Papers of John Adams, volume 20
r:15. 89
I received in due time your favor of August 24, the subject of
which has since been under the deliberation of both houses. The act, which has been the
result of their attention to the petitions of New 153 Port Providence and
other towns, will appear to you, probably before this letter.1 Whether it will in all respects be conformable
to your wishes, I am not able to say: but it seemed to be the greatest lenght that some
of the best informed members, thought it safe to go. We are all very sanguine in our
hopes, that you will send us members of both houses, before the 15 of Jany:, indeed on the first monday in December. All unkind
questions will then be done away. But if unhappily Rhode Island should not call a
convention; or calling one not adopt the constitution, something much more serious than
has ever yet been done or talked of, will most probably be undertaken. We have very
often been irritated with rumors of correspondences between the Antis in your state and
those in Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, N Carolina &. and even with insinuations
of intrigues with British emmisaries These are very serious reports. such intercourses
are extreamly criminal in the citizens of the Union, and hostile at least in those who
are not— If the citizens of Rhode Island place themselves in the light of correspondents
with criminal citizens of the Union, or in that of ennemies to the United States, their
good sense will suggest to them, that the consequences will be very speedy and very
bitter. I rely upon it therefore, that unless your state is devoted and abandoned to the
judicial dispensations of heaven, that your people will open their eyes before it is too
late. This is the very serious advice of one who has ever been and still is the hearty
friend, but who must cease to be so when they become the enemies of the united states.
There can be no medium. Enemies they must be, or fellow citizens, and that in a very
short time. I am sir & &
LbC in CA’s hand (Adams Papers); internal address: “John Brown Esqr Providence. R.I”; APM Reel 115.
For Rhode Island’s petitions to extend the exemption on foreign duties, see Henry Marchant’s letter of 29 Aug., and note 4, above.