[clxiv. 177]

1820 June 22

Emancipation Spanish

?. Interests Opposite

King worst, not best

Look to the United States. There nobody is Most Excellent The service so ill /imperfectly/ done by Royal Majesty, is there so perfectly well done by M r President. Royal Majesty eats or wastes 700,000 a year. M r President eats no more than 6,000 a year. Royal Majesty can not sign a paper without advice. M r President needs no advice. Royal Majesty is irresponsible avowedly Royal Majesty's advisers be they who they may are all of them irresponsible in effect. M r President is not only in declaration but in effect not only in theory but in practice responsible.

John Adams while President, standing on the influence by which he had been constituted President /placed in that/ the influence of understanding on understanding for in those regions there is no other, employed it and with but too much effect in fastening for a time on the liberty of the press those shackles which he saw imposed in England which in that country of real liberty he saw imposed in this country of pretended liberty. For a time and but for a time. Scarcely were the shackles imposed but the mischievousness of them was recognized and his influence ceased. The chair of President ceased to be loaded with that incumbrance. His dominion was thenceforward at an end. But his life was that in danger? Not more than if the direction given to his influence had been exactly opposite. He still lives or did so till t'other day. He outlived his influence but if some part of his reputation by no means the whole of it. In the general estimation of his fellow Citizens he still remained an honest man, though on some points a mistaken one. /an ill-advised one./