 | Letters of Mrs. Adams, |  |
I dare say, before this time you have interpreted the
Northern Storm. If the presages chilled your blood,
how must you be frozen and stiffened at the disgrace
brought upon our arms![1]
unless some warmer passion
seize you, and anger and resentment fire your
breast. How are all our vast magazines of cannon,
powder, arms, clothing, provision, medicine, &c., to
be restored to us? But, what is vastly more, how
shall the disgrace be wiped away? How shall our
to that fortress are very vague and uncertain. Some
write from thence, that there was not force sufficient
to defend it. Others say it might have stood a long
siege. Some there are, who ought to know why and
wherefore we have given away a place of such
importance.
That the inquiry will be made, I make no doubt;
and, if cowardice, guilt, deceit, are found upon any
one, howsoever high or exalted his station, may
shame, reproach, infamy, hatred, and the execrations
of the public, be his portion.
I would not be so narrow-minded, as to suppose,
that there are not many men of all nations, possessed
of honor, virtue, and integrity; yet, it is to be
lamented, that we have not men among ourselves
sufficiently qualified for war, to take upon them the
most important command.
It was customary among the Carthaginians, to
have a military school, in which the flower of their
nobility, and those whose talents and ambition
prompted them to aspire to the first dignities, learned
the art of war. From among these, they selected
all their general officers; for, though they employed
mercenary soldiers, they were too jealous and suspicious
to employ foreign generals. Will a foreigner,
whose interest is not naturally connected with ours
(any otherwise than as the cause of liberty is the
cause of all mankind), will he act with the same
zeal, or expose himself to equal dangers, with the
same resolution, for a republic of which he is not a
country? And can the people repose an equal confidence
in them, even supposing them men of integrity
and abilities, and that they meet with success
equal to their abilities? How much envy and malice
are employed against them! And how galling to
pride, how mortifying to human nature, to see itself
excelled.
| Letters of Mrs. Adams, | |