Beschreibung:

ADAMS, John. Letter signed ("John Adams") to Mr. Pomeroy, Montezillo, 7 August 1820. 2½ pages 4to, center crease repaired, neatly silked . LITERARY SOCIETIES, INDIAN CORN AND INESCAPABLY, POLITICS: "IN THIS COUNTRY, YOU KNOW, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO EXCLUDE POLITICS FROM CONVERSATION IN ANY SOCIETY..." Adams fondly recalls raising the ire of his literary friends and touts the superiority of American Indian corn to European species. "You allude Sir...to some of the happiest days of my life. Those which I passed with the Trustees and other Literary Societies in Boston and Cambridge. The relinquishment of which has been to me one of the severest privations of my Old Age. In this country, you know, it is impossible to exclude Politicks entirely from Conversation in any society, and I found that my opinions and sentiments upon National and State Policy were not in perfect harmony with these Gentlemen who composed those societies. And I felt I was a restraint upon Conversation. But this alone would not have induced me to resign, had not the Infirmities of Advanced Age--and certain considerations of Domestic Economy--rendered it impossible for me to discharge with punctuality the duties of my station..." Adams also makes an impassioned defense for the dietary virtues and even the aesthetic beauty of America's Indian corn. "The Beef and Pork of this Country, well fatted with Indian Corn or meal, is far preferable to any other I ever found in Europe, excepting in Spain where their Pork is fatted with the same grain, though of a smaller species, and perhaps excepting some Beef in France which is fatted on Lucery grass." He recalls his visits to all of the great estates in England, and "in walking around these Splendid scenes...I never failed to regret that I could not see an American Cornfield." If he was ever "a Gentleman of Fortune," Adams says wistfully, capable of laying out grounds of his own, "I would not fail to distribute half a dozen fields of corn at proper intervals..."