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CHAPTER IX.

JOHN ADAMS AND THOMAS JEFFERSON

THEIR CORRESPON

DENCE THEIR DEATH-MR. WEBSTER'S EULOGY-JOHN Q. ADAMS VISITS QUINCY-HIS SPEECH AT THE PUBLIC SCHOOL DINNER IN FANEUIL HALL.

82.

THE patriarchs John Adams and Thomas Jefferson still lingered on the shores of time. The former had attained the good old age of 90 years, and the latter Mrs. Adams, the venerable companion of the ex-President, died in Quincy, on the 28th of Oct., 1818, aged 74 years. Although, amid the various political strifes through which they had passed during the half century they had taken prominent parts in the affairs of their country, Adams and Jefferson had frequently been arrayed in opposite parties, and cherished many views quite dissimilar, yet their private friendship and deep attachment had been unbroken. It continued to be cherished with generous warmth to the end of their days. This pleasing fact, together with the wonderful vigor of their minds in extreme old age, is proved by the following interesting correspondence between them, which took place four years before their decease :

MR. JEFFERSON TO MR. ADAMS.

"Monticello, June 1, 1822. "It is very long, my dear sir, since I have written to you. My dislocated wrist is now become so stiff, that I write slowly, and with pain; and therefore write as little as I can. Yet it is due to mutual friendship, to ask once in a while how we do? The papers tell us that General Starke is off, at the age of ninety-three. ***** still lives at about the same age, cheerful, slender as a grasshopper, and so much without memory, that he scarcely recognizes the members of his household. An intimate friend of his called on him, not long since. It was difficult to make him recollect who he was, and sitting one hour, he told him the same story four times over. Is this life?—with laboring step

"To tread our former footsteps? pace the round
Eternal ?-to beat and beat

The beaten track-to see what we have seen-

To taste the tasted-o'er our palates to decant
Another vintage?'

"It is, at most, but the life of a cabbage, surely not worth a wish. When all our faculties have left, or are leaving us, one by one, sight, hearing, memory, every avenue of pleasing sensation is closed, and athumy, debility, and mal-aise left in their places, when the friends of our youth are all gone, and a generation is risen around us whom we know not, is death an evil?

"When one by one our ties are torn,

And friend from friend is snatch'd forlorn;
When man is left alone to mourn,

Oh, then, how sweet it is to die!

"When trembling limbs refuse their weight,
And films slow gathering dim the sight;
When clouds obscure the mental light,
"Tis nature's kindest boon to die!'

"I really think so. I have ever dreaded a doting old age; and my health has been generally so good, and is now so good, that I dread it still. The rapid decline of my strength during the last winter, has made me hope sometimes, that I see land. During summer, I enjoy its temperature, but I shudder at the approach of

winter, and wish I could sleep through it, with the dormouse, and only wake with him in spring, if ever. They say that Starke could walk about his room. I am told you walk well and firmly. I can only reach my garden, and that with sensible fatigue. I ride, however, daily; but reading is my delight. I should wish never to put pen to paper; and the more because of the treacherous practice some people have, of publishing one's letters without leave. Lord Mansfield declared it a breach of trust, and punishable at law. I think it should be a penitentiary felony; yet you will have seen that they have drawn me out into the arena of the newspapers. Although I know it is too late for me to buckle on the armor of youth, yet my indignation would not permit me passively to receive the kick of an ass.

"To return to the news of the day, it seems that the cannibals of Europe are going to eat one another again. A war between Russia and Turkey is like the battle of the kite and snake; whichever destroys the other, leaves a destroyer the less for the world. This pugnacious humor of mankind seems to be the law of his nature; one of the obstacles to too great multiplication, provided in the mechanism of the universe. The cocks of the hen-yard kill one another; bears, bulls, rams, do the same, and the horse in his wild state kills all the young males, until, worn down with age and war, some vigorous youth kills him. * * * * * * I hope we shall prove how much happier for man the Quaker policy is, and that the life of the feeder is better than that of the fighter. And it is some consolation that the desolation by these maniacs of one part of the earth is the means of improving it in other parts. Let the latter be our office; and let us milk the cow while the Russian holds her by the horns, and the Turk by the tail. God bless you, and give you health, strength, good spirits, and as much of life as you think worth having. THOMAS JEFFERSON."

MR. ADAMS' REPLY.

"Quincy, June 11, 1822.

"DEAR SIR :-Half an hour ago I received, and this moment have heard read, for the third or fourth time, the best letter that ever was written by an octogenarian, dated June 1st.

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"I have not sprained my wrist; but both my arms and hands are

so overstrained that I cannot write a line. Poor Starke remembered nothing, and could talk of nothing but the battle of Bennington! ******** is not quite so reduced. I cannot mount my horse, but I can walk three miles over a rugged, rocky mountain, and have done it within a month; yet I feel, when sitting in my chair, as if I could not rise out of it; and when risen, as if I could not walk across the room. My sight is very dim, hearing pretty good, memory poor enough.

"I answer your question,-Is death an evil? It is not an evil. It is a blessing to the individual and to the world; yet we ought not to wish for it, till life becomes insupportable. We must wait the pleasure and convenience of the 'Great Teacher.'' Winter is as terrible to me as to you. I am almost reduced in it to the life of a bear or a torpid swallow. I cannot read, but my delight is to hear others read; and I tax all my friends most unmercifully and tyrannically against their consent.

"The ass has kicked in vain; all men say the dull animal has missed the mark.

"This globe is a theatre of war; its inhabitants are all heroes. The little eels in vinegar, and the animalcules in pepper-water, I believe, are quarrelsome. The bees are as warlike as the Romans, Russians, Britons, or Frenchmen. Ants, caterpillars, and cankerworms are the only tribes among whom I have not seen battles; and Heaven itself, if we believe Hindoos, Jews, Christians, and Mahometans, has not always been at peace. We need not trouble ourselves about these things, nor fret ourselves because of evil doers; but safely trust the Ruler with his skies.' Nor need we dread the approach of dotage; let it come if it must. ******, it seems, still delights in his four stories; and Starke remembered to the last his Bennington, and exulted in his glory; the worst of the evil is, that our friends will suffer more by our imbecility than we ourselves.

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"In wishing for your health and happiness, I am very selfish ; for I hope for more letters. This is worth more than five hundred dollars to me; for it has already given me, and will continue to give me, more pleasure than a thousand. Mr. Jay, who is about your age, I am told, experiences more decay than you do.

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This correspondence excited attention in Europe. The editor of the London Morning Chronicle prefaces it with the following remarks:

"What a contrast the following correspondence of the two rival Presidents of the greatest Republic of the world, reflecting an old age dedicated to virtue, temperance, and philosophy, presents to the heart-sickening details, occasionally disclosed to us, of the miserable beings who fill the thrones of the continent. There is not, perhaps, one sovereign of the continent, who in any sense of the word can be said to honor our nature, while many make us almost ashamed of it. The curtain is seldom drawn aside without exhibiting to us beings worn out with vicious indulgence, diseased in mind, if not in body, the creatures of caprice and insensibility. On the other hand, since the foundation of the American Republic, the chair has never been filled by a man, for whose life (to say the least,) any American need once to blush. It must, therefore, be some compensation to the Americans for the absence of pure monarchy, that when they look upwards their eyes are not always met by vice, and meannesss, and often idiocy."

John Adams joined his fellow-citizens of Quincy, Mass., in celebrating the 4th of July, 1823, at the age of 88 years. Being called upon for a toast, he gave the following:

"The excellent President, Governor, Ambassador, and Chief Justice, JOHN JAY, whose name, by accident, was not subscribed on the DECLARATION OF Independence, as it ought to have been, for he was one of its ablest and faithfullest supporters.-A splendid star just setting below the horizon."

It would be difficult (said the Boston Patriot,) fully to describe the delicate manner in which this toast was received and noticed by the company. Instead of loud acclamations, which succeeded the other toasts,

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