John Adams to Charles Storer, March 20, 1790

New York March 20 th 1790.

My dear Charles.

There is nothing improper in your application of the 23 d of Feb y nor should I find fault
with your seeking honor or emolument. Every man has a right to seek both. M r Remsen has been many years in the office of foreign affairs
and has qualifications and merits which preclude all competition: M r Alden is another in a similar predicament, so that there is
not a possibility of your success in your first thought.— I have shown your letter to
M r Jay who is your friend and would join me in any attempt
to procure you any thing attainable. A Consul abroad without a capital and without a
salary would not perhaps answer. A secretaryship to a minister abroad is but poor
promotion, and perhaps this could not be obtained. The executive authority is so wholly
out of my sphære, and it is so delicate a thing for me to meddle in, that I avoid it as
much as possible— Yet I would recommend you to the President, in friendly terms for any
thing you may think of, for which you are capable, provided it were not in competition
with others whose pretensions were better founded. Nor do I think meanly of your
qualifications or pretensions. You will find humiliations enough in a state of
dependence in any subordinate executive department: But you must judge for yourself.
Your family, education, manners are all agreable and would recommend you Clerkships in
the public offices are a bare subsistence, and are so humble stations, and have so
little chance for rising that I suppose you could not reconcile yourself to one of them.
Let me know however your further thought.

I am with great esteem and regard yours

J Adams.