I was honoured by the due Receipt of your obliging favr. of Augt 30th for which you have my Cordial thanks— I am fully sensible of the justness of your Observations, relative to the Presidents nominations, and doubt not, they will be all made free from any partial biass whatever, and on the principles of humanity, Wisdom, & justice to his Country, whose best interests, have been his uniform Study & pursuit; no personal dissappointment will ever excite in my mind a distrustful idea of the good wishes of my friends towards me—convinced of the uncertain nature of these kind of applications—

I have yet some hopes of a registership in the Judiciary to which Object Mr Jay may have it in his power to assist me essentially— Should I be eventually defeated in my wishes for a domestic Office, I would wish the favr of your opinion upon the subject of my original intent of going as Consul to Cadiz— you once observed to me while at Mr Jay’s that if Harrison did not go you thought it clear for me— Harrison has repeatedly told his friends here, that he did not wish to go unless a salary was affixed to the office; but I will consent to go without, depending on forming some mercantile connection & the chance of a future moderate grant from Govt: should the President be inlined to favr my views I suppose it to be fully within his power to originate this appointment if unaccompanied by a pecuniary Stipend & should he think it of public advantage & that I am capable of rendering public service herein—he can send down his nomination before the Senate rise this Session— in a leisure moment will you please to inform me on this Subject.—1

Prompted I hope by justifiable motives I have chosen this crisis to obtain some employ in my Countrys Service but if foiled in every attempt—I shall not yet despair—by fortitude, industry, & persevarance in private pursuits to be able to support that character & Reputation in the world without which Life will be to me scarce an Object of desire— I sometimes am led to think it a curse to possess any Ambition & to look with envy on the stupid, senseless part of Mankind, who are willing to tread on the same “dull pace from day to day”

Dr Sir I suppose the poem you allude to—to be the infamous production of a disappointed expectant by the name of Edward Church,2 who tainted by his Brother’s treacherous blood, would hope to poison the public mind— but a Character like your’s Sir built on the 148 broad basis of tried Integrity, superior Ability and an ardent love of your Country manifeted by a series of painful services, is not to be shaken by the envenomed shafts of Envy—or the rancourous ebulitions of a corroded mind—but shall remain unsullied in the grateful sentiments of the virtuous part of your Countrymen, till time shall be no more, and after that curtain shall drop, which will open to your view, the more peaceful scenes of a future existence—

Please to tender my best Respects to Mrs Adams & the rest of your good Family believing me to be with unfeigned Essteem & Respect / Your Obliged & devoted / Servt

I have not yet acknowledged my obligation to you for your favor of Augt 22. if my hasty scrawls written in gloomy times and desperate circumstances, have furnished you an amusement for a vacant hour I am glad of it.

My present office is as agreable to me as any public office ever can be: and my situation as pleasing as any on this earth, excepting Braintree. My compensation will be straightened to such a degree, that to live among foreign ministers, travelling Americans, Govenors, Chancellors, Judges, Senators and Repre in a style which my unmerciful Countrymen exact of all their public men, will require the consumption of the whole of it with the whole income of my private fortune added to it: and after all I shall be but poorly accommodated. But I have often been obliged to apply to myself what one of my predecessors in the Corps diplomatique in Holland, wrote to his master. The President Jeannin, Ambassador from Henry 4th of France, wrote him from Holland “Sire I have been so long used to labour a great deal, and profit little, that the habit is 149 familiar, and I am contented.”1 Jeannin however profited more and labored less, and never ran the gauntlet among halters, axes, libels, Daggers, cannon balls, and pistol bullets as I have done, nor performed one half of the immense journeys and voyages that have fallen to my lot.

Every unpopular point is invariably left to me to determine so that I must be the scape goat, to bear all their sins, without a possibility of acquiring any share in the honor of any of their popular deeds— If legislative, my friend, and judicial work their way, and the executive has not weight to ballance the former, what will be the consequence? an unballanced Legislative is a tyranny, whether in one few or many. A more important question, than yours concerning treason, never was proposed upon any part of the constitution: and upon the right decision: of it will, in my opinion, depend the existence of government. Two sovereignties against which treason can be committed can never exist in one nation or in one system of laws.— We should soon see officers of the national government indicted convicted and executed for treason against the seperate states, for acts done by virtue of their offices and in discharge of their duty. The clause you refer to in ss: 2 Art 4 is this “A person charged in any state with treason, felony or other crime who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime” But this in the case of treason can mean only that the traitor may be tried, by the national judicial in the State where the crime was committed according to those words in ss: 2 Art 3 “The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment shall be by Jury: and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed.[”] I am not enough acquainted with the subject of Pyracy to form any opinion.

The character, biography and merits of our friend N—C. has been long since laid before the President, in as handsome terms as I was master of, and if he is passed by it will be from public motives only, I presume. I hope he will bear it with magnanimity: but I know not the Presidents intentions. Mrs A joins with me in kind compts: to Mrs Cushing & yourself— Your letters sir are not like hundred I receive— They contain profound and useful enquiries, a continuance of them will be a favor to