Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
th[
6] 1804
I recieved your kind favour of the 24th
Yesterday morning never did a letter prove more welcome as I had suffer’d a great degree
of anxiety at not hearing from you it is three weeks since the date of your last and I
was very apprehensive you had been prevented from writing by indisposition I am wretched
if you do not write me once a week at least to inform of your health— It is perhaps
fancy my most loved friend but from the stile of your two last letters it appears to me
that your spirits are unusually depressed which gives me real uneasiness1 I cannot indulge a hope that my absence can have
produced this effect as we are less together at Quincy than at any other time however
let the cause my best friend be what it may I am ready and willing to return home
immediately and to do every thing in my power to lessen the heavy burthen which I hourly
feel I am become I brought you nothing and therefore have no claim on you whatever my
life ever has been and ever must remain a life of painful obligation cease then to talk
of expence on my account had I imagined my remaining here would have proved more
expensive than living at your Farm I should never have proposed it if you will send the
means of return I will with pleasure take charge of the Children provided you will let
me bring one of my Sisters to assist me Women frequently do such things and I am not more timid than the rest of my Sex As for the House while my family are obliged to live upon the bounty of others any
house is good enough for me I believe I never made any objection to it I only said that
in the state you represented your affairs to be that it would be both imprudent and
inconsistent to build. I think you had better make what alterations you please and as
soon as possible if Mrs Adams could reside there with four
Children I can certainly live there with two—
You have seen by the papers I suppose the loss the President has
371 sustain’d Mrs Epps died
of an Abcess in her breast producd by a cold taken during her confinement she was
removed in a litter to Monticello where for a day or two she appear’d to recover which
raised her fathers hopes and render’d the shock more bitter2 Mrs. Maddisson says
this stroke as been almost too severe for him she was his favorite Child—
Our English friends have got into more difficulties but I do not
exactly know of what nature some persons slave in the Country was employed by the
domestics as report says and upon application of the Master they refused to give him up
upon which the man took a Constable to the House and carried of his slave the right power of the Constable in that House is the
question in dispute I understand and will probably be made a national question—3
I was at Stewards yesterday he has finished all the Pictures we saw
and several others he has now a most beautiful likeness of Mrs. Merry I do not like Mrs. Bonaparte’s at all
though a very fine likeness—4
The Children are both well George is grown half an inch since the last time you measur’d him the rest of us are well
Adieu my beloved friend remember me affectionately to your family and believe there is no human being who loves you half as well as your faithful and affectionate wife
P.S. John T. Mason has just lost his Uncle who has left him between four and five hundred thousand dollars5
RC (Adams
Papers); addressed: “John Q. Adams Esqr.”;
endorsed: “L. C. Adams. 12. 6. May 1804. / 16. May red: /
20. May Ansd:”; notation by LCA: “I have made
a mistake in the date / as to day is only the 6th of
May.”
JQA’s previous two letters to LCA were dated 15 and 24 April, for which see the latter, and note 2, above.
For the death of Mary Jefferson Eppes, see AA’s letter to Thomas Jefferson of 20 May, below.
On 2 May Henry Scott, an enslaved man in the employ of the
British minister Anthony Merry, was forcibly removed from Merry’s residence and
imprisoned, ostensibly because he hired himself to Merry without the permission of his
slaveholder, “Mrs. Stone.” Stone’s agent, Henry Suttle, claimed that he had negotiated
a separate work arrangement for the man but that Scott violated this when he sought
employment with Merry, for whom he had previously worked. Suttle then enlisted the aid
of a constable named Edwards, and Scott was removed from Merry’s home. Two days after
the incident Merry appealed to James Madison, claiming that the removal constituted a
violation of diplomatic protocol. Although Merry questioned the veracity of the
circumstances, the breach of privilege that the removal represented was more
significant to him because, he wrote, “My Consent to the Measure had not been obtained
by any previous Communication to me on the Subject from the Government of the United
States.” The secretary of state sought the attorney general’s opinion, but Levi
Lincoln found no legal precedent for the situation and believed the whole furor would
have been avoided if Merry had been notified before Scott’s capture. Suttle eventually
apologized to Merry, claiming he was unaware of 372 the political
implications of his action, and no legal action appears to have been taken (Madison, Papers,
Secretary of State Series
, 7:150–152, 154, 193–198, 205–207).
Artist Gilbert Stuart rented a studio in Washington, D.C., from
Dec. 1803 to July 1805, executing portraits of capital visitors, including Elizabeth
Patterson Bonaparte and Elizabeth Death Leathes Merry, and Washington residents, like
Anna Maria Brodeau Thornton, for which see Descriptive List of Illustrations, No. 5, above (Charles
Merrill Mount, “Gilbert Stuart in Washington: With a Catalogue of His Portraits
Painted between December 1803 and July 1805,” Columbia Hist. Soc., Records
,
48:81, 87, 93, 125, 126 [1971–1972]). See also
LCA to JQA, 29 May 1804,
and note 5, below.
For John Thomson Mason’s inheritance, see LCA to JQA, 29 May, and note 2, below.