Wirt of Richmond, Virginia
offering him the office of Attorney-General;
but was very doubtful whether he would accept it.
The President said that he should have been
very desirous of having a Western gentleman
in the Cabinet, but he could not see his way clear.
He had taken great pains to inform himself,
but he could not learn that there was any one lawyer
in the Western country suitably qualified for the office.
He had particularly enquired of Judge Todd, who had
assured him there was no such suitably-qualified person.
This, he said, was perfectly confidential.
Graham said that he had enquired this morning of Mr. Clay,
who had told him, also confidentially, the same thing—
that there was no lawyer in that country
fit for the office of Attorney-General.
The questions were again discussed, and as it appeared
to me that all the gentlemen were backward in giving
their opinions upon almost every one of them, I finally gave
mine explicitly—that the marauding parties at Amelia Island
and Galveston ought to be broken up immediately.
This was determined upon, and it was considered
as a decisive reason for dispatching the Commissioners
and the frigate Congress to Buenos Aires.
I also suggested the expediency of waiting for the next
dispatch from Mr. Erving before assuming any new attitude
with Spain, which was agreed to; and I also explicitly
avowed my opinion that it is not now expedient for the
President to acknowledge the Government of Buenos Aires.
But the President postponed his determination upon this.
The meeting broke up at four.18
On 6 November 1817 Secretary of State Adams sent
a 17-page letter of instructions to Richard Rush in England.
Here are the first two paragraphs and the concluding paragraph:
The relation in which you have for several years
stood to the executive government of the United States,
and particularly the superintendence which you have
some time exercised over this Department, have made
you extensively and familiarly acquainted, as well
with the general external concerns of the Union,
as with the present state of our
political intercourse with Great Britain.
In committing to your charge the office of Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to that Court,
the following objects are those which
the President thinks proper to recommend
in a particular manner to your attention.
The treaties unquestionably subsisting at present
between the United States and Great Britain, are two:
the treaty of peace concluded at Ghent, and the commercial
convention signed at London the 3rd of July 1815, the
duration of which is limited to four years from that time.
Both these compacts have given rise to several questions
yet in discussion between the two Governments,
some if not all of which will call for your assiduity
and active exertions to bring them to a satisfactory result….
The expenditures for the relief of destitute American seamen,
are made by the consuls of the United States
under the direction and superintendence of the minister.
They are of so serious amount that some such control
upon the discretion of the consuls is indispensable.
The accounts of the consuls at London and Liverpool
for this object will be regularly transmitted to you with
their vouchers from quarter to quarter, and their payment
will be made by your orders upon the Brothers Baring
and Co., the bankers of the United States in London.
These accounts have been hitherto kept with perfect
regularity by Colonel Aspinwall and Mr. Maury,
the consuls at those principal ports, and I am happy to
have this opportunity of recommending both those persons
to your particular kindness, and of assuring you that you
will receive from them every assistance for the discharge
of your duties, for which you may have occasion to call
upon them, and which it may be in their power to bestow.
The expenditures of the other consuls upon the same
object are of comparatively trifling amount;
but you may find it necessary to repress,
at least by declining the allowance of unusual charges,
a perpetual tendency to universal expense, which
you will soon discover in most of the consular accounts.
You will be careful to transmit at the end of every quarter
together with your own accounts, a statement of all the
drafts you have made upon the bankers of the United States
during the quarter, specifying the amount of each draft,
the person in whose favor it is drawn, and the fund
from which you will have directed it to be paid.19
How Quincy Adams worked with President Monroe
can be seen in his Memoirs as he wrote on November 7:
7th. At the President’s I found Mr. Crawford,
who had business with him, and having mentioned
that I had received the budget from Erving,
by the President’s direction, I read all the
dispatches relating to the negotiation.
Mr. Crawford then went away, and I spoke to the
President of the approaching arrival of Mr. Greuhm,
the new Prussian Minister Resident and Consul-General,
and asked him if he would now fix a time
for receiving him, or wait until after his arrival.
The President preferred waiting till after his arrival,
and said it was his desire to place the foreign Ministers
here much upon the same footing as the American
Ministers were placed at the European Courts,
upon a footing of form and ceremony.
They had heretofore visited the Presidents familiarly,
and called to take tea at their houses, as among individuals.
He thought that improper.
The intercourse between the Chief Magistrate
and foreign Ministers should be reserved and formal.
He had given them notice of this intention
soon after he entered upon his office.
If they wished to ask for personal audiences,
he would always grant them and receive them in form.
It was under consideration whether he should
have weekly evening parties, as had been customary
with the former Presidents who had ladies.
If he did, the foreign Ministers, as well as others, might
attend them, but otherwise he did not expect a foreign
Minister would come to his house without invitation.
As soon as he should have a Secretary, he would also
fix regular times for receiving visitors, for now he had
not a moment of the day or the night free from them.
Even his dinner-hours were molested.
He had it also in contemplation that there
should be a uniform dress adopted for the
heads of Department and officers of Government
but that must be an affair of consultation.20
Monroe also told Adams that those with diplomatic business should first meet
with Secretary of State Adams, and that he was to inform foreign diplomats
that he would grant audiences, but he would not tolerate back channels.
Adams made it clear that he was there to advise and not to make decisions.
If he disagreed with the President, he might urge an alternate course.
On 24 November 1817 John Quincy Adams wrote in his Memoirs
about this conversation with the British Minister Bagot
about settlements in the northwest on the Pacific coast:
24th. Mr. Bagot sent a note to ask an interview.
I appointed two o’clock this day, and he came.
He spoke of a note that he had presented a year ago,
about the duties on English rolled iron, and concerning
which nothing was done at the last session of Congress.
Then of his note about the mutineers of the British
merchant ship Sir Joseph Banks,
brought to Boston in the Galen.
Then of his note concerning the British officers
confined at Philadelphia.
I told him that I should shortly send him an answer
upon this last case, with copy of the report from the
District Attorney, to whom the memorial of the offices
had been referred; that the papers concerning the
men brought to Boston from the ship Sir Joseph Banks
had been referred to the Attorney-General, whose
report I expected would soon be made, and I should
then immediately answer the note; but I thought
we could not deliver up the men, and that our law would
in this case be precisely the same as the English law.
I added that if the British Consul in this country would
attend a little to the laws of their own, they would
forbear many of their complaints, as in this case
it would have been necessary to recur only
to Magna Carta and to the Habeas Corpus Act.
Mr. Bagot did not reply much to all this.
He had in truth asked to see me for quite a different affair.
Assuming suddenly a very grave air and tone,
he said that the Northwest Company had been formed,
and he had been informed, that the corvette Ontario
had been dispatched from New York on a voyage
round Cape Horn, for the purpose of disturbing the
British settlement at the northwest coast of America,
and he therefore came to me to enquire if it was so.
I told him I could answer him immediately, that neither
the Ontario, nor any other vessel of the United States,
had any orders to disturb any British settlement whatever.
But he knew we had, before the war, a settlement
at the mouth of Columbia River, which might be renewed,
and that we had discovered the river.
Our settlement, he knew, had been broken up by force
during the war; after the peace the restoration of it
had been demanded by a note from the Secretary
of State to Mr. Baker, which he had answered by
stating that no possession of the place had been taken
by the British, but that they had immediately
withdrawn after destroying the American settlement.
Bagot said Captain Cook had discovered the river,
and that in 1787 Great Britain had spent upwards
of three millions sterling upon a contest for that territory
with Spain—for then they only had Spain to dispute with
for it—and he thought Great Britain had some claim
to the country from the time of Drake’s voyage.
I told him they had better claim from
Sebastian Cabot or Sir Walter Raleigh.
He said, No, that question was settled.21
John Quincy Adams in December 1817, in response to criticism by Henry Clay,
published a series of letters in the National Intelligencer using “Phocion” as a pen name.
He compared the American Revolution to the current revolutions in
Central and South America, and he warned that Great Britain was too imperialistic.
On 30 December 1817 Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
30th. I rode to the President’s, where
I found Mr. Crawford and Mr. Calhoun.
They had agreed, and the President determined, to receive
the foreign Ministers at half-past eleven on New Year’s day,
half an hour before the general company, and
I sent notifications to the foreign Ministers to that effect.
Mr. Middleton, Chairman of the Amelia Island Committee,
was also with me, and I gave him all the additional
information that I possessed concerning it.
I showed him the secret laws, those singular anomalies
of our system which have grown out of that error
in our Constitution which confers upon the legislative
assemblies the power of declaring war, which,
in the theory of government, according to
Montesquieu and Rousseau, is strictly an Executive act.
But as we have made it legislative, whenever
secrecy is necessary for an operation of the Executive,
involving the question of peace and war, Congress
must pass a secret law to give the President the power.
Now, secrecy is contrary to one of the first principles
of legislation, but this absurdity flows unavoidably
from that of having given to Congress,
instead of the Executive, the power of declaring war.
Of these secret laws there are four, and one resolution;
and one of the laws, that of the 25th June, 1812,
is so secret, that this day it could not be found
among the rolls at the Department.
Another consequence has also followed
from this clumsy political machinery.
The injunction of secrecy was removed on the
6th of July 1812 from the laws previously passed
by a vote of the House of Representatives,
and yet the laws have never been published.
Mr. Middleton said he would see me again
before he should make his report to the House.22
Notes
1. Writings of John Quincy Adams, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford,
Volume VI 1814-1816, p. 131-137.
2. Ibid., p. 137-139.
3. Ibid., p. 139-144.
4. Ibid., p. 144-150.
5. Ibid., p. 150-151.
6. Ibid., p. 165-166.
7. Ibid., p. 167-168.
8. Ibid., p. 177.
9. Memoirs of Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848
by John Quincy Adams ed. Charles Francis Adams, Volume III, p. 504.
10. Ibid., p. 516.
11. Ibid., p. 527-528.
12. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume IV, p. 7-8.
13. Ibid., p. 8-9.
14. Writings of John Quincy Adams, Volume VI, p. 190-191.
15. Ibid., p. 191-192.
16. Ibid., p. 195-199.
17. Ibid., p. 219.
18. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume IV, p. 13-16.
19. Writings of John Quincy Adams, Volume VI, p. 233-234, 249-250.
20. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume IV, p. 16-17.
21. Ibid., p. 24-25.
22. Ibid., p. 32.
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