Adams Family Correspondence, volume 4
1782-06-28
I am now most happy to felicitate you and our Parent Country on the fortunate Event which has attended your unwearied efforts for obtaining the Dutch accession to the American Independency and that you are accepted by them as fully empowered for the final accomplishment of this glorious Aera.
334Indeed when I reflect on the injustice and savage cruelty of the
late Administration I much wonder that all Europe have not united in chastising such
vindictive measures. However that Being to whom Vengeance belongs appears to have been greatly
displeas'd by involving them in such a labyrinth of difficulties from which no human Agency
can extricate them; Yet deeply penetrated as I am with a sense of the injuries done my Native
Land I most ardently wish for a happy peace, but nothing short of an intire
independency.—Observing in the publick Papers that you are solliciting a Loan for
A
I was much mortify'd in not receiving by my most worthy Friend the Honble G. W. Fairfax one
Line in answer to what List of Amer
refugees said to be printed at Boston but which has fail'd of giving me the least
disquiet conscious that it is well known there, that I have ever been constantly and
invariably attach'd to the cause and interest of my native Country for which have incurr'd the
Odium of great Numbers here and expended near One hundred Guineas for the releif of our
distress'd Captives.
The favour of a Line address'd for me at Messrs. Maitlands Esqr. Colman Street London will much oblige me. I shall remain here about fourteen days before my return to Bath.
That all happiness may attend you and Heaven prove propitious to your endeavours for procuring a happy and lasting peace is the sincere and ardent wish of, Dr. Sr. Yr. Most Obt. Servt,
P. For safe conveyance I have prevail'd with my good friend Mr. Brigden2 to inclose you this in his Pacquet, and to whose care (if agreable) You may return a Line in answer.
See above, Boylston to JA, 31 Aug.
1781, and references there. George William Fairfax, formerly of Virginia but currently
of Bath in England, had evidently been in the Netherlands recently; see JA's
reply to Boylston, 5 July below. For a sketch
of Fairfax, see Washington, Writings, ed. Fitzpatrick, 1:5, and numerous letters and
references following.
Thus in MS, but very likely Edward Bridgen is meant. Bridgen was a London 335artisan and sometime alderman who seems to have kept up a clandestine
correspondence with Americans and American sympathizers on the Continent throughout the war.
See JA, Diary and
Autobiography
, index; correspondence between JA and Bridgen in Adams Papers;
Cal. Franklin Papers in A.P.S.
1782-06
I have not heard a word from B—1 since Wedensday
last. I want much to know how you all do. I wrote you last Saturday. Mrs. Quincy took my
letter yesterday.2 Hope you have received it. You
will not complain of my not writing you I bleive, my letters can give you little pleasure only
as they are dictated by a heart that rearly3 loves
you. My affection for you is an inducement for my writing you at this time more particularly.
I have my friend been in company with many persons since I have been in town who were formerly acquainted with the gentleman that lately has resided
in your family. Every one expresses great surprise at the event, these persons say
I passed the day yesterday with Mrs. Mason. She was pleasing and he as agreable as ever. His
pappas family dined with us, Mr. Ben Mason and a sister of
his.6 He was very particular in his enquireyes
about Miss Cranch, whether she was married or like to be. I liked him better than ever I asure
you. Indeed my Dear I answer many about 336
to you.
Wedensday evevening. I have this moment perused your postscript.8 It rearly gave me pleasure as I have not heard one word from you this
week. The time has seemed long indeed. I pitty you my Dear. Your benevolence was hurt by
being the messenger of an event that gave pain to a friend. Do let me hear from you and
answer both of my letters. I intend to write Miss Betsy. My Love ever attends her and every
one dese
Thursday mor
Braintree must be meant. From AA2's allusions below, her own letter was unquestionably written from Boston; see note 6.
None of the letters here referred to has been found, and Mrs. Quincy is not further identifiable among the many bearing that name.
Thus in MS, doubtless for “really.”
Here and below, MS is torn.
This extraordinary passage, veiled though it is and without a name mentioned, introduces a
figure who was to play an important and dramatic role— though in the eyes of the Adamses a
discreditable one—in the domestic history of the Adamses over the next several years.
“
The
Contrast (1787), the first American comedy produced on an American stage, became a
well-known figure in American letters and later the chief justice of Vermont. See
DAB
and G. Thomas
Tanselle, Royall Tyler, Cambridge, 1967, which is the first
book-length biography and which treats in detail the checkered ro-337mance between AA2 and Tyler. A summary treatment of that
suppressed chapter in Adams family history, based largely on unpublished material in the Adams Papers, was furnished a year earlier by the
Adams editors in the introduction to The Earliest Diary of John
Adams, the MS of which was discovered in 1965 in the Royall Tyler
Collection, long closed to researchers, in the Vermont Historical Society; see JA, Earliest Diary
,
p. 14, 16–32,.
Many letters to be included in the next volume of the
Adams Family Correspondence
develop
this story and exhibit most of the major and some of the minor members of the Adams-Cranch
circle in characteristic roles. Tyler's courtship of AA2 had a definite part in
the Adams ladies' subsequent voyage to Europe. What is most remarkable in light of
AA2's impressions of Tyler as given in the present letter is that six months or
so later AA was warmly pressing Tyler's suit upon a daughter who overcame her
own doubts very reluctantly.
Jonathan Mason Jr. of Boston, on whom see a sketch above, >vol. 1:280, and another in JA, Legal Papers
, 1: civ. He had studied law and lived in JA's household in 1775–1776 and
became a correspondent and admiring friend of both JA and AA. In 1779 he had married DAB
under Jonathan Jr. They had three daughters and also a
younger son, Benjamin (Harvard 1779), who practiced medicine and became an honorary M.D. in
1800 (
Harvard Quinquennial
Cat.
).
Initial and terminal quotation marks editorially supplied.
Not found.
Thus in MS, perhaps indicating that the letter was completed and sent off on the day after it was mainly written (Wednesday).