390 APPENDIX. 



Who will paint the argument in the council chambers in Bos- 

 ton, in the month of February, 1761, between Mr. Gridley and 

 Mr. Otis, upon the question of Writs of Assistants ? I dare not 

 draw the characters of Gridley or Otis. The latter, as if he had 

 been inspired with a spirit of prophecy, laid open to the view of a 

 crowded audience all that has since happened in America. Here 

 the Revolution commenced. Then and there the child was born. 



Who will paint Samuel Adams at the head of ten thousand free- 

 men and volunteers, with his quivering paralytic hands in the 

 council chamber shaking the souls of Hutchinson and Dalrymple, 

 and driving down to the Castle the two offending regiments, which 

 Lord North ever afterwards called " Sam Adams's two regiments " ? 



I have known enough of your discretion to believe it unneces- 

 sary to caution you to consider this letter as confidential from 



Your friend, 



JOHN TRUMBULL, Esq. JOHN ADAMS. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON TO COLONEL TRUMBULL. 



MONTICELLO, January 10, 1817. 



DEAR SIR, Our last mail brought me your favor of Decem- 

 ber 26. The lapse of twenty-eight years which you count since 

 our first intimacies has diminished in nothing my affection for you. 

 We learn, as we grow old, to value early friendships, because the 

 new-made do not fit us so closely. It is an age since I have heard 

 of Mrs. Church. Yet her place in my bosom is as warm as ever ; 

 and so is Kitty's. I think I learned from some quarter that Mrs. 

 Cosway was retired to a religious house somewhere. And Madame 

 de Corny, what is become of her ? Is she living or dead ? Thus 

 you see how your letter calls up recollections of our charming 

 coterie of Paris, now scattered and estranged, but not so in either 

 my memory or affection. It has made* me forget, too, that the tor- 

 pitude of age, with a stiffening wrist, (the effect of its Paris dislo- 

 cation,) warns me to write letters seldom and short. To the object 

 of yours, therefore. You think you need a borrowed patronage at 

 Washington. No, my dear sir, your own reputation, your talent, 

 known to all, is a patronage with all ; to which any addition 

 offered would be impertinent, if you did not ask it ; and mine es- 

 pecially is now obsolete. The turns of the magic lanthern have 

 shifted all the figures ; and those it now presents are strangers to 



