Adams Family Correspondence, volume 12
I arrived here last Evening and this morning received your cover,
enclosing the Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury.—1 There are Letters here from America, as late as
the 29th: of April.2 Mr: Murray had then
sailed so that he may be looked for every day.
I have not yet seen Mr: Damen, and of
course have made no arrangements.3 I
shall make none immediately for my own departure. I feel a
little anxious on account of your Health.— Let me know by return of Post how you are.—
Do not by any means undertake to go with me, untill you can do it with perfect safety. I
can and will 137 protract my departure if it should be expedient.—
Above all, be of good cheer. Keep up your Spirits, and take care not to expose yourself
to a cold.
I will thank you to send me half a dozen, blank Passports;—you will see Captain Mackay again tomorrow or the next day at the Hague.
Your’s affectionately
RC (Adams
Papers); addressed: “À Monsieur / Monsieur T. B. Adams. / à / La Haye.”;
internal address: “Mr: T. B. Adams.”; endorsed: “J. Q
Adams Esqr: Amsterdam / 2 June 1797. / 3 Recd: / Do Answd.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 130.
The letter from Oliver Wolcott Jr., dated 8 April, detailed the remittances sent by the United States to discharge the interest and principal on the Dutch-American loans that were due on 1 June. Wolcott also reported that William Vans Murray would leave for Amsterdam in ten days (Tripl, Adams Papers). TBA’s cover letter to JQA has not been found.
No letters to JQA or TBA dated 29 April have been found, but on 2 June JQA noted that Nicolaas & Jacob van Staphorst and Nicolaas Hubbard had “received some late remittances from America” (D/JQA/24, APM Reel 27).
Herman Hend Damen was an Amsterdam merchant-broker originally
from the Palatinate. On 25 June JQA informed Damen that he had “eighteen
wooden chests and boxes, numbered from one to five, and four other packages containing
a book case” that he was sending to Amsterdam to be shipped to Portugal via Captain
Jeffries’ Neptune, and on 8 July, after learning of the
change in his mission, JQA requested Damen to have his goods relanded and
stored at Amsterdam pending further orders (both LbC’s, APM Reel 130). Damen did not receive JQA’s
letter in time, however, and the shipment arrived in Lisbon by early October. The
books were eventually sent to Massachusetts, arriving in Quincy in June 1799. They
were stored by Rev. Peter Whitney at the John Quincy Adams Birthplace until collected
by JQA in Nov. 1802 (Jefferson, Papers
, 23:321; JQA to
Krochman & Jacobsen, 28 June 1797, 2 June 1798, LbC’s, APM Reels 130, 133; JQA to
William Loughton Smith, 13 Sept. 1797, LbC, APM Reel 130; AA to JQA, 12
June 1799, Adams Papers;
D/JQA/24, 1 Nov. 1802, APM Reel 27).
JQA also wrote letters of 4 and 5 June 1797 asking TBA to perform various secretarial tasks and reporting that he would depart for England as soon as Murray arrived in Amsterdam. JQA also noted the arrival of James Markham and Esther (Hetty) Morris Marshall in Amsterdam (LbC’s, APM Reel 130).
I had the Pleasure of receiving your Letter of 23 Ulto: with the Pamphlet last Saturday 27th: for which please to accept my Thanks.1
According to your Directions I requested Russell to send the Centinel to you which he has since informed me he has done;
you will see the Statement made relative to the Nomination and by this Scrap from the
Chronicle the pitifull Venom of Envy in the party really too insignificant to be noticed
Go. Blake I suppose is the Author. this is sub Rosa—2
With Respect to the Enquiry how the President’s Speech was received? I can say that for the first 48 Hours it was spoken of with universal Satisfaction by all Classes ’till some of the Leaders had Time to conjure up Objections this they found difficult and still more difficult to [procure?] Aversion as many well meaning Men had suspended their Prejudices and had already expressed their full approbation of the Speech. so that I fully believe that it still is very generally & highly approved.
Governor Sumner is to be introduced
into office at 12 O’Clock this Day.3
The Senate is composed of a very fœderal Body. but the House has more antis than usual but not enough to carry any Points how this has hapened I know not without some Secret Schemes have been in operation4
Please to present my Respects to the President let him know that the Fœderalists are begining to deify him and the Jacobins preparing to send him to Tartarus;5 but his Friends wish him to occupy the midle Region of Space. and that he and his Country men may be permitted to inhabit our own peacefull Plains uninterupted by foreign Arts, or foreign Arms.
I am with respect your, Friend and St
RC (Adams
Papers); addressed: “Mrs Adams / Philadelphia”;
internal address: “Mrs Adams”; endorsed: “Dr Welch June /
2d 1797.”
Neither AA’s letter nor the enclosure has been found.
The Boston Independent Chronicle, 29
May, printed the news of JQA’s nomination, followed by a squib referring
to JQA as “an obscure practitioner of the law … mounted on the political
ladder with an uncommon celerity.” In response, the Boston Columbian Centinel, 31 May, detailed JQA’s previous diplomatic
service, arguing that he was “the best qualified” to serve as minister to Prussia and
that JA, “as an independent magistrate,” could nominate whomever he
chose. On 1 June the Chronicle requested the Senate to
reject JQA’s nomination to Prussia because of “the impropriety of the President’s son being appointed a Minister at any foreign Court,” arguing that JQA would “be
induced to give such accounts to his father, as may
ultimately involve this country in the utmost perplexity.” It is unclear if George
Blake was the author of either of the Chronicle
articles.
Federalist candidate Increase Sumner won the 1797 Massachusetts
gubernatorial election, earning 14,540 votes to Democratic-Republican candidate James
Sullivan’s 7,125 votes. On 2 June hundreds of citizens escorted Sumner from Roxbury to
the State House in Boston, where he and Lt. Gov. Moses Gill were sworn in. Prior to
his inauguration, Sumner told the General Court that if he could promote “the
prosperity and happiness of the people” of Massachusetts, “it will gratify one of the
first wishes of my heart.” When the inauguration was announced from the eastern
balcony of the State House, the crowd below “joined in three hearty cheers” and an
artillery group “hailed the annunciation with a Federal salute.” Sumner was twice
reelected, in 1798 and 1799 (Anson Ely Morse, The Federalist
Party in Massachusetts to the Year 1800, Princeton, N.J., 1909, p. 174, 175;
William H. Sumner, Memoir of Increase Sumner, Governor of
Massachusetts, Boston, 1854, p. 21, 22, 37; Boston
Gazette, 5 June 1797).
The elections for Massachusetts governor, lieutenant governor,
and senators were 139 held on 3 April; members of the house of
representatives were chosen in May by the individual towns (Massachusetts Mercury, 4 April; Mass. Constitution of 1780, Ch. I, Sect. iii,
Art. iv, v). The Boston Columbian Centinel, 31 May, noted
that “no material changes have been made in the Members of the House,” and that almost
“three quarters of the Senate of last year are reelected.” For the previous Federalist
majority in the 1796 elections, see vol. 11:240.
Tartarus, a place of punishment, was the deepest region of the
underworld in Greek mythology (
Oxford Classical Dicy.
).