[To Dr. Benjamin Rush.]
I receive with sensibility your observations on the discontinuance of friendly correspondence
between Mr. Adams and myself, and the concern you take in its restoration. This discontinuance
has not proceeded from me, nor from the want of sincere desire and of effort on my
part, to renew our intercourse. You know the perfect coincidence of principle and of action,
in the early part of the Revolution, which produced a high degree of mutual respect and
esteem between Mr. Adams and myself. Certainly no man was ever truer than he was, in
that day, to those principles of rational republicanism which, after the necessity of throwing
off our monarchy, dictated all our efforts in the establishment of a new government. And
although he swerved, afterwards, towards the principles of the English constitution, our
friendship did not abate on that account [532]
. * * *
You remember the machinery which the federalists played off, about that time, to beat
down the friends to the real principles of our Constitution, to silence by terror every expression
in their favor, to bring us into war with France and alliance with England, and
finally to homologize our Constitution with that of England. Mr. Adams, you know, was
overwhelmed with feverish addresses, dictated by the fear, and often by the pen, of the
bloody buoy, and was seduced by them into some open indications of his new principles of
government, and in fact, was so elated as to mix with his kindness a little superciliousness
towards me. Even Mrs. Adams, with all her good sense and prudence, was sensibly flushed.
And you recollect the short suspension of our intercourse, and the circumstance which gave
rise to it which you were so good as to bring to an early explanation, and have set to rights,
to the cordial satisfaction of us all
[533]
. * * *
Two or three years after, having had the misfortune to lose a daughter, between whom
and Mrs. Adams there had been a considerable attachment, she made it the occasion of writing
me a letter, in which, with the tenderest expression of concern at this event, she carefully
avoided a single one of friendship towards myself, and even concluded it with the wishes “of
her who once took pleasure in subscribing herself your friend, Abigail Adams”. Unpromising
as was the complexion of this letter, I determined to make an effort towards removing the
cloud from between us. This brought on a correspondence which I now enclose for your
perusal, after which be so good as to return it to me, as I have never communicated it to
any mortal breathing, before. I send it to you, to convince you I have not been wanting
either in the desire, or the endeavor to remove this misunderstanding. Indeed, I thought
it highly disgraceful to us both, as indicating minds not sufficiently elevated to prevent a
public competition from affecting our personal friendship. I soon found from the correspondence
that conciliation was desperate, and yielding to an intimation in her last letter, I ceased
from further explanation [534]
. * * *
I have gone into these details, that you might know everything which had passed between
us, might be fully possessed of the state of facts and dispositions, and judge for yourself whether
they admit a revival of that friendly intercourse for which you are so kindly solicitous. I
shall certainly not be wanting in anything on my part which may second your efforts, which
will be the easier with me, inasmuch as I do not entertain a sentiment of Mr. Adams, the expression
of which could give him reasonable offence.—To Dr. Benjamin Rush. v, 558. Ford
ed., ix, 299. (M., Jan. 1811.)
