By the last post I received your letter of January 17th, and was as much surprised at the information that my last letter to you arrived unsealed, as you could be at the receipt of it.1 It was most certainly no intention of mine that it should have gone unsealed; nor can I account for the fact.2 My conjecture is that the person, one of my sons who copied into my letterbook, either inadvertently sent it, or suffered a servant to take it off the table to the post office without putting a wafer into it according to his usual practice. Neither “The ebullitions of party, nor political malice” have made any impressions on me. The expressions you allude to, were the result of very sober reflection upon facts proved to me, by the testimony of many witnesses of unquestionable veracity among whom were not a few of the best friends General Warren ever had in his life.—

A civil war Madam, is in my opinion a very serious thing. This Country has once at least been within a hairs breadth of a very bloody one: nor is it likely to be soon so secure against the probability of another, as I wish it. There is more than one among those persons whom twenty years ago, I counted among my friends who are not so explicit and decided as I presume to think they ought to be, in favor of those principles and measures, which appear to me 475 indispensable to preserve the liberty, peace and safety of this people. As long as this indecission remains, it is impossible there should be the same confidence between them and me, which there was once.—The affection for them which I once had will never be forgotten, nor can it ever be destroyed, but confidence can never be the same, without the same foundation for it

With3 much esteem I am Madam / your most obedient servant

My good Genius this morning has thrown in my Way, by perfect Accident, your oration of the 4. July last, and although I read it with much pleasure, in its Season it now appeared to me, new and beautiful as ever.1

I am afraid I never thanked you for the handsome Compliment paid to me in a Note. Indeed I now and then get a Compliment, and do not always give thanks for it. I am informed, within a few days, of an Eulogium passed upon me at Birmingham by our old C. Justice Oliver: and I question whether I Shall Send him Thanks for it at all,. To a Gentleman in Company with him, he complained bitterly of John Adams, as “the Author of all his misfortunes and the Sole Contriver of the Revolution.” What a divine Compliment! Did you ever hear or read Such a Panegyrick? Your Compliment, goodly as it is, is flat and insipid in Comparason.

The Secret is that I was the “Original Inventor” of the Impeachment against him and that Impeachment excited the Grand and Petit 476 Jurors in all the Counties of the Province to refuse to Act under him or his Court, and those Refusals really did produce the Revolution.

I must plead guilty to the Charge. I really was the very Midwife, who brought that Same impeachment into the World. I never before Suspected however, that Oliver was So well informed of our Secret History. at Table at Sam. Winthrops with a large Circle of Whigs, Dr John Winthrop, turned to me, and asked Mr Adams what can be done to avoid this fatal Stroke, the Royal Salaries to the Judges? “Impeach of High Treason, before the Governor and Council, the Chief Justice,” was the answer, and this was the first time the Word Impeachment as I believe was pronounced. Major Hawley Soon heard of it, and came to me to know the grounds of my Strange Opinion. I Shewed him Book Chapter and Verse.2

I owed Oliver however no ill Will. His Compliment is not merited.— for altho I was really the first Cause of the Impeachment, it is my full Belief that the Revolution would have happened, if I had not existed. British Pretentions, could never have been carried into Execution, over such a Country and Such a People, even although there had never existed a Washington or an Hancock a Franklin Adams or Warren.

Dont, I pray you quite forget, your old / Friend