Adams Family Correspondence, volume 12
th1798
I received your kind favour of Febry 25
this morning.1 the badness of the roads I
suppose was the reason it did not reach me sooner. 438 The Maderia I do not
want to be sent here. it is for Home consumption I have no occasion for it here. there
are some other articles I should wish you to secure for me immediatly half Hundred Coffe
and a Hunderd & half Brown sugar; which will immediaty rise, for I see not but war
is inevitable. This morning for the first time dispatches have arrived from our Envoys
the latest Letter is of the 8 Jan’ry and is a joint one,
informing that they had not been received, nor was there the least Probability that they
should be. the other dispatches which are all in Cypher and pretty Volluminous are now
decyphering
In a private Letter from mr Pinckney to Mr Rutledge of Nov’br 16th he says the French papers
are full of abuse against them. in one of which they call mr Pinckney a “Wretch sold to
England”2 every deception is made use
of to exasperate the Publick mind againt America & to prepare them for Hostilities.
every paper being under the despotism of the directory, not a line can be publishd to
undeceive them. they had not been formerly orderd a way, but knew not how soon it might
be the case.3 there is a decree in
agitation in the counsel of 500 which the commissoners expect will be carried respecting
Commerce, the details of which I cannot give you as the secretary took the papers to
have them translated. they will however be immediatly sent to Congress, and as they are
of concequence to be known by our Merchants, they will no doubt be made publick— As the
dispatches came by way of Boston no doubt Private Letters have reachd mr Gerrys
Friends
I see by the last centinal as Sterns said on an other occasion—you
manage those things much better in Boston.4 A publick Dinner was much wiser than a Publick Ball. I am delighted with some of the
volunteers Toasts.5 but my dear sir, let
me whisper to you, and to you only, That untill the News respecting the fullfillment of
the Treaty with spain, on the part of spain, had been officially notified to our
Government, after the Rasscally treatment offerd to it by Don
cats Paw as Peter calls him “I think it would have been better for publick
Characters—to have declined accepting the invitation” to dine with the Consul. at
Present no invitation goes to his Majestys Representitive here, even to “Eat pork and
Beans” but the Natural good humour & sociability of our Countrymen given to
Hospitality do not always look at objects with a publick Eye, whilst the Agents of
foreign powers, do not take a single step without their views, and their representations
are made accordingly, thus at the last Levee, 439 the don presented
himself, and said to the secretary of War, [“]I hope sir I
shall soon smoak the calmut of Peace with you” Whilst the other Ministers are constant
in their attendance the don has made himself scarce. once only has he been at the
drawing Room; it is whisperd here that he is recalld. I do not report it as
Authentic6
since I began this Letter I find in Browns paper under the Boston
Head of 26 Febry the extract of the Letter from mr Gerry, by
which you learn the purport of what I have already written.7
I will write you all that may be known as soon as the dispatches are decypherd
Inclosed is a Bill of some Grass seed which you will be so good as
to Let Dr Tufts know of as soon as it arrives, and what ever money you expend for us,
When you let us know, the P. will give an order on Genll
Lincoln to pay you. we shall want some English porter. any thing You may suppose will
rise pray be so good as to secure some for us. my Love to mrs smith and Children— I am
Sorry to hear they have been unwell
I am dear Sir / affectionatly / yours
RC (MHi:Smith-Carter Family Papers); endorsed: “Philaa. 5 March 98 / A. Adams—” and “answd. 21st.”
See note 6, below.
On 16 Nov. 1797 Charles Cotesworth Pinckney wrote a letter to his
brother-in-law Edward Rutledge (1749–1800), a member of the South Carolina
legislature, in which he despaired of the commissioners achieving their aims and
reported that French attacks against American shipping continued unabated. The letter
was enclosed in another of 17 Nov. to John Rutledge Jr., Edward’s nephew and a member
of the House, with instructions that its contents be shared with his fellow
congressmen and Timothy Pickering (MHi:Pickering Papers;
ANB
;
Biog. Dir. Cong.
).
An excerpt of AA’s letter, beginning with “This
morning for the first time” and continuing to this point, was printed in the Boston Price-Current, 15 March 1798, as “Extract of letter from Philadelphia, dated March 5, ’98.” Pinckney’s and Edward Rutledge’s names
were withheld, however, and the document was instead referred to as “a private letter,
from Paris.”
“They order, said I, this matter better in France” (Laurence
Sterne, A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. By Mr.
Yorick, 2 vols., London, 1768, 1:1).
A dinner celebrating George Washington’s birthday was held at the
Boston Concert Hall on 22 February. Reported in the Boston Columbian Centinel, 24 Feb., several toasts were made in support of the
administration and Federalists, particularly in reference to the Lyon-Griswold affair,
among them: “The Hon. Roger Griswold, and the
fifty-two Gentlemen in Congress:— May their exertions to
rid the National Legislature of a beastly character, be remembered by their
constituents.”
In his letter to AA of 25 Feb. (Adams Papers), Smith commented on the Lyon-Griswold affair
and the Adamses’ requests for supplies. He also described a dinner he had attended
with John (Juan) Stoughton (1745–1820), the Spanish consul at Boston, and with “the
Govr &c &c. & a large company.” Smith
informed AA that “after dinner the Consul in
a formal manner, inform’d the company, that he had the
pleasure to announce to them officially, that the posts
on the Missisippi wou’d be deliver’d up in March & all 440 disputes adjusted.” In accordance with the terms
of the Pinckney Treaty, some Spanish frontier forts were evacuated in March, but it
was not until 24 April that Carlos Martínez de Irujo informed Pickering that Spain
would fully abide by the terms of the treaty (Boston Repertory, 29 Jan. 1820; Abernethy,
The South in the New Nation
, p. 216; Gerard H.
Clarfield, Timothy Pickering and American Diplomacy,
1795–1800, Columbia, Mo., 1969, p. 138).
An excerpt of a letter from Elbridge Gerry to his sister-in-law
Helen Thompson, dated 3 Jan. 1798, was printed in the Boston Federal Gazette, 25 Feb., and reprinted in the Philadelphia Gazette, 5 March. It reported that there was little hope that the
French government would receive the American commissioners and that their residence in
Paris would be brief. Andrew Brown Jr. (1774–1847) became the publisher of the Philadelphia Gazette when his father Andrew Brown Sr. died
in 1797 (Rush, Letters
, 2:792; Gerry, Letterbook
, p. 15, 29–30).