believes that the speaker considers himself, as under no obligation to adhere to truth, but according to the particular importance of what he relates.

But beside and above both these reasons, white lies always introduce others of a darker complexion. I have seldom known any one who deserted truth in trifles, that could be trusted in matters of importance. Nice distinctions are out of the question, upon occasions, which, like those of speech, return every hour. The habit, therefore, of lying, when once formed, is easily extended to serve the designs of malice or interest; like all habits, it spreads indeed of itself.

LETTERS FROM HON. JOHN ADAMS AND MRS. ADAMS, TO THOMAS BRAND-HOLLIS, ESQ.

[As I had the honour of being known to Mr. Adams while he was resident in England, I had the less difficulty in applying to him by letter for his permission to make use, in the present volume, of his correspondence with Mr. Brand-Hollis. In his answer, dated Quincy near Boston, November 9, 1807, he has very obligingly left the publication of his letters to be regulated by my discretion; and, I trust, he will not have any occasion hereafter to think his confidence in any respect misplaced. Mr. Adams's language is appropriate to my friend, and consistent with every profession of friendship he made while Mr. Brand-Hollis was living. At the same time he expresses himself so friendly towards myself, that I am induced to register my authority for making this communication to the public, by giving a short extract from his letter, which was on other accounts very interesting.

"I was," says he, "agreeably surprised, the last week, on receiving a very kind and obliging letter from you, dated the Hyde, near Ingatestone, the 24th of August. A seat where I had formerly passed many agreeable hours with a gentleman, whom I esteemed as a man of sense and letters, and a friend of liberty and humanity.

It is true that several letters have passed between me and Mr. BrandHollis but I have only a confused recollection of their contents. I have no hesitation, however, to confide to your discretion to make any use of them you may think proper. Mrs. Adams desires me to say to you, that she has so much respect for your judgment, that she is willing you should also make what use you please of hers."]

I.

MEM. OF T. B. HOLLIS.

TO THOMAS BRAND-HOLLIS, ESQ. THE HYDE, NEAR INGATESTONE,

DEAR SIR,

ESSEX.

Grosvenor Square, January 4, 1788.

I am in your debt for several very friendly letters, all of which shall be answered hereafter. I have had a great cold, which brought with it some fever, and has disabled me from every thing for three weeks.

Your kind invitation for Wednesday the 9th is accepted with pleasure by Mr. Smith as well as myself.

And now, sir, for other matters. Our new constitution does not expressly say that juries shall not extend to civil causes.— Nor, I presume, is it intended, to take away the trial by jury in any case, in which you, sir, yourself would wish to preserve it. Maritime causes must be decided by the law of nations, and in conformity to the practice of the world. In these cases juries would not be willing to sit as judges, nor would the parties be contented with their judgment. Juries understand not the nature, nor the law of foreign transactions. We began, about twelve years ago, with juries in our courts of admiralty: but I assure you, the parties, witnesses, juries, judges, and all the world became so weary of the innovation upon trial, that it was laid aside by a new law with universal satisfaction. The examinations or interrogatories of witnesses and parties, in short the whole course of proceedings, as well as all the rules of evidence, must be changed, before juries could be introduced with propriety.

Taxes on advertisements, and on every thing that contributes to facilitate the communication of knowledge, I should wish to avoid as much as possible.

Whether the human mind has limits or not, we ought not to fix a limit to its improvement, until we find it and are sure of it :-incumbered with gross bodies and weak senses, there must be some bounds to its refinements in this world: you and I entertain the joyous hope of other states of improvement without end and for my part, I wish that you and I may know each other, and pursue the same objects together in all of them. Fair science, equity, liberty, and society will be adorable for ever. I am, with great esteem,

my dear sir,
your

friend and servant,

JOHN ADAMS.

II.

MY DEAR SIR,

Fountain Inn, Portsmouth, April 5, 1788.

If ever there was any philosophic solitude, your two friends have found it in this place, where we have been wind bound, a whole week, without a creature to speak to. Our whole business, pleasure and amusement has been reading Necker's Religious Opinions, Hayley's Old Maids, and Cumberland's fourth Observer. Our whole stock is now exhausted, and if the ship should not arrive with a fresh supply of books, we shall be obliged to write romances to preserve us from melancholy.

I know not whether atheism has made much progress in England: and perhaps it would do more hurt than good to pub

lish any thing upon the subject, otherwise Necker's book appears to me to deserve the best translation and edition that can be made of it. Mr. Mortimer perhaps might find his account in it. Necker's subject is so much more interesting to human nature, that I am almost disgusted with my own. Yet my countrymen have so much more need of arguments against errors in government, than in religion, that I am again comforted and encouraged. At this moment there is a greater fermentation throughout all Europe upon the subject of government, than was perhaps ever known, at any former period. France, Holland, and Flanders are alive to it. Is government a science or not? Are there any principles on which it is founded? What are its ends? If indeed there is no rule; no standard; all must be accident and chance. If there is a standard, what is it? It is easier to make a people discontented with a bad government, than to teach them how to establish and maintain a good one. Liberty can never be created and preserved without a people: and by a people, I mean a common people, in contradistinction from the gentlemen; and a people can never be created and preserved without an executive authority in one hand, separated entirely from the body of the gentlemen. The two ladies Aristocratia and Democratia will eternally pull caps, till one or other is mistress. If the first is the conqueress, she never fails to depress and debase her rival into the most deplorable servitude. If the last conquers, she eternally surrenders herself into the arms of a ravisher. Kings, therefore, are the natural allies of the common people, and the prejudices against them are by no means favourable to liberty. Kings and the common people have both a common enemy in the gentlemen, and they must unite in some degree or other against them, or both will be destroyed; the one dethroned and the other enslaved. The common people too are unable to defend themselves against their own ally, the king, without another ally in the gentlemen. It is, therefore, indispensably necessary, that the gentlemen in a body, or by representatives, should be an independent and essential branch of the constitution. By a king, I mean a single person possessed of the whole executive power. You have often said to me, that it is difficult to preserve the balance. This is true. It is difficult to preserve liberty. But there can be no liberty without some balance; and it is certainly easier to preserve a balance of three branches than of two. If the people cannot preserve a balance of three branches, how is it possible for them to preserve one of two only? If the people of England find it difficult to preserve their balance at present, how would they do, if they had the election of a king, and an house of lords to make, once a year, or once in seven years, as well as of an house of commons? It seems evident at first blush, that periodical elections of the king and peers in England, in addition to the commons, would produce agitations that must destroy all order and safety as well as liberty. The gentlemen too, can never defend themselves

against a brave and united common people, but by an alliance with a king; nor against a king, without an alliance with the common people. It is the insatiability of human passions, that is the foundation of all government. Men are not only ambitious, but their ambition is unbounded: they are not only avaricious, but their avarice is insatiable. The desires of kings, gentlemen and common people, all increase, instead of being satisfied by indulgence. This fact being allowed, it will follow that it is necessary to place checks upon them all. Pray write me upon these subjects when I arrive in America.

I am, with sincere esteem,

my dear sir, yours,

JOHN ADAMS.

Thomas Brand-Hollis, esq.

III.

DEAR SIR,

Fountain Inn, Cowes, Isle of Wight, April 9, 1788.

I have, to day, received your kind letter of the 7th, and the valuable books that accompanied it; Mariana, Corio, and Ramsay, for which I most heartily thank you.

I wish I could write romances. True histories of my wanderings and waitings for ships and winds at Ferol and Corunna in Spain; at Nantes, Lorient and Brest in France; at Helvoet, the island of Goree, and Over Flackee in Holland; and at Harwich, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight in England, would make very entertaining romances in the hands of a good writer.

It is very true, as you say, that "royal despots endeavour to prevent the science of government from being studied." But it is equally true that aristocratical despots, and democratical despots too, endeavour to suppress the study, and with equal success. The aristocracies in Holland, Poland, Venice, Bern, &c. are as inexorable to the freedom of inquiry in religion, but especially in politicks, as the monarchies of France, Spain, Prussia, or Russia. It is in mixed governments only that political toleration exists, and in Needham's "Excellencie of a free state," or right constitution, the majority would be equally intolerant. Every unbalanced power is intolerant.

I admire your magnificent idea of an "imperial republic:" but would not republican jealousy startle at this title, even more than that of a "regal republic?"

I mentioned to you that I found, in your favourite writer Mr. Hutcheson, Zeno named as a friend to the balance.* I have since received further information from Diogenes Laertius, lib. 7. cap. 1. n. 66. If you find any thing more of the sentiments of Zeno, upon this subject, let me pray you to note it.

See his system of Moral Philosophy, vol. 11, b. 3. ch. 6, p. 257 and 258,, and note.

Cumberland, in his Observer, mentions Heniochus, an Athenian comedian, as enumerating several "cities fallen into egregious folly and declension, from having delivered themselves over to be governed at the discretion of two certain female personages, whom I shall name to you: the one Democracy; Aristocracy the other. From this fatal moment universal anarchy and misrule inevitably fall upon those cities, and they are lost!"* I wish to know his authority for this quotation, and to know the words of the original. Perhaps it is found in Ælian or Athenaeus. I wish to collect every word from antiquity, in favour of an equal mixture of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. It is an honour to the idea, that Zeno approved it; for he was, I think, one of the wisest and profoundest of the philosophers. The loss of his book "De Lege," is a great misfortune to me; I have often met with a quotation from some of the Greek commentators, which speaks of two quarrelsome women, Aristocratia and Democratia, but never knew before that it was taken from Heniochus.

When will these lazy winds arise, and relieve you for a time from the trouble given you by your affectionate and obliged JOHN ADAMS.

Mrs. A. and I have been to visit Carisbroke castle, once the prison of the booby Charles. At what moment did Cromwell become ambitious? is a question I have heard asked in England. I answer, before he was born. He was ambitious every moment of his life. He was a canting dog. I hate him for his hypocrisy : but I think he had more sense than his friends. He saw the necessity of three branches, as I suspect. If he did, he was perfectly right in wishing to be a king. I don't agree with those who impute to him the whole blame of an unconditional restoration. They were the most responsible for it, who obstinately insisted on the abolition of monarchy. If they would have concurred in a rational reform of the constitution, Cromwell would have joined them.

Thomas Brand-Hollis, esq.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

IV.

Braintree, near Boston, December 3, 1788.

If I had been told at my first arrival, that five months would pass before I should write a line to Mr. Brand-Hollis, I should not have believed it. I found my estate, in consequence of a total neglect and inattention on my part for fourteen years, was falling to decay; and in so much disorder, as to require my whole exertion to repair it. I have a great mind to essay a description of it. It is not large in the first place. It is but the farm of a patriot. But there are in it two or three spots, from