ers, are to gain a share of these objects, if Britain loses them; whereas they not only lose all share in them, but even the safety and existence of their flags upon the ocean may be lost, if America is reduced, and the British monopoly of American trade, fisheries, and seamen is revived.

"It does not require the spirit of divination to perceive that Great Britain, robbed of her foreign dominions and commerce, her nurseries of seamen lost, her navy weakened, and the power of her ambitious neighbors thus strengthened and increased, will not be able to maintain her independence among the nations."

If she would now make peace, she might preserve not only her independence, but a great share of her present importance. If she continues this war but a year or two longer, she will be reduced to the government of her own island, in two independent kingdoms, Scotland and England probably. As to conquest and subordination to some neighboring power, none that has common sense would accept the government of that island, because it would cost infinitely more to maintain it than it would be worth.

Thus I have given some account of these "cool thoughts on the consequences of American independence," which I consider as the result of all the consultations and deliberations of the refugees upon the subject.

I think it might as well have been entitled, an Essay towards demonstrating that it is the clear interest and the indispensable duty of America, to maintain her sovereignty and her alliances at all events, and of France, Spain, Holland, and all the maritime powers to support her in the possession of them.

I have the honor to be, &c.

JOHN ADAMS.

Sir,

TO THE COUNT DE VERGENNES.

Paris, June 16th, 1780.

I have just received a letter from Nantes, brought in a ship from New London. I enclose your Excellency a newspaper enclosed in it, and an extract of the letter, which is from a gentleman who is a member of the assembly, and one of the judges of Boston. This is all the news I have. I hope your Excellency has more by the same vessel.

I have the honor to be, &c.

JOHN ADAMS.

P. S. I have mislaid the letter from Boston. The extract informed, that a bill had passed the two Houses of Assembly, adopting the resolution of Congress of the 18th of March, and establishing an annual tax for seven years, for the redemption of their part of the bills payable in silver and gold, or in produce at the market price, in hard money.

Sir,

TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.

Paris, June 17th, 1780.

The refugees in England are so great an obstacle to peace, that it seems not improper for me to take notice of them to Congress. Governor Hutchinson is dead. Whether the late popular insurrections, or whether the resolutions of Congress of the 18th of March, respecting their finances, by suddenly extinguishing the last rays of his hopes, put a sudden end to his life, or whether it was

owing to any other cause, I know not. He was born to be the cause and the victim of popular fury, outrage, and conflagrations. Descended from an ancient and honorable family, born and educated in America, professing all the zeal of the congregational religion, affecting to honor the characters of the first planters of the new world, and to vindicate the character of America, and especially of New England, early initiated into public business, industrious and indefatigable in it, beloved and esteemed by the people, elected and trusted by them and their representatives, his views opened and extended by repeated travels in Europe, engaged in extensive correspondence in Europe as well as in America, favored by the Crown of Great Britain, and possessed of its honors and emoluments; possessed of all these advantages and surrounded by all these circumstances, he was perhaps the only man in the world who could have brought on the controversy between Great Britain and America, in the manner and at the time it was done, and involved the two countries in an enmity, which must end in their everlasting separation. Yet this was the character of the man, and these his memorable actions. An inextinguishable ambition and avarice, that were ever seen among his other qualities, and which grew with his growth and strengthened with his age and experience, and at last predominated over every other principle of his heart, rendered him credulous to a childish degree, of everything that favored his ruling passion, and blind and deaf to everything that thwarted it, to such a degree, that his representations, with those of his fellowlaborer, Bernard, drew on the King, Ministry, Parliament, and nation, to concert measures, which will end in their reduction and the exaltation of America.

I think I see visible traces of his councils in a number of pamphlets, not long since published in London, and ascribed to Mr Galloway. It is most probable, that they were concerted between the Ministry and the refugees in general, and that Mr Galloway was to be given out as the ostensible, as he probably was the principal author.

"The cool thoughts on the consequences of American independence," although calculated to inflame a hasty warlike nation to pursue the conquest of America, are sober reasons for defending our independence and our alliances, and therefore proper for me to lay before my countrymen. The pamphlet says, "it has been often asserted, that Great Britain has expended in settling and defending America, more than she will ever be able to repay, and that it will be more to the profit of this kingdom to give her independence, and to lose what we have expended, than to retain her as a part of her dominions." To this he answers, "that the bounties on articles of commerce, and the expense of the last war, ought not to be charged to America, and that the sums expended in support of Colonial governments, have been confined to New York, the Carolinas, Georgia, Nova Scotia, and East and West Florida. That New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia, have not cost Great Britain a farthing, and that the whole expense of the former is no more than £1,700,000, and when we deduct the £700,000, extravagantly expended in building a key at Halifax, we can only call it one million." He concludes, "that posterity will feel that America was not only worth all that was spent upon her, but that a just, firm, and constitutional subordination of the Colonies, was absolutely necessary to the independence and existence of Great Britain." Here I think I see the traces of Mr Hutchinson.

Another argument, he says, much relied on by the advocates for American independence is, "that a similarity of laws, religion, and manners, has formed an attachment between the people of Great Britain and America, which will ensure to Great Britain a preference in the commerce of America." He agrees, "that a uniformity of laws and religion, united with a subordination to the same supreme authority, in a great measure forms and fixes the national attachment. But when the laws and the supreme authority are abolished, the manners, habits, and customs derived from them will soon be effaced. When different systems of laws and governments shall be established, other habits and manners must take place. The fact is, that the Americans have already instituted governments, as opposite to the principles upon which the British government is established as human invention could possibly devise. New laws are made, and will be made in conformity to, and in support of their new political systems, and of course destructive to this national attachment. Their new States being altogether popular, their essential laws do already, and will continue to bear a greater resemblance to those of the democratical Cantons of Switzerland, than to the laws and policy of Great Britain. Thus we find, in their first acts, the strongest of all proofs of an aversion in their rulers to our national policy, and a sure foundation laid to obliterate all affection and attachment to this country among the people. How long then can we expect that their attachment, arising from a similarity of laws, habits, and manners, if any such should remain, will continue? No longer than between the United Provinces and Spain, or the Corsicans and the Genoese, which was changed, from the moment of their separation, into an enmity, which is not worn out to this day."