[Footnote 8: It is with great reluctance that these comments are made, since some persons may think that they come with ill grace from one whose grandfather was one of the thirteen and was supposed to have drafted one or both of their letters. But in spite of the prejudice naturally growing out of this fact, a thorough study of the whole subject has convinced me that Mr. Adams was unquestionably and completely right, and I have no escape from saying so. His adversaries had the excuse of honesty in political error--an excuse which the greatest and wisest men must often fall back upon in times of hot party warfare.]
But this task of writing a demolishing pamphlet against the prominent gentlemen of the neighborhood to which he was about to return for his declining years could hardly have been a grateful task. The passage from political disaster to social enmities could not but be painful; and Mr. Adams was probably never more unhappy than at this period of his life. The reward which virtue was tendering to him seemed unmixed bitterness.
Thus at the age of sixty-two years, Mr. Adams found himself that melancholy product of the American governmental system--an ex-President. At this stage it would seem that the fruit ought to drop from the (p. 220) bough, no further process of development being reasonably probable for it. Yet Mr. Adams had by no means reached this measure of ripeness; he still enjoyed abundant vigor of mind and body, and to lapse into dignified decrepitude was not agreeable, indeed was hardly possible for him. The prospect gave him profound anxiety; he dreaded idleness, apathy, and decay with a keen terror which perhaps constituted a sufficient guaranty against them. Yet what could he do? It would be absurd for him now to furbish up the rusty weapons of the law and enter again upon the tedious labor of collecting a clientage. His property was barely sufficient to enable him to live respectably, even according to the simple standard of the time, and could open to him no occupation in the way of gratifying unremunerative tastes. In March, 1828, he had been advised to use five thousand dollars in a way to promote his reëlection. He refused at once, upon principle; but further set forth "candidly, the state of his affairs:"--