The part, which I have had to act, and the uncandid treatment, which I have received in this matter will, I trust, justify me in being thus explicit, for I am conscious that every part of my political conduct has had for its object, the public welfare.

I am, with the highest respect,

Your humble servant,

E. Gerry.

Whether this declaration was intended to aid, or prevent his election, his friends would not withdraw his name, and notwithstanding a powerful competition, they succeeded in electing him on the second ballot, by a small majority.

In his letter of acceptance to the governour, he says, "I am deeply impressed with this honourable testimony of the electors of Middlesex, after I had repeatedly informed them of my declining the appointment. This however has placed me in a situation, which of all others I wished to avoid; being thereby reduced to the disagreeable alternative of disappointing my fellow citizens, who have conferred on me their suffrages, or of filling a place, which the most cogent reasons had urged me to decline. Under these circumstances, in the critical state of public affairs, I have preferred the latter, being determined to sacrifice every personal consideration, to the acceptance of the office; that desirous as I am of the establishment of a

federal government, no act of mine may have the least appearance of impeding it."

The sincerity of his views is made more apparent by a letter to his confidential friend.

MR. GERRY TO GENERAL WARREN.

CAMBRIDGE, FEBRUARY 15, 1789.

MY DEAR SIR,

I suspect you will consider me as manifesting a disposition to change my principles, or of a want of resolution to adhere to them, when I tell you it is probable I shall go to congress. Indeed if this be your opinion, you will alter it when I assure you of all political events in which I have been interested, my election I consider as most unfortunate to myself. I had not, during its pendency, the most remote idea of acceptance, but thought of it with horror.

I now think the measure one of all others that threatens destruction to my peace, interest and welfare, and yet such has been the torrent of abuse against me, that no person here will listen to my declining; my best friends say they shall be sacrificed by my refusal, and that I myself shall be considered as an obstinate opposer of the government, which is an opinion that has recently been much circulated.

Should I decline then, I am to be considered as

a non-juror in Great Britain, or an Irish Catholic, and sooner than so live, I would quit the continent. In accepting, I see nothing but two years of extreme disagreeables. To gratify my friends, and to avoid the consequences menaced, I have selected a certain positive evil; whether it be the least of the two, I am yet to learn.

In another letter to the same gentleman, after having taken his seat in congress, he thus writes: "I cannot accept your compliments, for I assure you my situation here is a very awkward one. I foresaw that it would be impossible for me to feel easy in a branch of the federal legislature where I had few or no connexions or friends. Whatever the state of my case may be upon republican principles, I cannot separate it in my mind from an idea of degradation, when I reflect that the flower of my life has been spent in the arduous business of the revolution, and see a preference given to those who have endured very few of its toils; but we both know that republics were never remarkable for the constancy of their attachment, and therefore private life is the place in which we are most to look for happiness, especially when the road to political honours lies through the mazes of intrigue, servility and corruption. I have had so much to do with legislation, that I feel an aversion to any further occupation of that kind, and am satisfied that retirement would most contribute to my own and my family's happiness, therefore I fear not any

mortification from my enemies; but from my friends I do indeed experience it, by their urging me to places, which are neither pleasant, lucrative nor honourable. Their measures put me in trammels; had I declined, it would have been said and believed that I was a determined enemy to the federal government, and my friends would have been reproached for supporting a man, who would not attend congress to procure the amendments he had warmly insisted upon. Indeed I should have been obliged to leave the state, to seek a more agreeable residence, which could only have been done by the sacrifice of much property; I have therefore been obliged, by accepting this place, to submit to a temporary mortification to counteract the malignity of inveterate foes.

"I cannot but smile at the art or folly, for I know not which is the true cause, of those who represent me as being elated at my appointment, when the acceptance is indeed forced upon me by circumstances, which operate as a great injustice to myself. As to the new government, I am and always was a federalist, but not in their sense of the term. I feel bound in honour to support a system that has been ratified by a majority of my fellow citizens; to oppose it would be to sow the seeds of civil war, and to lay a foundation for military tyranny. I shall be a spectator merely, until I can form some adequate idea of men and mea

CHAPTER IV.

First Congress of United States.........Parties therein....Speech on amendments to the Constitution........ The public creditors........Employments of private life........ Origin of the Democratic party........ Commentary on the account given by the biographer of Washington.........French revolution.........British treaty.........Chosen to the Electoral College of Massachusetts........Votes for Mr. Adams.......... Correspondence with Mr. Jefferson on the election........... With a lady.

THE government of the United States, under the federal constitution, was organized at NewYork in April 1789. There was a charm of novelty in its arrangements well calculated to aid its intrinsic merits, and secure a propitious popularity.

Congress however like the nation itself, was composed of men, who in the national or state conventions, or in the primary assemblies of the people, had taken opposite views of the new frame of government, and formed different estimates of its worth. Principles, which were brought into the earlier discussion of its character, had lost none of their force, and passions, which collision excited, if they had in some degree subsided, were certainly not extinguished. Honest men of all parties were disposed to give the new system a fair setting off, and to provide all reasonable equipments for its long and profitable voyage. Opposition was unorganized. Indeed as the constitution was the supreme law of the land, they who objected to its