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The Founding Era Collection > Founders Early Access > Adams Papers: Early Access > Documents 1785–1798 and 1813 [1654 documents] > Documents > John Adams to Abigail Adams, 8 Dec. 1796
| My Dearest Friend | Philadelphia Decr8 1796 |
Inclosed are some Signal Accomplishments of Prophecies.
Be cool and discreet in your Communications of them.
No such Person as Jasper Dwight is known to either of the Senators of Vermont. The Signature is thought to be fictitious.
I have no Letter from you later than the Sunday after my Departure.
Major Butler has indeed resign’d.
They kept back Paines Letter Several Weeks, presuming no doubt that it would not promote their Election. It appeared for the first, this morning.
I think, of all Paines Productions it is the weakest and at the Same time the most malicious.—The Man appears to me to be mad—not drunk— He has the Vanity of the Lunatick who believed himself to be Jupiter the Father of Gods & Men.
There is a Dr Edwards here—a Relation of Mr Burr & Pierpoint Edwards who has lately return’d from Paris.—Perhaps he may be the Pensilvanian of whom you read.
I can Say nothing of Election. I have recd to Day the Votes of New Jersey but know not for whom they are, as they are under Seal.
I am
J. A.
The Feelings of Friendship excite a Curiosity to know how Mc Kean will vote. By that I shall guess how Gov. Adams would have voted.
But I have Seen Friendships of S. Quincy Jona Sewall, Daniel Leonard—Gen. Brattle—Treasurer Grey and
fifty others go away like a vapour before political Winds—and a constant Succession of
Others go the same Way from that time to this, that I cannot depend upon any
Feelings of my ownJudgment I can form from any Feelings of my own. No
private Friendship would induce me to Spare a wrong Political Character. But Mc Kean & Adams can never believe the Lies that are
told. If they could vote against me it must be because they think I should not be
Supple enough to the French.—I have known the Time when both of them would have been
as Stiff as myself.
I feel myself in a very happy temper of Mind—Perfectly willing to
be released from the Port of Danger but determined if call’d to it, to brave it, if
its horrors were ten times thicker than they are. I have but few Years of Life left
and they cannot be better bestowed, than upon that Independence of my Country in
Defence of which it\that Life/ has ever been in Jeopardy.
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