written a word after the work for which he fled from Britain. With
respect to the calumnies and falsehoods which writers and printers at
large published against Mr. Adams, I was as far from stooping to any
concern or approbation of them, as Mr. Adams was respecting those of
Porcupine, Fenno, or Russell, who published volumes against me for
every sentence vended by their opponents against Mr. Adams. But I never
supposed Mr. Adams had any participation in the atrocities of these
editors, or their writers. I knew myself incapable of that base warfare,
and believed him to be so. On the contrary, whatever I may have thought
of the acts of the administration of that day, I have ever borne
testimony to Mr. Adams's personal worth; nor was it ever impeached in my
presence, without a just vindication of it on my part. I never supposed
that any person who knew either of us, could believe that either of us
meddled in that dirty work. But another fact is, that I 'liberated a
wretch who was suffering for a libel against Mr. Adams.' I do not know
who was the particular wretch alluded to; but I discharged every person
under punishment or prosecution under the sedition law, because I
considered, and now consider, that law to be a nullity, as absolute and
as palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a
golden image; and that it was as much my duty to arrest its execution
in every stage, as it would have been to have rescued from the fiery
furnace those who should have been cast into it for refusing to worship
the image. It was accordingly done in every instance, without asking
what the offenders had done, or against whom they had offended, but
whether the pains they were suffering were inflicted under the pretended
sedition law. It was certainly possible that my motives for contributing
to the relief of Callendar, and liberating sufferers under the sedition
law might have been to protect, encourage, and reward slander; but they
may also have been those which inspire ordinary charities to objects of
distress, meritorious or not, or the obligation of an oath to protect