shocking proofs of what we have hitherto wished to disbelieve.

"It will be recollected, that Mr. JOHN ADAMS (the present President of the United States) was Ambassador at the Court of London from the year 1785 to the year 1788, when, the date of his commission having expired, he returned home to America. While he was in England he had with him, as his Secretary of Legation, his son-in-law, WILLIAM SMITH. Mr. ADAMS left SMITH behind him in London, with the hope of prevailing on General Washington and the Senate, to appoint him Am→ bassador in his stead. No Ambassador was appointed till the year 1792, when, notwithstanding all the efforts of Mr. ADAMS, his son-in-law was rejected, and the place was filled with Mr. THO MAS PINCKNEY, the predecessor of Mr. KING.

"Mr. ADAMS, mortified at the preference of the PINCKNEYS, missed no opportunity of showing his jealousy and hatred of that family. He had, during the years 1791 and 1792, been drawn into an intimacy with one TENCH COXE, who was, at that time, a commissioner of the revenue. CoxE, who does not want for cunning, flattered the old man's prejudices, and, by degrees, became his confidant. Just before Mr. THOMAS PINCKNEY departed for England, CoxE wrote Mr. ADAMS a letter, expressing a wish, that the new Ambassa dor could receive a lesson or two from him previous to his sailing. To this letter Mr. ADAMS gave the following answer:

"Quincey, May 1792.

"DEAR SIR, "The first thing I have to communicate to you must be an explanation of the date of my letter. The legislature of Massachusets last winter, upon a petition of the North Parish, in Braintree, separated it from the rest of the town, erected it into a new one, and gave it the name of Quincy. By this measure you see they have deprived me of my title of "Duke

of

of Braintree," and made it necessary that my friends should write me in future as an inhabitant of Quincy. So much for this brimborion.

Something that interests me much more is your obliging letter of the 12th of this month.

"I should have been happy to have seen Mr. Pinckney, before his departure, but more from individual curiosity, than from any opinion that I could have given him any information of importance to him. If he has the talent of searching hearts, he will not be long at a loss; if he has not, no information of mine can give it him.

"The Duke of Leads once inquired of me, very kindly, after his class-mates at Westminster school, the two Mr. Pinckneys, which induces me to conclude, that our new ambassador has many powerful old friends in England. Whether this is a recommendation of him, for the office or not, I have other reasons to be lieve that bis family have bad their eyes fixed upon the embassy to St. James's for many years, even before I was sent there; and that they contributed to limit the duration of my commission to three years, in order to make way for themselves to succeed me. I wish they may find as much honour and pleasure in it as they expected, and that the public may derive from it dignity and utility. But knowing as I do, the long intrigue, and suspecting as I do, much British influence in the appointment, were I in any executive department, I should take the liberty to keep a vigilant eye upon them.

Accept my thanks for your reflections on the state of the union which I have read with all the pleasure which the intelligence, information, accuracy, and elegance of the remarks on Lord Sheffield inspired.

"There is one secret which you must be careful to keep, manufactures must have good government. They cannot exist where they are without it, much less can they be introduced where they are not. But a great part of the people of America appear to be so determined to have no government at all, that if you let them know the whole truth, you will excite an unmanageable party against manufactures. Manufactures cannot much less thrive, without honour, fidelity, punctuality, public and private faith, a sacred respect to property, and the moral obligations of promises and contracts, virtues and habits which never did, and never will generally prevail in any populous nation, without a decisive, as well as an intelligent and honest government. The science of political economy is but a late study, and is not yet generally understood among us. Though I have read most of the authors of reputation, on the subject, both among the French and the English, I pretend not to have digested any thing relative to it, with the precision of a master. But to me it appears, that the general interest of agriculture in particular, as well as of the nation in general,

will be promoted by a discreet and judicious encouragement of manufactures, and that it is not the land-jobber who can be benefited in the rapid rise of his monopoly, by drawing every labouring hand into the wilderness to fell trees.

"The continual accession of foreigners will endanger and destroy our peace, if we know not how to govern them. They will moreover corrupt our elections, and tear us to pieces. Sufficient to the day, however, is its evil; and in that day and hour it always has been, and I doubt not, always will be given us to provide against its dangers.

"Tench Coxe, Esq."

"Yours, &c.

"JOHN ADAMS."

The reader will readily perceive, that this letter was written in confidence, and that no part of it was ever intended to be shewn to a third person, much less to be published to the world. This consideration, however, had no weight with CoXE, who having, in 1799, been turned out of place, became, of course, a bitter enemy to his former friend and patron. From this moment the treacherous CoxE appears to have been constantly on the watch for an opportunity of gratifying his revenge, which opportunity offered itself in 1799, when ADAMS and PINCKNEY were, for the second time, proposed candidates for the chairs of President and Vice-President.

CoxE did not, at once, publish the letter repecting PINCKNEY; he made the contents of it known to the printer of a Jacobin newspaper, who, thereupon, boldly declared (without giving his authority), that the Federal Government had acted under the influence of British gold. Mr. ADAMS, not dreaming that this assertion was made upon the strength of a statement of his own, ordered the printer to be prosecuted. A prosecution was accordingly instituted, and a bill was found against DUANE (the printer), in September 1799; but, to the astonishment of every one, the trial was, all at once, postponed to another term.

The

The cause of this postponement DUANE has since explained. He says, in his paper of the 3d Oct. 1800,

હૈદ

That, "Upon an offer of the Editor, by his counsel, to produce that letter in Court, some confusion was manifested, "and some legal pantomime was played off, the trial was post"poned. But the indictment was withdrawn by order of the "President, and that part taken from the indictment." further says, that the Court, "contrary to right and to law, "enjoined the Editor not to publish a word about its proceedings.” however,

Notwithstanding this injunction,

He

DUANE, who knew the value of Mr. ADAMS'S letter, was resolved that it should not be thus strangled in its birth. He first attempted to make use of it as an instrument for creating a quarrel between ADAMS and the PINCKNEYS, which, he was in hopes, would lead to a division of the federal party. With this object in view, he, last winter, made three copies of the letter, two of which were handed to the PINCKNEYS, and the third to a member of the Senate. The PINCKNEYS flew to ADAMS, shewed him the letter, and asked him if it was authentic. ADAMS was frightened; he acknowledged the authenticity of the letter, but endeavoured to give it an explanation different from its apparent tenor. The PINCKNEYS, who are penetrating and high-spirited fellows, were not at all satisfied with this apology, which Mr. RoUTLEDGE, who was present, declared to be the most rascally shuffle he bad ever "heard." Party considerations, however, stifled the resentment of the PINCKNEYS, who are said to have consented, that the injury should be buried in oblivion, provided that the New England friends of Mr. ADAMS would promise to support Mr. CHARLES COTES with PINCKNEY, jointly with Mr. ADAMS, at the ensuing election!

But the parties reckoned without their host. They appear to have forgotten, that it was not in

their

their power to bury the disgraceful fact in oblivion; and what is still more inexcusable in such able politicians, they neglected to purchase the silence of DUANE. This artful fellow, who was in the pay of the French, and of course entirely devoted to the cause of JEFFERSON, Suffered the matter to sleep till about four months previous to the day of election for President: this was the favourable time for him to employ the fatal letter with effect; and, accordingly, he published it in all manner of forms, and circulated it through every possible channel.

The PINCKNEYS, not foreseeing this blow, were at a loss how to resist it. They suffered the letter to circulate for some time, without condescending to contradict it, thinking that, like a mad dog, it would soon exhaust itself. But the clamour against them grew so loud and so general, that, towards the middle of September, THOMAS PINCKNEY published the following letter, addressed to the printers of a newspaper at Charleston, SouthCarolina.

"Moultrieville, 15th Sept. 1800.

"Messrs. FRENEAU and PAINE,

"A letter copied from a newspaper of Baltimore, having been inserted in your Gazette of Saturday last, signed JoHN ADAMS, and purporting, from its contents, to have been written to Mr. TENCH COXE, of Philadelphia, in the year 1792, wherein are contained some comments on my appointment as minister plenipotentiary to the Court of Great Britain-I think it right at present only to state, that this letter either is a forgery calculated for electioneering purposes, or if genuine, must have been founded on a misapprehension of persons. This last suggestion I infer from facts, alluded to in the letter, and from the subsequent nomination of my brother, General Pinckney, to two highly confidential offices by its supposed writer.

"To my fellow-citizens of South-Carolina, who have so often honoured me, by testimonies of their confidence, I should deem it unnecessary to urge a syllable of justification from such charges as are implicated in this production, however authenticated; but as it appears, from the time of its publication, to

be