187. John Adams.
Philadelphia, 4 June, 1777.
I wish I could know whether your season is cold or warm, wet or dry, fruitful or barren whether you had late frosts, whether those frosts have hurt the fruit, the flax, the corn or vines, etc. We have a fine season here and a bright prospect of abundance.
You will see, by the inclosed papers in a letter from my friend Parsons, a very handsome narration of one of the prettiest exploits of this war, a fine retaliation of the Danbury mischief. Meigs, who was before esteemed a good officer, has [acquired] by this expedition a splendid reputation. You will see by the same papers, too, that the writers here in opposition to the Constitution of Pennsylvania are making factious use of my name and lucubration; much against my will, I assure you, for although I am no admirer of the form of this government, yet I think it is agreeable to the body of the people, and if they please themselves they will please me. And I would not choose to be impressed into the service of one party or the other, and I am determined I will not enlist. Besides, it is not very genteel in these writers to put my name to a letter[174] from which I cautiously withheld it myself. However, let them take their own way; I shall not trouble myself about it.
I am growing better by exercise and air.
FOOTNOTES:
[174] This was addressed to George Wythe and printed under the title Thoughts on Government. Works of John Adams, Vol. I., p. 208.