John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

23. V:30 Saturday.

I answered this morning a Letter from Richard Rush, which I have had three or four days upon hand, and it was a painful operation— I fear he is irretrievably lost, and that his Passion to go again to England, which has haunted him ever since his return from that country, has at last turned his head— In his desperate plunge to obtain it, he has thrust himself uncalled for, rashly upon the controversy respecting the withdrawal of the public deposits from the Bank of United States, and the manner in which he has intruded upon the dispute is as exceptionable as the mode in which he is conducting it— If I am to believe his Letter to me, he has done this without one forethought of the storm which it would bring down upon his head—and he complains of the persecution of him by the Bank and its friends, as if he had given no provocation to any mortal man— His wild, unjust and foolish onset upon the Bank will go far to demolish Anti-Masonry in Pennsylvania— It will destroy every particle of his influence upon that question which has been great, and will turn all his arguments in favour of that cause into sophisms against it— There is danger that his reputation with the Anti-Masons will mislead many of them into a support of his present blunders, and sink their cause in the struggle to keep him afloat— I have found it exceedingly difficult to give him my Sentiments upon his conduct, without unnecessarily wounding his feelings, which are sensitive to an extreme— But I had no middle 188course to pursue, and I have given him my opinions upon his vagaries with as much delicacy as possible, but with a certainty of losing his friendship forever— His reply, will, I have no doubt be frantic— “Lean not on Earth, twill pierce thee to the heart!” this was the motto of a mourning ring of my dear Mother’s, when she lost her daughter Susanna— O! how often in the course of my life, have I been reminded of it— And friendship! what friendship have I ever formed; but it has been disgraced by misconduct, or betrayed for sordid interests— There are exceptions—rare, indeed— Within the last four Months I have lost four friends upon whom I did place some reliance—two by misconduct, two by treachery— May I at least die without ever losing one by misconduct or treachery of my own— I walked to the Capitol before dinner— Met Peter Force going there— R H. Wilde of Georgia, Mr Wardwell of New-York and Elisha Whittlesey of Ohio at the House, and C. Hughes, with Sir Valentine Duke a Surgeon in the British Royal Navy, as I was returning home— Also George Washington Campbell of Tennessee, now one of the Commissioners of French claims. I had not seen him for fifteen years, and he has grown so old in looks that I should not have known him— I paid a visit also to Mrs Joseph Russell at Brown’s Hotel— He was not at home— I wrote in the Evening.