Quincy, April 23, 1818.

DEAR SIR,

YOUR letter of the 5th has been received. Your judgment of Mr. Wirt's biography of my friend, Mr. Henry, is in exact unison with my own. I have read it with more delight than Scott's romances in verse and prose, or Miss Porter's Scottish Chiefs, and other novels.

I am sorry you have introduced me. I could wish my own name forgotten, if I could develope the true causes of the rise and progress of American revolution and independence.

Why have Harmodius and Brutus, Coligni and Brederode, Cromwell and Napoleon failed, and a thousand others? Because human nature cannot bear prosperity. Success always intoxicates patriots as well as other men; and because birth and wealth always, in the end, overcome popular and vulgar envy, more surely than public interest.

The causes of our parties during and since the revolution, would lead me too far.

You cannot ask me too many questions. I will answer them all according as strength shall be allowed to your aged and infirm friend,

JOHN ADAMS.