of an old Servant would not have been aspersd, nor wd it have been said, as I am informd it has, that he had been bribd to desert his Country.  It is his honorable Lot to have Enemies.  Honorable, because he flatters himself his Enemies are among the weak & the wicked.  I leave my own Character, under God, in the Care of my virtuous fellow Citizens.  I will contend for Dr Lees, because I am his Friend; and I am his friend, because I have long had abundant Reason to be convincd that he is a Friend to our Country.  I have said I may be thought partial to him.  Be pleasd then to take the Testimony of another, and show it to his Friends and his Enemies.  “Your old friend, says one, is a Man of Honor and Integrity.”  “He has been of opinion that the publick Monies have been too freely issued here, & has often opposd it.”  Let me remark here that it is no Wonder he has exposd himself to the Resentment of a Man thro whose hands the Chief of the money passed.  “Insinuations, I have been told, have been made at Court against your old friend that he was too friendly to the English, too much attachd to Ld Shelburne & even that he corresponded with his Lordship & communicated Intelligence to him.  This, whoever suggested it, I am perfectly confident was a cruel Calumny.  You and I have had opportunity to know his invariable Attachment to our Cause long before Hostilities commencd & I have not a Color of Ground for Suspicion that from that time to this he has deviated from the Cause of his Country in Thought Word or Deed.”

You may tell the Friends of Virtue and Liberty, that the Letter from which the foregoing Extracts are taken was written to me by one in whom they have always very justly placed great Confidence.  I could transcribe more Passages which mention Dr Lee as “a worthy Character,” the unwarrantable Lengths to which the Animosities of interrested Men have been carried against him, & the Inveteracy of many Subaltern & collateral Characters but I think I have given enough to satisfy every reasonable Man.

Adieu.

TO MRS. ADAMS.

[Ms., Samuel Adams Papers.  Lenox Library.]

Philada Mar 23 1779

MY DEAR BETSY

In Answer to a part of yours of the 20th of Feb. which I overlookd, I will transcribe an Extract of a Letter which I wrote last December to the Council of Massachusetts State.  You may show it to my Friends & inform that I am still determind to return to Boston in April or May—­there to resign the place I hold as Secretary and to get my self excusd from any further Service here.  No “Bribe” shall prevail on me to desert my Country.  I will still exert my poor Abilities in her Service.  But as I am satisfied that there are others who are much more capable of serving her in this Department than I am, I may be allowd to say, that after near five years absense from my Family, and in a Climate unfriendly to my