“I know not whether it was generosity, or any other virtue, or merely a disposition to receive the postage, that induced the transmission of your favour of 30 December to Mr. Williams of London; for by him it was kindly forwarded to me, and on the first day of this month, to my inexpressible joy, came to hand. It was but so short a time before that I had received your letter of 29 July!—and excepting that, not a line from Quincy later than April of the last year. This last letter had apparently been opened, although the impression of your Seal upon the wax was restored—a circumstance which indicates that it was done in England, where they still affect the appearance of not breaking seals at the Post-Office.
“On this Continent they are less scrupulous about forms. When they open letters, they break the seals, and do not take the trouble of restoring them. They send them open to their address. It reminds me of an anecdote I have lately met with of Prince Kaunitz when he was prime Minister of the Empress Maria Theresa. One of his clerks whose business it was to copy the opened letters, coming to foreign Ministers at Vienna, in the hurry of reclosing a despatch to one of the Envoys, sent him his copy instead of the original. The Envoy went to Prince Kaunitz, showed him the copy that he had received, and complained that the original was withheld from him. The Prince immediately sent for the Clerk, severely reprimanded him in the Envoy’s presence for his blunder, and directed him to bring instantaneously the original despatch. The Clerk brought it accordingly, and the Prince gave it to the Envoy, with many apologies for the trouble occasioned him by the Clerk’s mistake, and assurances of his hope that it would never occur again.”
THE SITUATION IN 1812
John Quincy Adams to his mother, Mrs. John Adams
“St. Petersburg, 24 October, 1812.
“ ... There is now scarcely a spot upon the habitable globe but is desolated by the scourge of War. I see my own Country writhing under it, and every hope of better prospects vanishing before me. If I turn my eyes around me, I see the flame still more intensely burning. Fire and the Sword are ravaging the Country where I reside. Moscow, the antient Metropolis, one of the most magnificent and most populous Cities of Europe in the hands of an invader, and probably the greatest part of it buried in ashes.[2] Numerous inferior Cities daily devoted to the same Destruction, and Millions of People trampled under the feet of oppression of fugitives from the ruins of their habitations, perishing by hunger, in woods or deserts....
“We live indeed in an age when it is not lawful for any civilized Nation to be unprepared for or incapable of War. Never, with an aching Heart I say it, never did the warlike Spirit burn with so intense a flame throughout the civilized World as at this moment. Never was the prospect of its continuing to burn and becoming still fiercer, so terrible as now. It would perhaps not be difficult to show that the State of War has become indispensable to the existence both of the French and British Governments. That in Peace they would both find their destruction....”
John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams
“St. Petersburg, 24 November, 1812.