members of the same body with the government. It will not do for the citizen to say because I am not concerned in directing national affairs I am in no degree answerable for the public proceedings. All being members of the same body, and joined in the same social compact, must stand or fall together. A Government making war without its subjects is as bad a supposition as a man's head quarrelling with a neighbor without the support of hands or feet.

As to the right of retaliation for all unnecessary cruelty it appears to me as strict a right as that of defence in any other form. No principles of morals oblige us to take all the disadvantage of our principles, and leave all the advantage of them to the adversary. When the enemy admits a good principle in common with us, we are bound to allow him as much benefit from it, as we derive from it ourselves. But if the enemy denies or resists the rule of good conduct, he ceases to be a christian, and becomes in our view an heathen and a subject of coërcion. Don't set me down as an heretic, tho' this is my construction of the good book.

My respects to the General. Mrs. Hilliard joins in good wishes to you and your family. I am, Madam, with much respect Your obedient Servant

JAMES WINTHROP

ABIGAIL ADAMS TO MERCY WARREN

QUINCY, March 9th, 1807

MY DEAR MRS. WARREN,- To your kind and friendly Letter I fully designed an immediate replie, but a severe attack of a Rheumatick complaint in my Head has confined me to my Chamber for several weeks and renderd me unable to hold a pen. tho recovering from it, my head still feels craked: shatterd I am sure it is. you will therefore pardon any inaccuracy I may commit. my Health which you so kindly inquire after, has been better for two years past, than for many of those which preceeded them. I am frequently reminded that here I have no abiding place. I bend to the blast. it passes over for the present and I rise again.

your Letter, my dear Madam, written so much in the stile of Mrs. Warren's ancient Friendship, renewed all those sensations which formerly gave me pleasure, and from which I have derived sincere and durable gratification, and I anticipate a still closer and more cordial union in the world of spirits to which we are hastening, when these earthly tabernacles shall be moulderd into Dust. If we were to count our years by the revolutions we have witnessed, we might number them with the Antediluvians, so rapid have been the changes: that the mind tho fleet in its progress, has been outstripped by them, and we are left like statues gaping at what we can neither fathom, or comprehend.

you inquire what does mr. Adams think of Napolean? If you had asked Mrs. Adams, she would have replied to you in the words of Pope,

If plagues and earthquakes brake not heavens design
Why then a Borgia or a Napoline?

I am Authorized to replie to your question, What does mr. Adams think Napoleon was made for? "My answer shall be as prompt and frank as her question. Napoleon's Maker alone can tell all he was made for. in general Napoleon was, I will not say made, but permitted for a cat-o'nine-tails, to inflict ten thousand lashes upon the back of Europe as divine vengeance for the Atheism, Infidelity, Fornications, Adulteries, Incests, and Sodomies, as well as Briberies, Robberies, Murders, Thefts, Intrigues, and fraudelent speculations of her inhabitants, and if we are far enough advanced in the career, and certainly we have progressd very rapidly, to whip us for the same crimes, and after he has answerd the end he was made, or permitted for, to be thrown into the fire. now I think I have meritted the answer from Mrs. Warren which she has promised me to the Question, what was Napoleon made for?"

May I ask Mrs. Warren in my turn, what was Col. Burr made for? and what can you make of him or his projects? enveloped in as many Mystery as Mrs. Ratcliff's castle of udolphus? how he mounted to power we know, and a faithfull historic page ought to record, and after he had answered the end for which he was

permitted, we know how he fell. what is yet left for him to perform, time must unveil.

I thank you, my Dear Madam, for your inquiries after my Daughter. she was well a few days since. she had Letters from her son dated in Novbr. he was then at Trinidad where he expected to pass the winter. a don Quixot expedition 1 which could never have met with his Grandfathers or my assent or consent, if it had been known to us before he had saild. it has been a source of much anxiety to us, and to his Mother.

I cannot close this Letter, without droping a sympathizing tear with you over the remains of your belovd Neice, and my valued Friend. She was from her youth all that was amiable Lovely and good, the youthful companion of my daughter, I always saw her with pleasure, and parted from her with regret. She was endeard to me by the misfortunes of her youth which from her strong sensibility and dutifull affection, I was frequently made the depositary of her sorrow and tears. She always exprest for me a sincere Regard. when I learnt her new engagement, knowing the delicate state of her Health, I feard she might find it too arduous for her, but her companion she had long known, esteemd and valued as his many virtues deserved.

Heaven spared her to act well the Mothers part towards her sons, to whom she devoted herself and having reared them to Manhood, for wise ends which we cannot comprehend, took her out of Life, what can we say, but that the ways of Heaven are dark and intricate.

I pray you to present Mr. Adams's and my regards to Genll. Warren. we both of us rejoice to hear that he enjoys so much health at his advanced period of Life. we shall always be happy to hear of the welfare of Friends whom we have loved from our early years and with whom we have past many, very many social hours of pleasing converse, in unity of Bond and Spirit. with Sincere Regard I subscribe your Friend

I That of Francisco Miranda.

ABIGAIL ADAMS

2 Mary Otis, widow of Benjamin Lincoln, Jr., and wife of Rev. Henry Ware of Cambridge. She died February 17, 1807.

JAMES WINTHROP TO MERCY WARREN

CAMBRIDGE II March, 1807

MADAM, Your letter of 4th Feb. I was favored with, and I need not add gratified by receiving on the tenth of that month. It was written at the same time with mine and gave me additional pleasure when I recollected that we thought of writing at once.

There was no doubt in my mind, that you had sufficient evidence to justify the statement made in your history respecting Mr. Bernard's civil promotion. The Remembrancer does not contradict my idea, that he was made a baronet before he quitted his government. This is an high and the only hereditary order of knighthood. The Remembrancer states that after his leaving America he was still further promoted to the title of Baron Nettleham. This was ennobling him. I had never, till the receipt of your valuable letter, any knowledge of this last promotion, and do now rather suspect that the compilers of the Remembrancer, tho' in general they may be correct, have in this instance confounded the two things and that Mr. B. remained Sir Francis till his death, without acquiring the degree of My Lord. At any rate an historian in following the documents, is intitled to the respect of the reader, and is exempted from any charge of inattention or carelessness. But when a work so extensive as yours discovers such long continued attention in arranging multiplied materials into an elegant and well formed narrative, there is not only a freedom from blame, but a great degree of praise attached to the author. The Major, I presume, told you of the other part of my remark, made to him at the same conversation, "that if I was about to review the book, for the public eye, such a minute criticism I should be ashamed to insert."

Please to present my respects to the General and your young friends, whom I also claim as belonging to my list.

Accept my sincere condolance on the death of Mrs. Ware. It is a melancholy proof that even the best principles when carried to excess terminate in evil. Nobody doubts her being a woman whose conduct was regulated by piety and good conscience; yet perhaps a fear that she had not come up to her own standard, by occupying

too much of her attention, produced such a dreadful subversion of mind.1 I am, Madam, very sincerely Your most obedient servant JAMES WINTHROP

JAMES WINTHROP TO MERCY WARREN

CAMBRIDGE, 3 May, 1808

MADAM, - A few days ago I received the honor of your letter of 20th April, and need not add, was flattered by the sentiments of friendship contained [in] it. The pleasure it gave me by the assurance, that all our Plymouth Friends are in health, was very great, and next in degree to the enjoyment of my own health. Your polite invitation to take a trip to Plymouth, I hope, will take effect some time in July. Our Courts will hold on till the latter part of June, as they have for two months past, every second week, and sometimes oftener. They hardly leave me time to rest myself between them. From the end of June to the middle of August, we shall have a vacation, and hope to improve part of it in a tour to the old Colony, and to have the honor of paying my respects in person to you and the General. Not that I consider the reason assigned in your letter as the most operative; tho' generally, I feel disposed to adopt your reasoning, but in this instance it would grieve me to have it just. The reason implied in the question "Do you not wish to see your old friend General Warren once more before he is gathered to the band of worthy patriots who are swept off before him?" is, that the time may be short. True, it may be short, but I hope otherwise. I hope to have the pleasure of seeing him many times, and enjoying his conversation often, before our separation.

It is to me surprizing that a political faction should have been able to produce so great an effect on the mind of the community, by their misrepresentations of the embargo. The election of Senators seems to be so far influenced as to deprive the republicans of

I The series of letters exchanged between Mrs. Warren and John Adams in July and August, 1807, on her History, is printed in 5 Collections, Iv. 317. In the same volumes are letters from Elbridge Gerry to Mrs. Warren on the controversy and breach of intercourse to which it led and on the eventual reconciliation, largely due to Gerry's tactful handling.