Norfolk Gazette And Publick Ledger

The former President Adams, is occupied in writing a series of essays, which are published in a democratic paper called the "Boston Patriot," and are going the round of republication in all the democratic papers to the North. The first numbers of these essays were from motives of compassion passed over by us without notice, yet had we foreseen their tendency and extent, we should have inserted them in the Ledger, but it is now too late, as we have not preserved the first numbers, and the meeting of Congress, which takes place in a few days, will furnish us with more interesting matter than the passionate ebulitions of a vain, mortified, and irritable old man. It was remarked of Cicero, that with many great and rare qualities, he was destroyed by vanity, "it was his cardinal vice." Mr. Adams with few of the qualities of the Roman orator and statesman, has more vanity than ever fell to the share of any human being. We disdain to apply to the democratic papers, or to their great idol, for a character of John Adams, for they have pourtrayed it, as marked not only with egregious folly and excessive vanity, but by all the political turpitude that could be attached to the vilest and most profligate statesman. The Book published by general Hamilton (by many, and by us among others, deemed injudicious at that time) was a most faithful picture of the man, and proved the profound wisdom of Hamilton, in his knowledge of the human character. Mr. Adams we believe to be an honest man (Mr. Jefferson and all the democrats to the contrary notwithstanding) but a man too much under the influence of his passions ever to be a great man, and of course very unfit to be at the head of a great nation, or even at the head of a party. The exclusion of his son, as a senator for the state of Massachusetts, has driven the old gentleman into excesses, which excite the pity of his former friends, and the secret contempt, tho' professed applause of his former enemies. He has lately published the private, and unofficial conversations, which took place between him, and the leading federalists, at the time he was President, touching important measures. With all our belief in the integrity of Mr. Adams, we are not prepared to admit, that a person of his irritable temper, soured by his own and the publick mortifications of his son, is capable of giving a "very impartial" statement of facts, that occurred ten years back, when his present admirers said he was in "his dotage." Nor would we be understood as expressing any regret at what he has published, or any apprehension of what he can publish, as relates to the publick and private conduct of those with whom he was then associated. Those honourable men (or such of them as are now alive) will feel no resentment towards this unfortunate old revolutionary patriot, they will consider him as one who is dead, and say of him,

"The good which men have done, lives after them,
And the evil is often interred with their bones."

If the men who Mr. Adams, is now employed in rendering odious in the publick estimation, were capable of exposing his opinions of his present friends, what an absurd light would he not appear in? What would Mr. Jefferson say, if he was informed of Mr. Adams' expressions, when the latter found a letter which the former had written to President Washington, respecting the famous, or rather the infamous Mazzei letter? We are truly sorry, that a man, who has been so much distinguished by his country's favour, should be capable of acting the little, (and if we did not believe that it proceeds more from passion, and the infirmity of old age than vice) we should say the dishonourable part, which Mr. Adams has recently assumed.