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782 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

Is this the letter of a man or not? I do not appeal to the cow-
ardly propagator of anonymous falsehoods, but to the public. What
ia there in it of vanity or servility? Do not these letters take for
granted that I am a Democrat, though not a disturber of all gov-
ernment? And that what I am I shall remain, even though it be
deemed a reasonable objection to my appointment? Is this, or is
this Zot adhering to my principle, whatever becomes of my in-
terest

Nor is it trne that my address originated from any motive of re-
venge. Two yeara elapsed from the date of those letters, before I
wrote anything on the polities of this country, Nor did I recollect
them at the time. Nor do I see the objection to taking any fair
means of improving my situation, This is a duty inemmbent on
every prudent man who has a family to raise and which I have

too much neglected from public motives; nor ean any offies
to which I am eligible in this country, recompense me for the offers
I rejected in its favor, But it is not in the power of promises or
threats, of wealth or poverty, to extinguish the political enthusiasm
which has actuated my conduct for these twenty years. The pru-
dense of middle age and the claims of duty may make me cautions
of sacrificing my interest, but they cannot induce me to sacrifice
my principle.

Nor do I see any impropriety in making this request of Mr.
Adams. At that time he had just entered into office. was hardly
in the infancy of politieal mistake; even those who doubted hia
espacity, thought well of his intentions. He had not at that time
given the public to understand that be would bestow no office but
under implicit conformity to his politieal opinions. He bad not
@eclared that “a republiean government may mean anything;” he
had not yet sanctioned the abolition of trial by jury in the lien
Jaw, or entrenched his public character behind the legal barriers of
the sedition lew. Nor were we yet saddled with the expense of «
permanent navy, or threatened under his auspices with the exist-
ence of a standing army. Our credit was not yet reduced so low 29
to borrow money at eight per cent in time of peace, while the un-
necessary violenes of official expressions might justly provoke &
war. Nor had the political acrimony which still poisons the pleas
ures of private society, been fostered by those who call themselves
his friends and adherents; nor had the eminent services of Mr.
Humphreys at that time received their reward. Mr. Adams had not
yet projected his embassies to Prussia, Russia, and the Sublime
Porte; nor had yet interfered, as President of the United States,
to influence the decisions of court of justice. A streteh of au-
thority which the monarch of Great Britain ‘would have shrank
from; an interference without Precedent, against law and sgainst
mexrey! This melancholy ease of Jonathan Robbins, a native citizen
of America, forcibly impressed by the British, and delivered up,
with the advice of Mr. Adams, to the mock trial of a British eourt
martial, had not yet astonished the republican citizens of this free

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