Beschreibung:

ADAMS, JOHN, President, Signer (Massachusetts) . Autograph letter signed ("J. Adams") TO BENJAMIN RUSH, Quincy [Mass.], 29 March 1813. 1 full page 4to, one blank corner chipped, lightly yellowed on a 1-in. wide strip along left-hand edge, tiny tears at bottom edge [ with ] Autograph free frank ("J. Adams" and "Free") on integral address leaf addressed by Adams to Rush in Philadelphia, no postmark; the two leaves separated along central fold, lightly yellowed in a 1-in. wide strip along left-hand edge, clean tear to bottom margin. ADAMS TO RUSH, RECALLING 1776: "THE WAR WAS AGAINST THE MINISTRY, AGAINST THE ARMY, AGAINST THE NAVY...BUT NOT AGAINST THE KING, THE NATION, THE PARLIAMENT..." The former President sends Rush newspapers with articles he has marked and copies of two letters: "...from the Vice President [George Clinton] and one from Mr. Austin to him...Considering your engagements it hurts me to trouble you with the reading of these Papers: but you will be so amused with them, that you would have reproached me if I had suppressed them. Many of them fall within Mr. Carey's [the Philadelphia publisher's] Plan, he is welcome to use them: but in all Event I insist in having all these Papers returned to me. Selman shall not be unknown to Posterity. Nor shall it be known, with what metaphysical and mathmatical precision Congress, Massachusetts, and [George] Washington conducted the Quasi War with Great Britain in 1775 & 1776. The War was against the Ministry, against the Army, against the Navy, against their Stores: but not against the King, the Nation, the Parliament, not against British Subjects nor Private Property.... All appeared to me to be Duplicity, Hypocrisy, Childrens Play. But I was a wild enthusiast, the worst of Men, and the most dangerous. So said the Quakers and the Proprietarians of Pensilvania [ sic ] and so thought the Tories in all the States and G. Britain. Poor Selman and Broughton were stripped of their Prey. The Governor, the Judge were released and all the Public and Private Property. Who can blame them for their Chagrin? Or Congress or Washington for disappointing them? But it seems the Public lost two of the best naval Officers by it. Pray return these papers to me, whether Mr. Carey will or will not make any use of any Part of them...." Adams here alludes to a very curious naval incident which took place early in the Revolution, when many in America still hoped a reconciliation with Great Britain to be possible and desirable. Captains Nicholson Broughton and John Selman commanded Continental armed vessels in the hastily assembled force known as "Washington's Fleet," which served the continentals prior to the establishment of a regular navy. Broughton and Selman were dispatched to the St. Lawrence River to intercept British munition ships bound for Quebec; they captured 10 ships, and took as prisoner the Governor of St. Johns. All individuals and property were later released, to the disgust of Adams and other radical members of Congress, on the grounds that the Americans were waging war against the British ministry , not against the King or his authorities. Elbridge Gerry had written to Adams on this same subject not long before the present letter (see Washington, Writings , ed. Fitzpatrick, 4:23n).