lication of their own, to set this important intelligence in a clear light before them, and fix in their minds the first impression in favour of truth? for I do assure you, it begins to be whispered by the tories, and as soon as they dare to do it they will speak aloud, that this is but a French finesse and that Britain is the only real friend of America. *** The British court have nothing in view, but to divide by means of their commissioners: of this they entertain sanguine expectations; for I am well assured, that they say they have certain advice, that they have a large party in the congress, almost a majority, who are for returning to their dependency! This cannot be true. Doctor Franklin, in a letter of the second of March, informs me, that America at present stands in the highest light of esteem throughout Europe, and he adds, a return to dependence on England, would sink her into eternal contempt.

In a letter written not long before he left congress, to the same gentleman, we find the following excellent remarks, on the necessity of preserving unimpaired the dignity of that illustrious body, and filling it with those only whose principles were known and unsullied. "My friend," he says, "we must not suf fer any thing to discourage us in this great conflict: let us recur to first principles without delay. It is our duty to make every proper exertion in our respective states, to revive the old patriotic feelings among the people at large, and to get the public departments, especially the most important of them, filled with men

of understanding and inflexible virtue. It would be indeed alarming, if the United States should entrust the ship in which our all is at stake, with unexperienced or unprincipled pilots. Our cause is surely too interesting to mankind, to be put under the direction of men, vain, avaricious, or concealed under the hypocritical guise of patriotism, without a spark of public or private virtue."

In the year 1781, with the prospects of peace, Mr. Adams began to turn his attention to the objects which ought to be secured by the United States, on an event to attain which she had suffered so much and so long; and with all the peculiar tenaciousness of his character, he determined that those privileges and rights should be explicitly secured, on which the respective interests of various.portions of the country depended. He saw clearly, too, the necessity of entering upon the world with those broad views of policy which would enable us to maintain our rights. "Are we soon to have peace?" he writes, in the summer of 1781, to Mr. M'Kean, at that time president of congress; "However desirable this may be, we must not wish for it on any terms but such as shall be honourable and safe to our country. Let us not disgrace ourselves by giving. just occasion for it to be said hereafter; that we finished this great contest with an inglorious accommodation. Things are whispered here, which, if true, will cause much discontent. The citizens of this part of America will say, and judge, my dear sir, whether it would not be

VOL. IX.-S S

just, that the fishing banks are at least as important as tobacco yards, or rice swamps, or the flourishing wheat fields of Pennsylvania. The name only of independence is not worth the blood of a single citizen. We have not been so long contending for trifles. A navy must support our independence; and Britain will tell you that the fishery is a grand nursery of

And in a letter to the same gentleman, written in the following month, he says, "I take it for granted that a very great majority of the people in each of the United States, are determined to support this righteous and necessary war, till they shall obtain their grand object, an undisputed sovereignty. This must hereafter be maintained, under God, by the wisdom and vigour of their own councils, and their own strength. Their policy will lead them, if they mean to form any connexion with Europe, to make themselves respectable in the eyes of the nations, by holding up to them the benefits of their trade. Trade must be so free to all, as to make it the interest of each to protect it, till they are able to protect it themselves. This, the United States must do by a navy. Till they shall have erected a powerful navy, they will be liable to insults which may injure and depreciate their character, as a sovereign and independent state; and while they may be incapable of resisting it themselves, no friendly power may venture to, or can, resent it on their behalf. The United States must, then, build a navy. They have, or may have,

all the materials in plenty. But what will ships of war avail them without seamen? and where will they find a nursery for seamen but in the fishery ?"

After Mr. Adams retired from congress, he continued to receive from his native state, new proofs of her sense of his services, in his appointment to offices of the highest trust. He had already been a member of the convention which formed her constitution, being on the committee which draughted it, and that which framed the address with which it was presented to the people. He afterwards became, successively, a member of the senate, president of that body, and a member of the convention assembled for the ratification of the federal constitution. To this instrument, in its reported form, he had some objections; the principal of which were to those parts that lessened, as he conceived, injudiciously, the powers of the separate states; and he prepared several amendments, which met with the approbation of the convention, and some of which were afterwards incorporated in the constitution itself. His particular speeches have not, unfortunately, been preserved, or we should have had the valuable comment of a strong mind, improved by great experience, on questions deeply interesting to us. His letters, however, occasionally contain remarks, which illustrate his sentiments, and are well worthy the attention of politicians in our own times.

"I hope the federal congress is vested with powers, adequate to all the great purposes of the federal union;

and, if they have such adequate powers, no true and understanding federalists would consent, that they should be trusted with more; for more would discover the folly of the people in their wanton grant of power, because it might, and considering the disposition of the human mind, without doubt, would be wantonly extended to their injury and ruin. The powers vested in government by the people, the only just source of such powers, ought to be critically defined, and well understood; lest, by a misconstruction of ambiguous expressions, and by interested judges too, more power might be assumed by the government, than the people ever intended they should possess. Few men are contented with less power than they have a right to exercise: the ambition of the human heart grasps at more; this is evinced by the experience of all ages."

"I wish to know from you the state of federal affairs as often as your leisure may admit. We organize our state governments, and I heartily wish that their authority and dignity may be preserved within their several jurisdictions, as far as may be consistent with the purposes for which the federal government is designed. They are, in my opinion, petty politicians, who would wish to lessen the due weight of the state governments; for I think the federal must depend upon the influence of these to carry their laws into effect; and while those laws have for their sole object, the promoting the purposes of the federal