The City Gazette for some time past has alternated in its treatment of me with its praise and abuse, a kiss today and a fillip tomorrow. Would you know the object of this? It is to show me what it can do. I was told a day or two after its defence of my summer costume, that Jonathan Elliot asked an acquaintance of mine whether I was his friend, observed in substance that he could not afford to be a friend for nothing, intimated that I had not lately given him any jobs in his way, and boasted of the power of his press to affect the prospects of Presidential candidates, adding that he had been serving me by putting down Mr. Calhoun, as he had effectually done. I told my informant that Elliot had not put down Mr. Calhoun, and if he had, neither did it nor intended to do it to serve me. That in the way of his business I had heretofore served him as well as I could. I had given him jobs for which his charges had been so excessive that I had told him I should not employ him on public account again. That I purchased no editor or writers for newspapers with public money, nor with my own. Whether this was reported back to Elliot or not I cannot tell; but it is from about that time that the Treasury scribes appear to have had his paper to themselves.

TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS

WASHINGTON, 6th September, 1822.

MY DEAREST FRIEND:

I have observed your advice to take no notice of the newspaper attack of Mr. Floyd upon me; but before I received your letter I had, as you will have seen, very briefly answered him,1 and have no doubt he will reply. I shall notice him further in my book. He is not mad. In the Cabal against me Floyd has been a very active personage. He called for the Ghent papers under the mask of his bill for the occupation of Columbia River, with the hope and expectation that they would enable him to demolish me. When he found that his blunderbuss had flashed in the pan, that his aim had been discovered and commented upon, not to his advantage, and that his accomplice Russell was in the mire, he came out upon me on a new tack, pretending that I had wronged him, by stating that his call for Russell's letter had been suggested to him by Russell himself. His main objects. now are to continue his assault upon me and to come in aid of Russell. And he was instigated to this publication by the Richmond Enquirer, a paper by and through which a gang of intriguers there govern the state of Virginia, and give the tone to her influence throughout the Union. There was a paragraph in that paper some weeks since when they saw Russell was going down, spurring Floyd to come out, and in publishing my answer to him, they have added an insidious remark to give him his cue for a reply. The Richmond Enquirer and its inspirers, Floyd and Russell, are in

1 Printed in the National Intelligencer, August 31. Floyd's letter and Adams' reply are in Duplicate Letters, 243, 248.

this affair all subservient to others yet behind the curtain. Floyd now wishes to be understood as disavowing any intention of attacking me by his call for the Ghent papers, that he may have the advantage of fighting under neutral colors. This I shall not allow. I well know with what disadvantage I am contending alone, against a pack, and with the mind of half the nation prepossessed against me before the explosion by seven years of undermining. How I shall come out of it, God only knows, and on him alone I rely. At every step I take I want a friendly adviser, and have had none but you. The book will form a critical point in the controversy and most probably will bring out new combatants. Hitherto the public had seen in this affair only Russell and me. I have plucked the mask from him. Mr. Floyd has now made himself a party to the strife, and I will pluck the mask from him. Perhaps I may show glimpses of yet another face, and how that will be taken is yet to be seen. The first mover of the whole machine has not yet been disclosed to the public eye. I shall dare him out in the book, and if he comes, you have seen only the first act of the mellow-drame. Now do not dissuade or discourage me, nor be discouraged for me yourself. The imposthume must be probed to the bottom, whatever may be its discharge. Be assured I have had from the first production of Russell's letter besides this, no other alternative than that of sinking a passive victim to as base an intrigue as ever was plotted against a public man.

Adieu. Take special care not to mislay this letter. Burn it, or keep it so that it may not fall into the hands of the Philistines, or reach any of those FRIENDS of mine whom you liken to the autumnal evenings of this climate.

Ever affectionately yours.

DEAR SIR:

TO ALBERT GALLATIN

WASHINGTON, 7 September, 1822.

In your dispatch No. 221 of 10 July you mention the receipt of Mr. Russell's letter of 11 February, 1815, and its duplicate, with my remarks upon both, and you observe it would be with great reluctance that you would find yourself obliged to write anything on the subject. I do not imagine it will be necessary. The public sentiment is rendering full justice to Mr. Russell and there is no probability that the transactions to which his letter refers will ever be made a political engine to dishonor you.1

It was with the utmost reluctance that I found myself compelled to notice it but as he deliberately made the Department of State the vehicle for bringing it before the House of Representatives I felt that I had no alternative but to comment upon it. The communication to the House has been followed by publications in the newspapers and I am now preparing a collection of all the documents relating to the controversy which will form a volume of near 300 pages and of which I will send you a copy when printed. The primary object of the whole affair was to raise a clamor in the western country against me. But it has been so indifferently managed that even that purpose has in a great measure failed. It had been represented that I was the

1

"The controversy which is going on between Mr. A [dams] and Mr. R [ussell] and in which you are made a party, has attracted considerable notice, and will probably continue to command attention. You will readily perceive that the object of the party was less to injure Mr. A. than to benefit another, by placing him in a conspicuous point of view, and especially by showing that Western interests could not be safely trusted to persons residing in the Atlantic States." Crawford to Gallatin, June 26, 1822. Adams, Writings of Gallatin, II. 249.

author of the obnoxious proposal and the intention was to fix it exclusively upon me. Since the facts as they were have been disclosed even this purpose is in a great measure abandoned. There has been so far as I have heard not a word lisped against you for your share in the offence nor do I believe there ever will be.1

I am, etc.

TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS

WASHINGTON, 12th September, 1822.

MY DEAREST FRIEND:

There is a newspaper just opened here called the Washington Republican, published Wednesdays and Saturdays, said to be under the auspices of Mr. Calhoun - certainly not under those of Mr. Crawford.2 It is already at war with the Intelligencer and City Gazette, the Richmond Enquirer,3 New York Advocate and Boston Statesman, all of which have manifested much discomposure at its appearance and All have attempted to run him down at the start: Gale and Seaton by coaxing, Noah by quizzing, Col. Orne by skulking, Ritchie by hinting, and the City Gazette by downright base scurrility and flinging dirt, hot from the Treasury, not only at Mr. Calhoun but at his mother. will not do. He will give them all thread to unravel.

contents.

1 Adams, Memoirs, September 7, 1822.

All

6

2 Thomas Lorraine McKenney (1785-1859), of Maryland, superintendent of the United States trade with the Indians, was responsible for this journal. Ford, Thomas Jefferson Correspondence (Bisby Collection), 274.

Thomas Ritchie.

'Mordecai M. Noah.

'Henry Orne was the editor.

6 Jonathan Elliot.