154 



this as of virulence and acrimony., which he boasts of not having re 

 turned. If virulence and acrimony had no other vehicle than harsh 

 language, if they could be disguised under professions of unfeigned 

 respect, however cautiously Mr. Russell had abstained from them 

 in his original letter from Paris, he had been much less observant of 

 that decorum in the duplicate, prepared with new relishes of crimi 

 nation to suit the appetite of political hatred ; and the publication in 

 the Boston Statesman is by no means sparing either of virulence or 

 acrimony against me. The whole tenour of his argument in the 

 original letter, against his colleagues, was sneering and sarcastic. 

 In the Boston Statesman, besides direct charges against me, of disin- 

 genuousness, of having made an unprincipled and unprovoked attack 

 upon him, of disrespect to the House of Representatives, of infirm 

 ities of temper and taste, and of being a dreaming visionary, he tries 

 even the temper of his wit to assail me, and by a heavy joke upon 

 an expression used in my remarks, indulges his own inftinct of mis 

 quoting my words to make them appear ridiculous. If this be Mr, 

 Russell s mildness and moderation, it looks very much like the viru 

 lence and acrimony of others. In the transactions of human socie 

 ty, there are deeds of which no adequate idea can be conveyed in 

 the terms of courtesy and urbanity ; yet I admit the obligation of a 

 public man to meet with coolness and self-command the vilest arti 

 fices, even of fraud and malignity, to rob him of the most precious 

 of human possessions, his good name -&quot;thrice happy they who 

 master so their blood.&quot; If in my former remarks upon Mr. Rus 

 sell s Janus-faced letter, or in this refutation of his new and direct 

 personal attack upon my reputation, I have, even in word, trans 

 gressed the rule of decency, which, under every provocation, it is 

 still the duty of nay station and of my character to observe, though, 

 unconscious, myself, of the offence, I submit to the impartial judg 

 ment of others, and throw myself upon the candour of my country 

 for its forgiveness. This paper has been confined to a demonstra 

 tion of the frailty or the pliability of Mr. Russell s memory, in rela 

 tion to facts altogether recent. As, upon an issue of facts, I do not 

 even now ask that my word alone should pass for conclusive, state 

 ments of Mr. Brent and Mr. Bailey, relative to the production of 

 Mr. RusselPs letter before the House of Representatives, and to 

 the incidents from which Mr. Russell has attempted to extort a 

 charge of disingenuousness against me, are subjoined. My only 

 wish is, that they should be attentively compared with Mr. Rus 

 sell s narrative. 



In another paper I shall prove that Mr. Russell s reminiscences 

 of the proceedings at Ghent, bear the same character of imagina 

 tion substituted for memory ; and that what he calls &quot; the real his 

 tory of the transaction,&quot; [the fishery and Mississippi navigation pro 

 posal,] contradictory to the statement which I had made in my re 

 marks, is utterly destitute of foundation. 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, 



Washington, 13th July, 1$22. 



