LETTER XV.--TO MRS. ADAMS, July 22, 1804


TO MRS. ADAMS.

Washington, July 22, 1804.

Dear Madam,

Your favor of the 1st instant was duly received, and I would not again
have intruded on you, but to rectify certain facts which seem not to
have been presented to you under their true aspect. My charities to
Callendar are considered as rewards for his calumnies. As early, I
think, as 1796, I was told in Philadelphia, that Callendar, the author
of the 'Political Progress of Britain,' was in that city, a fugitive
from persecution for having written that book, and in distress. I
had read and approved the book; I considered him as a man of genius,
unjustly persecuted. I knew nothing of his private character, and
immediately expressed my readiness to contribute to his relief, and to
serve him. It was a considerable time after, that, on application from
a person who thought of him as I did, I contributed to his relief, and
afterwards repeated the contribution. Himself I did not see till long
after, nor ever more than two or three times. When he first began to
write, he told some useful truths in his coarse way; but nobody sooner
disapproved of his writing than I did, or wished more that he would be
silent. My charities to him were no more meant as encouragements to his
scurrilities, than those I give to the beggar at my door are meant
as rewards for the vices of his life, and to make them chargeable to
myself. In truth, they would have been greater to him, had he never