shrink. I regret exceedingly the predicament in which he has placed himself and the necessity which he imposed upon me of unveiling his conduct to the public. So far as the controversy has been personal I have wished to withdraw from it at the earliest possible moment; but the doctrines of his letter, plausibly combined and artfully set forth as they were, required a more complete and permanent counteraction than the scattered fragments of a newspaper contest could embrace. I hope that the people of the Union will now look thoroughly into the question as it was really stirred in the American mission at Ghent; that they will see which was really the American side of that question, and which the side of mere sectional, not interest but prejudice. It was in truth a piece of mere chicanery, combining with the enemy to deprive Massachusetts of her fisheries. If the British were to ask by treaty for British subjects a right to travel in the stage on the turnpike road from Boston to Providence, it would be of just as much use to them and just as much injury to us as a treaty right to navigate the Mississippi, and as the laws are they have it equally without treaty. Mr. Russell was one of the last men in the world from whom I could have expected such an attack, nor had I the slightest suspicion of it till he brought his duplicate to the Department of State. After all he performs but a subordinate part in the drama.

TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS

MY DEAREST LOUISA:

WASHINGTON, 23rd August, 1822.

All your journals have been duly received, and I should not have failed writing to you every day but for the occupation which absorbs all my leisure. When I first began the remarks upon Jonathan's duplicate, I told you it was to me an affair of more than life and death, and so it is still. The plot has been seven years hatching, and its whole history has not yet been told.

Your advice to treat all place hunters courteously is excellent, but you know there is a Scylla as well as a Charybdis. One of the first objects of those worthy citizens is to obtain a promise, and many of them are not at all scrupulous in their modes of address to that end. Some ask it with downright importunity, others like elderly maiden ladies construe a civil word and even a smile into a promise, and then if not on the first possible occasion gratified, charge one with giving delusive hopes and expectations. It is the bent of my nature to be rather more willing to be thought harsh than insincere.

I was diverted with the article of intelligence from Philadelphia that I wear neither waistcoat, nor cravat, and sometimes go to church barefooted. Some unknown friend of mine in the City Gazette has gravely undertaken to justify me against this charge, as if it were true. As for the cravat, you know I must plead guilty, and vouch my black riband in mitigation. But for the rest I take some comfort in the thought that even in affairs of the importance attached to dress, my backbiters are obliged to lie to abuse me. The truth, that I am careless of dress, will not serve their turn.

TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS

WASHINGTON, 28th August, 1822.

I had received a letter from Mr. Connell since his arrival, in this country and a promise of a visit which I am expecting from him. Connell told you of all the writers in the Franklin Gazette but one, and that is T. Sergeant,1 our friend's brother. But the principal hand is Dallas,2 a young man who lacks advancement, and is in a fair way to obtain it.

Ask Connell, if you see him again, or any other of your visitors who talks politics, who is the editor of the Columbian Observer, the new paper that is rising to take the place of the setting Aurora - the paper that a fortnight back said I went to church barefoot, and now says that piece of wit was ironical. There is no helping it. The donkey will play the lap dog.

As the weather is subsiding from fever heat I have resumed my cravat; but you know there is always room, summer and winter, for ironical wags to make merry with my dress. May my graver foes never have so good reason for their charges.

My book as you call it will be a pamphlet of about two hundred pages, three-fourths of which will be the papers already published. It is about half printed, but I suppose will be out before the end of the next month. I have done writing for it, but as it has made warm dog-days for me, I shall be glad if it does not prepare for me a warm winter. The printers here publish it at their own expense and I have not stipulated with them for so much as a copy. The public 1 Thomas Sergeant (1782-1860). 2 George Mifflin Dallas.

interest in the whole affair is over, and with the exception of some hints in the introduction, and some remarks upon the editorial article of the Kentucky Argus of 18 July, the rest is dry discussion which few will take the trouble of reading. If anything can be made of it at the next session of Congress by those who got up the plot, they will not fail of using it for their purposes. If not, it will be buried in oblivion.

You ask me why I frequent the theatre. First, because having paid for admission for two persons by my two shares it is the only interest I get for my money, and the tickets cost me nothing. Secondly, because I have all my life had a very extravagant fondness for that species of entertainment, and always indulge myself with it, unless when motives of prudence, or propriety, or pride, or duty of some kind real or imaginary, prescribe to me the self-denial of them. Perhaps this is news to you, after more than twenty-five years of marriage. It is nevertheless true. The stage has been to me a source of much amusement for more than forty years. But I have always enjoyed it with discretion; first, with reference to expense, but secondly and chiefly, with respect to morals. To which end I have made it a rule to make no acquaintance with actresses. The first woman I ever loved was an actress, but I never spoke to her, and I think I never saw her off the stage. She belonged to a company of children who performed at the Bois de Boulogne near Passy, when I lived there with Dr. Franklin and my father. She remains upon my memory as the most lovely and delightful actress that I ever saw; but I have not seen her since I was fourteen. She was then about the same age. Of all the ungratified longings that I ever suffered, that of being acquainted with her, merely to tell her how much I adored her, was the most intense. I was tortured with the desire for nearly two years, but never had the wit to compass it. I used to dream of her

for at least seven years after. But how many times I have since blessed my stars and my stupidity that I never did get the opportunity of making my declaration. I learnt from her that lesson of never forming an acquaintance with an actress to which I have since invariably adhered, and which I would lay as an injunction upon all my sons. But thirdly, my reason for going to the theatre now is that as yet I can do nothing else with the evening. This reason will soon cease. We have had Booth We now have a man by the name of Wilson, and next week we are to have Cooper, all tragedy heroes. But I prefer Jefferson to them all. The broader the farce, the more I enjoy it. But I expect before it is over I shall be abused for it in the newspapers.

174-1

1802-184*

TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS

MY DEAREST FRIEND:

な

WASHINGTON, 2 September, 1822.

I am told that the writer of the paragraphs in the Washington City Gazette against me is a man named Richards,1 from Connecticut. He was in the army during the late war, not much to the advantage of his reputation. He has been two or three years hovering about the Departments here in search of a place, and circulating proposals for setting up a newspaper of his own. His character was for a long time an obstacle to his pretensions, but he has lately been taken into favor at the Treasury Department where he has obtained a place.

1 A clerk in the Treasury Department. George H. Richards was a captain in the artillery corps in the war of 1812, resigning in December, 1815. 1776