it
necessary to do this, ought he not to have rendered an account to
the public. They had a right to expect it of him. In that tete-a-tete
account, he says, "Some measures were the effect of imperious necessity,
much against my inclination." What measures does Mr. Adams mean, and
what is the imperious necessity to which he alludes? "Others (says he)
were measures of the Legislature, which, although approved when passed,
were never previously proposed or recommended by me." What measures,
it may be asked, were those, for the public have a right to know the
conduct of their representatives? "Some (says he) left to my discretion
were never executed, because no necessity for them, in my judgment, ever
occurred."

What does this dark apology, mixed with accusation, amount to, but
to increase and confirm the suspicion that something was wrong?
Administration only was possessed of foreign official information,
and it was only upon that information communicated by him publicly or
privately, or to Congress, that Congress could act; and it is not in
the power of Mr. Adams to show, from the condition of the belligerent
powers, that any imperious necessity called for the warlike and
expensive measures of his Administration.

What the correspondence between Administration and Rufus King in London,
or Quincy Adams in Holland, or Berlin, might be, is but little known.
The public papers have told us that the former became cup-bearer from
the London underwriters to Captain Truxtun,(1) for which, as Minister
from a neutral nation, he ought to have been censured. It is, however,
a feature that marks the politics of the Minister, and hints at the
character of the correspondence.

1 Thomas Truxtun (1755-1822), for having captured the French
frigate "L'Insurgente," off Hen's Island, 1799, was
presented at Lloyd's coffee-house with plate to the value of
600 guineas. Rufus King (1755-1827), made Minister to England
in 1796, continued under Adams, and for two years under
Jefferson's administration.--_Editor._

I know that it is the opinion of several members of both houses of
Congress, that an enquiry, with respect to the conduct of the late
Administration, ought to be gone into. The convulsed state into which
the country has been thrown will be best settled by a full and fair
exposition of the conduct of that Administration, and the causes and
object of that conduct. To be deceived, or to remain deceived, can