About the year 1799, the friends of liberty in America were greatly alarmed by the advancement of principles disgraceful to America, and by a practice less liberal in many respects than under the monarchical form of the British government. Nothing else was the subject of conversation and my father who though never active in politics, at the same time never concealed his sentiments, uttered them freely in conversation, and they were of course opposed to the proceedings of the administration at the time. Added to this Mr. Thomas Cooper formerly of Manchester, and who at that time had undertaken for a short period, at the request of the printer, to edit a newspaper then printed at Northumberland, had published some very severe strictures on the conduct of the administration, which were soon after published in a pamphlet, under the title of Political Essays. By many my father might be ignorantly supposed as the prompter on the occasion, as Mr. Cooper lived at that time with my father, and by those who knew better, it was made the ostensible ground of objection to my father, to conceal the real one. In truth he saw none of the essays until they were printed, nor was he consulted by Mr. Cooper upon any part of them. The consequence was, that all the bigotry and party zeal of that violent period was employed to injure him, and misrepresent his words and actions. He was represented as intriguing for offices for himself and his friend, and as an enemy to the government which they said protected him, while men who were themselves but newly naturalized, or the immediate descendants of foreigners, bestowed upon him the epithet of Alien, an epithet then used by the government party as a term of reproach, though the country was principally indebted to the capital, industry and enterprize of foreigners for the many improvements then carrying on. Such was the effect of all these slanderous reports, and such was the character of the administration, that it was intimated to my father, from Mr. Adams himself, that he wished he would abstain from saying any thing on politics, lest he should get into difficulty. The Alien law which was passed under that administration, was at that time in operation, and a man without being convicted of, or even positively charged with, any offence, might have been sent out of the country at a moment’s warning, not only without a trial, but without the right of remonstrance. It was likewise hinted to my father as he has himself stated, that he was one of the persons contemplated when the law was passed, so little did they know of his real character and disposition. This occasioned my father to write a set of letters to the inhabitants of Northumberland; in which he expressed his sentiments fully on all the political questions at that time under discussion. They had the effect of removing the unfavourable impressions that had been made on the minds of the liberal and candid, and procured him many friends.