Adams, John, as Minister to Great Britain

Autograph letter signed ("John Adams"), 3 pages, 4to (8 x 6 3/8 in.; 200 x 163 mm), on paper with Britannia watermark, London, 3 June 1786, to Dr. Samuel Williams, lamenting British apathy for American culture; remnants of album mount and hinge on second page, small fold separations at center of both leaves, touching a word or two, light soiling to blank verso of fourth page.  Blue cloth folding case, blue morocco spine.

"I am sorry to say that it appears to me the Separation between the two Nations must and will be final and perpetual in affection as well as in Laws," Adams writes ruefully to the affable Dr. Samuel Williams, who was the Hollis Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy at Harvard under whom Adams's sons, John Quincy and Charles, were studying. Adams bemoans the distrust and apathy engendered between the two sovereign nations because of the War of Independence. "Dr. Gordons Voyage to England, and his Intention of remaining here, have probably diminished the Number of Subscribers in America, and I doubt whether he will meet that Encouragement in Europe which he expects." The English born clergyman William Gordon was pastor of the Third Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts. He took an active part in public measures during the Revolution, including the post of chaplain to the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts. He returned to England in 1786 and published his epistolary history between American and British correspondents entitled  History of the Rise, Progress and Establishment of Independence of the United States in 1788, which was long regarded a faithful narrative, resonant with the passion and urgency of the Revolution.

Adams's pessimistic outlook for the success of Dr. Gordon's noteworthy history is rooted in the fact that: "Nobody thrives, no Book will sell in this Country, unless it is encouraged by the Court ... There is a general Disposition to present every American Work and Character from acquiring Celebration. Every Thing American is so unpopular, that even Printers and Booksellers are afraid of disobliging their Customers by having any Thing to do with it. Nothing of the Kind will sell in Prose or Verse."

In all fairness, Adams doesn't heap the blame entirely on the British. "It is a Pitty that because a People has been divided in halves, that the two Parts should be distinct to be forever Rivals and Ennemies at heart, and I cannot say that our own Countrymen, have in all Things acted a rational part."  Yet as to the British, Adams observes that those who had been sympathetic during the war years to Americans, now rankle with the bitterness of the defeat and the divide. He closes by remarking: "Yet I do think it has been and is in the Power of this Cabinet, to restore a real Friendship between the two Peoples. But I think now there is very little Chance of it because those very Men who acquired their Fame, Popularity and power by professing friendship to Us are now at least as bitter against Us as the others." Yet, Adams will slog on in his ministerial mission. "All this however should not prevent us from doing our Duty, in all Points. We shall find our interests in it at least."