You remember the four ships ordered by Congress to be built, and the four captains appointed by Washington, Talbot, and Truxton, and Barry, &c, to carry an ambassador to Algiers, and protect our commerce in the Mediterranean.  I have always imputed this measure to you; for several reasons.  First, because you frequently proposed it to me while we were at Paris, negotiating together for peace with the Barbary powers.  Secondly, because I knew that Washington and Hamilton were not only indifferent about a navy, but averse to it.  There was no Secretary of the Navy; only four Heads of department.  You were Secretary of State; Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury; Knox, Secretary of War; and I believe Bradford was Attorney General.  I have always suspected that you and Knox were in favor of a navy.  If Bradford was so, the majority was clear.  But Washington, I am confident, was against it in his judgment.  But his attachment to Knox, and his deference to your opinion, for I know he had a great regard for you, might induce him to decide in favor of you and Knox, even though Bradford united with Hamilton in opposition to you.  That Hamilton was averse to the measure, I have personal evidence; for while it was pending, he came in a hurry and a fit of impatience to make a visit to me.  He said, he was likely to be called upon for a large sum of money to build ships of war, to fight the Algerines, and he asked my opinion of the measure.  I answered him that I was clearly in favor of it.  For I had always been of opinion, from the commencement of the Revolution, that a navy was the most powerful, the safest, and the cheapest national defence for this country.  My advice, therefore, was, that as much of the revenue as could possibly be spared, should be applied to the building and equipping of ships.  The conversation was of some length, but it was manifest in his looks and in his air, that he was disgusted at the measure, as well as at the opinion that I had expressed.

Mrs. Knox not long since wrote a letter to Doctor Waterhouse, requesting him to procure a commision for her son, in the navy; ‘that navy,’ says her ladyship, ‘of which his father was the parent.’  ‘For,’ says she, ’I have frequently heard General Washington say to my husband, the navy was your child.’  I have always believed it to be Jefferson’s child, though Knox may have assisted in ushering it into the world.  Hamilton’s hobby was the army.  That Washington was averse to a navy, I had full proof from his own lips, in many different conversations, some of them of length, in which he always insisted that it was only building and arming ships for the English. ’Si quid novisti rectius istis, candidus imperii; si non, his utere mecum.’

If I am in error in any particular, pray correct your humble servant.

John Adams.

LETTER CLXVII.—­TO DOCTOR COOPER, November 2, 1822

TO DOCTOR COOPER.