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Browsing: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 6
Docno: ADMS-04-06-02-0073
Recipient: Adams, Abigail
Date: 1785-07-07
Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams
[dateline] Paris July 7. 1785
[salute] Dear Madam
I had the honour of writing you on the 21st. of June, but the letter being full of
treason, has waited a private conveiance. Since that date there has been received
for you at Auteuil a cask of about 60. gallons of wine. I would have examined it's
quality and have ventured to decide on it's disposal, but it is in a cask within a
cask, and therefore cannot be got at but by operations which would muddy it and disguise
it's quality. As you probably know what it is, what it cost, &c. be so good as to
give me your orders on the subject and they shall be complied with.
Since my last I can add another chapter to the history of the redacteur of the Journal
de Paris.1 After the paper had been discontinued about three weeks, it appeared again, but announcing
in the first sentence a changement de domicile of the redacteur, the English of which
is that the redaction of the paper had been taken from the imprisoned culprit, and
given to another. Whether the imprisonment of the former has been made to cease, or
what will be the last chapter of his history I cannot tell.—I love energy in government
dearly.—It is evident it was become necessary on this occasion, and that a very daring
spirit has lately appeared in this country, for notwithstanding the several examples
lately made of suppressing the London papers, suppressing the Leyden gazette, imprisoning
Beaumarchais,2 and imprisoning the redacteur of the journal, the author of the Mercure of the last
week has had the presumption, speaking of the German newspapers, to say “car les journaux
de ce pays-la ne sont pas forcés { 224 } de s'en tenir à juger des hemistiches, ou à annoncer des programes academiques.” Probably
he is now suffering in a jail the just punishments of his insolent sneer on this mild
government, tho' as yet we do not know the fact.
The settlement of the affairs of the Abbé Mably is likely to detain his friends Arnoud
and Chalut in Paris the greatest part of the summer. It is a fortunate circumstance
for me, as I have much society with them.—What mischeif is this which is brewing anew
between Faneuil hall and the nation of God-dem-mees?3 Will that focus of sedition be never extinguished? I apprehend the fire will take
thro' all the states and involve us again in the displeasure of our mother country.
I have the honour to be with the most perfect esteem Madam your most obedt. & most
humble servt.
[signed] Th: Jefferson
RC (Adams Papers); docketed in an unknown hand: “Mr Jefferson 1795.” The “9” is faint and may be an
incomplete “8” rather than an error.
2. Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais had been imprisoned at St. Lazare for a few days in March
1785, at the insistance of a member of the royal family who became offended at Beaumarchais'
vigorous defense of his controversial and extraordinarily popular comedy, Le mariage de Figaro (JQA, Diary, 1:233–234, and note 3, 236).
3. Between 10 April and 5 May, competing groups of merchants, mechanics, and manufacturers
held several meetings in Boston's Faneuil Hall and filled the local press with polemic
essays in an attempt to formulate an effective policy to counter the flood of imported
British manufactures that was disrupting the city's economy. The protests led to the
passage of a navigation act and a protective tariff by the Massachusetts legislature
in June and July. Jensen, The New Nation, p. 290–293; Mass., Acts and Laws, 1784–1785, p. 439–443, 453–457; JQA to JA, 3 Aug., note 3, below. “God-dem-mees” (Goddems; Goddams) was a synonym for Englishmen in common
use by the nineteenth century (OED).
Cite web page as: Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, ed.C. James Taylor. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2016.
http://www.masshist.org/apde2/
http://www.masshist.org/apde2/