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Browsing: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 11
Docno: ADMS-04-11-02-0025
Recipient: Adams, Charles
Date: 1795-11-04
John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams
[dateline] Helvoetsluys November 4. 1795
[salute] My dear Brother
Your Letter of September 3d. advising your having drawn the preceding day, bills on me in favour of Daniel Ludlow
& Co: for ƒ7,500. at thirty days sight, was received by our Brother Thomas at the Hague
on the first of this month, and forwarded by him to me, at this place, where it reached
me the next day.1 The bills though mentioned by you as accompanying the Letter, were not presented
for acceptance with it. Should they be presented during my absence from the Hague,
they will be accepted, and paid in my behalf by our brother.
You will find in a letter I have written you since that of May 17th: that besides the thousand Dollars of your own drawn for in these bills, and the other
thousand for which you had previously drawn in favour of William Rogers, & which have
been paid, I shall still remain accountable to you for one hundred dollars, being
the amount of the interest paid last June upon your bonds then in my hands.2 For this sum you will perhaps not think it worth while to draw on me, and I wish
you therefore to charge it to me in account. For you
{ 58 }
will in future keep a regular account open with me, and let me know the state of it
from time to time.
I shall be well satisfied if you conclude upon accepting the offer which you mention
as having been made you for the employment of my property in your hands. It appears
to me fully to comply with both the directions contained in my letter, and you doubtless
ascertained the validity of the security.
You may if you please draw on me for five thousand florins more, subject to the same
employment and directions, and to the same conditions for your agency. You will then
have so much of my little all committed to your discretion, that I have no doubt you will be solicitous to take
the best possible care of it.
For making the draft hereby authorized, I wish you to take the advantage of a favourable
exchange, and if the occasion do not offer at the receipt of this letter, to wait
untill it shall. The Security of clear and valuable real estate has in my mind the
preference above all other as security; and I shall be content to have the whole amount in this, as in the former case,
placed upon the terms, which your letter mentions. But I am particularly attached
likewise to the condition of recalling the principal at pleasure, and should wish
to have it secured in fact as well as in right. For the latter a stipulation is sufficient,
but the former must always depend on the ability & integrity of the borrower. You
cannot be responsable for these, but a prudent attention to the principle may frequently
prevent delays & vexations.
The reason upon which I am desirous to retain a real command of the money, at any
time is this. It often happens in America that transient opportunities occur to employ
money with as much safety, and with an infinitely greater profit, than when placed
at any interest, public or private; and my intention has been and is, that you should
with my property take advantage of any such occasion in my behalf. For the first placing
of the money, the legal interest was all I could expect or wish; but I meant to leave
it in your power at any time to improve an opportunity for doing better. You will
therefore consider my authority for the employment of the money as limited principally
by your own discretion. Upon all the principal for which you draw on me by authority,
you will take five per cent, and also five per cent upon whatever annual income you
shall remit proceeding from it, for your agency. But I shall expect no other charges
whatever the securities may be, or however often changed.
The only general instruction I can give you on the subject is, that
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of course I do not mean any illegal risk should be incurred, nor any risk that can
possibly involve me personally, or any other part of my property. For your commissions you may pay yourself as you go along, either
by the advantage upon the exchange, which will perhaps alone suffise or by the interest
when you shall receive it, or if you cannot conveniently wait for that, by drawing
on me. You will as I formerly requested, remit to Dr: Welsh on my account, whatever interest may remain beyond the discharge of your own
demands on me. If you should at any time have occasion for a power of attorney, you
can either procure a substitution from Dr: Welsh, or write to me, and I will send you one.
Although I am persuaded you will give to the transaction of my affairs, all the attention,
prudence & diligence that I could myself, it is not my intention to load you with
a burden, that shall be altogether without benefit to yourself. If therefore at any
time, your situation should become so advantageous, that my concerns would no longer
on these terms be an object adequate to the trouble they may give you, I shall wait
for notice from you to make such dispositions respecting them as then may be proper.
In separating however the man of business from the Brother, I place the fullest confidence
in the affection of the latter, as well as in the fidelity of the former.—3 With the most cordial return of that affection I remain / Your Brother
[dateline] Novr: 5.
The bills were accepted by our Brother on the 2d: instt: and will be paid at the expiration of their term.4
1. Daniel Ludlow (1750–1813), a New York merchant, had trained with the Amsterdam banking
firm of Daniel Crommelin & Son, to whom he was related. In the 1770s he established
his first partnership in New York, and in 1790 went into business under the name of
Daniel Ludlow & Co. (John Austin Stevens Jr., Colonial New York: Sketches Biographical and Historical 1768–1784, N.Y., 1867, p. 147).
3. CA’s letter outlining his plans for JQA’s money has not been found, but see CA to JQA, 24 April 1796, below. JQA’s faith in CA’s abilities would ultimately prove misplaced. On 29 Sept. 1798 JQA wrote to CA complaining that he had had no report from CA in the previous fifteen months and was therefore turning over all of his financial
affairs to TBA (FC-Pr, APM Reel 131). To AA, JQA commented concerning the situation, “My brother Charles—I know not what to think
of him and his conduct.— To the most urgent sollicitations for an account from him,
I can obtain no answer.— All I know is, that he has acted contrary to my most precise
instructions, and omitted prescribed payments to Dr: Welsh, long before you wrote to him not to make such payments.— I have required him
to account with my brother Thomas, and deliver over to him my securities.” In
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December of that year, AA reported to JQA that CA had confessed to her that he had used JQA’s money to cover one of WSS’s debts and save him from prison, but that CA had been unable to recover the money and was too embarrassed to inform JQA of the situation (8 Oct., 2 Dec. 1798, both Adams Papers).
Docno: ADMS-04-11-02-0026
Recipient: Adams, Abigail
Date: 1795-11-07
John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams
[dateline] Helvoetsluys November 7. 1795.
[salute] My Dear Mother.
Your few lines of August 25th. were forwarded to me from the Hague by my brother, and though short, yet as the tokens
of your remembrance, gave me the customary pleasure.1
A longer interval than I can fully justify to myself has elapsed since I wrote you
last. But having written repeatedly to my father, I have always supposed myself writing
at the same time to you.
As you have been a traveller in these Countries, the date of my letter will inform
you, where I now purpose to go.2 It will not however as I imagine give you any news. My brother remains at the Hague
during my absence which I expect and hope will not be long.
Did you ever know what it is to be cooped up a fortnight or three weeks, in a paltry
little European Seaport, waiting for wind and weather; and cut off from all human
communication, almost as entirely as if you had changed your world?— If you did, could
you possibly speak, write or think of any thing else?— An answer to these questions
will unfold to you the situation in which I now write.
I am therefore unable to give you any news, having lost the current of them myself.
There are indeed rumours which have reached me here of Events not unimportant, and
of apprehensions still more deserving remark, but I know not even upon what authority
their credibility rests. They will however if true be known in America before this
letter can reach you, and I hope soon to write you from a place where information
more authentic may be obtained.
I have received here a Letter from my brother Charles, which announces his marriage,
and wish him all the happiness that his new situation can bestow.3 The step was certainly not precipitate. I hope and trust that it was not taken too
early. As he well knows the additional duties and obligations that it will impose,
I doubt not but he is prepared to discharge them, and will find in the happiness of
his union, new motives to stimulate his industry and to confirm and enlighten his
prudence.
{ 61 } My father in a Letter also received here, expresses his wish that his elder son should
at an early period return home to assume in like manner the cares and enjoy the felicities
of a family state; and as this article seems more particularly proper for discussion
only with the Ladies, I shall take the Liberty of addressing to you its answer.4
It is one of those maxims which Rochefoucauld, by a sanction no less respectable,
is said to have “drawn from Nature,” that “we sometimes pass from Love to Ambition,
but that we never return from Ambition to Love.”5 If this observation be universally true, what respite from the sentence it contains
is to be expected by one who has past from Love, not indeed to Ambition, but at least to its concerns?
Can a widowed heart: an heart which at the monition of parental solicitude and tenderess,
has offered up at the shrine of worldly prudence the painful sacrifice of an ardent
affection, and pronounced by mutual consent and acquiescence an irrevocable separation
from the object of all its hopes and all its wishes; can such an heart readily submit
to the controul of other bonds? When all the pleasing illusions which youth beauty
and real merit have implanted in the breast, as necessary allurements to the purpose
of Love; when they have been radically torn from the bosom by voluntary violence,
can they again be placed there by other hands? If after such wounds have been healed;
after all the impressions once so dearly cherished have been effaced except those
“that last till life shall be no more,” the part be not for ever invulnerable to similar
weapons, then let my conversion to the matrimonial faith not be despaired of as impossible.
Time and absence, the claims of interest, and the calls of duty, an altered scene
and a different action have all contributed to confirm and reward an effort, the extent
of which was never known but to myself. Peace and tranquility have long since returned,
and though attended with the dulness of blunted sensations rather exempt from pain
than conscious of pleasure, still they are guests too valuable easily to be dismissed
again after having been once appreciated by their loss. But to sacrifice the choice
of the Heart, is all that prudence or duty can require; it cannot, it will not receive
from my own controul, or from any other the imposition of a different choice. It must henceforth pursue its own course; if it can choose again, its electron
must be spontaneous, without receiving any direction from the will.6
{ 62 } As to a marriage of convenience, it will be time enough to think of that at five and forty, should that age be attained.
I hope you will not think me romantic. The deliberate sacrifice of a strong passion
to prudential and family considerations is indeed so widely distant from the orthodox
doctrine of Romance, that there is not I believe a novel-writer of the age, who can
get rid of such an incident without the help of a pistol or a bowl, a pendent willow
or a purling stream.7 But the real lessons of life are seldom to be found in novels. I have lived through
the operation, and never for an instant had an idea of doing otherwise. At the same
time I must acknowledge, that my success was perhaps principally due to facilities
in its execution which might have failed, and which were more serviceable to my intentions
than flattering to my pride.
You have now the clear exposition of my sentiments and principles, on this subject.
The inference as far as it is my personal concern, need not be here drawn, but may
be left to your own judgment.
But if the knight has lost his Dulcinea, the Squire it appears by your Postscript
is more fortunate. On receiving your billet I turned down the last lines, so important
to Tilley, and gave him the paper, that he might read them himself. He said nothing:
but I examined his countenance while he was reading, and envied him his feelings.
He is indeed “true as the needle to the Pole,” and I wish he could improve for his
sweetheart in my service, as much as she will for him in your’s.8 He has not yet got over the awkwardness of his new service; but his Master is in
the same predicament and knows therefore how to be indulgent. But he has become very
useful, performs very well all his necessary services, and is especially valuable
for his Honesty, as well as for the goodness of his temper. He had just got well and
easily through the small-pox, before I was called on my present expedition
I am with the utmost gratitude and affection your Son
[signed] John Q. Adams.
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs: A. Adams.”; endorsed: “J Q A Novbr 7 1795.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 128.
1. Not found, but the note was perhaps enclosed with JA’s letter to JQA of the same date, above.
2. Hellevoetsluis was a common embarkation point for crossing the English Channel. When
AA and JA spent several weeks traveling in the Netherlands in 1786, they stopped in the town
en route to The Hague and were honored with “the ringing of the bells, and a military
guard to wait upon us” (vol. 7:315, 317).
3. Not found.
4. See JA to JQA, 25 Aug. 1795, above.
5. François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, Maxim 37.
7. “Darkling I sigh, and feed with dismal thoughts / My anxious mind, or sometimes mournful
verse / Indite, and sing of groves and myrtle shades, / Or desp’rate lady near a purling
stream, / Or lover pendent on a willow-tree” (John Philips, “The Splendid Shilling,”
lines 101–105).
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, 2018.
http://www.masshist.org/apde2/
http://www.masshist.org/apde2/