Adams Family Correspondence, volume 12
ry28 1798
We now have the appearence of some fine weather our Rivers are
open, but our Roads are all like what we experienced when we came through the Jersis in
April last. I begin to look towards my Native state with a wish to be early there, which
I fear will not be seconded by Congress, for tho many of them are distresst at the
manner this session has heitherto been wasted, yet they cannot controul those who wish
to make long speeches, and upon subjects which have been canvassed and upon which
nothing new; which is not absurd can be offerd. the shamefull buisness respecting Lyon
ought not to have occupied as many hours, as it did days—but not content with performing
so little, they are Spinning a mere Penolipean Webb not with such pure motives as
actuated that Virtuous Lady, for she destroyd the works of the day, by night to preserve
her honour and her integrity.1 Congress
have already repeald a Law respecting foreign coins which they past last sessions, and
now are repealing the stamp act, and that before any experiment is made to see what
might be the result,2 at a time too, when
Revenue is wanted for to defend the southern states against the Indians, to form new
treaties to purchase their lands. Money is also calld for to put the forts &
garisons in repair by Charlstown s C. Money is calld for to assist in 419 compleating the Solitary buildings in the Federal
city.3 commerce is distrest, unable to
yeald the Revenue which has heretofore been so productive yet every measure which can
aid or protect that, is bellowd against as a declaration of War—and mr Giles declares
that he would if he could, destroy every tax throughout the united states. this is the
method by which he would pay his adoration to the sovereign People— our Envoys have been
near six months in Paris, but to this hour not a line has been received from them, not
with standing the bold assertion of Plain truth in the Chronical, and I challenge him
for his proof. I have not a doubt that their dispatches have been intercepted if any
have been sent, or that they are so situated that they cannot communicate in either case
it is very dissagreable—
I do not see by your papers that you have followd the lead of the
Metropolis of the united states, and celebrated the
Birthday of a truly Great and Good Private citizen—or so
far fortogtton what belongs to the Character of the Head of your Nation, as to call upon
him to attend the Birth Night of Gen Washington. In what light would such a step be
looked upon by foreign Nations? the President the chief Majestrate of an independant
Nation, placing himself in a secondary Character, celebrating Birth Nights, not of a
President, but a Private citizen? yet these wise judicious people cannot find out the
Reason why the President declined to accept their invitation. some of their Masters of
the Ceremonies were polite enough to publish in Baches paper the inclosed Scrap the
morning of the Ball, but they defeated their own plans.4 as soon as it was known, it went through the
city like an Electrical shock—and the Ball was meager enough, so much so, that tho it
was by subscription I have heard but 15 Ladies were present. not a lisp of it has
appeard in one of their News papers. there were a number of persons who were not
subscribers who went and I suppose came under Baches denomination of shop keepers— if
the Chronical should undertake to publish any thing upon the subject, I hope some
persons will represent it in its true light. it most assuredly was not any want of
Respect and Regard to Genll Washington he himself would have
done the same in like circumstances Witness his refusal to dine with Gov Handcok, after
the dinner had been purposely prepared and the company invited he would not subject the
Character of the chief Head of the Government to state soverignty5
what I write to you is in confidence that I shall not be brought as
an Authority. one thing I think I ought to say, I have heard that 420 there is a design to shift this matter off upon the Vice President, but in Justice to
him, he had no hand in it further than to subscribe to it, being told that the President
would certainly attend. when he found that he would not go, he refused also, this I am sure of so that let no more be laid upon him than
he deserves.6 I wish he always conducted
with as much propriety— the Philadelphians drew in the N yorkers in order to keep them
in Countanance, and that after the President had refused. adieu my paper say I must only
add / yours &c
RC and enclosure (MHi:Smith-Carter Family Papers).
Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, was pressured to marry a local
noble in her husband’s absence. She pretended she must first weave a shroud for her
father-in-law, and every night for ten years she unraveled her day’s work in order to
delay the marriage (
Oxford Classical Dicy.
).
On 9 Feb. 1793 Congress passed a law regulating foreign coins, the second section of which stated that in three years “all foreign gold coins, and all foreign silver coins, except Spanish milled dollars … shall cease to be a legal tender.” On 22 July 1797 JA announced that in conformity with the law, all foreign silver coins (except Spanish milled dollars) would cease to be legal tender on 15 Oct., and all foreign gold coins would cease to be legal tender on 31 July 1798. On 13 Dec. 1797 a House committee submitted their report on necessary alterations to the act, noting that very little U.S. specie had made its way to the interior of the country and that it would be impossible to mint enough coinage by the required date to replace all foreign coins currently in circulation. On 24 Dec. the House passed an act suspending the second section of the 1793 law, relating to foreign coins, for three years; the Senate passed the bill on 17 Jan. 1798.
A stamp tax had been passed by Congress in July 1797 and was
intended to take effect in December; however, on 11 Dec. the secretary of the treasury
presented a report to the House stating that it would be “impossible to provide the
necessary machinery, dies, &c.” to carry the act into effect by 1 Jan. 1798, and
he recommended that implementation be delayed until 1 July. On 28 Feb. the House voted
to repeal the act, but the same day the Senate “resolved that the bill for repealing
the Stamp Act should not pass” (
Amer. State Papers, Finance
,
2:197;
Annals of
Congress
, 5th Cong., 2d sess., p. 489, 692–693, 717, 721–722, 758,
1097–1098;
U.S.
Statutes at Large
, 1:527–532).
On 17 Jan. JA recommended that Congress appropriate
funds to defray the expenses of concluding a treaty with the Cherokee Nation, and on
26 Jan. Thomas Pinckney submitted a bill to the House for that purpose. The bill,
which passed the House on 30 Jan. and the Senate on 21 Feb., provided up to $25,880
“to defray the expense of holding a treaty” (
Annals of Congress
, 5th Cong.,
2d sess., p. 842, 930–931, 953, 1058–1060, 3708).
On 5 Feb. JA presented materials to Congress
submitted by Gov. Charles Pinckney of South Carolina detailing French depredations
along the Charleston coast. On 10 April Samuel Sewall presented an appropriations bill
“for the protection of the ports and harbors of the United States.” The bill passed
the House on the 12th and the Senate on the 27th. Construction on Fort Moultrie in
Charleston harbor, which had stopped in 1795 due to a lack of funds, was subsequently
completed. Charleston residents supplemented federal funding, thus gaining a credit
toward the state’s debt to the United States (
Annals of Congress
, 5th Cong.,
2d sess., p. 550, 963–964, 1384, 1402, 3726; J. E. Kaufmann and H. W. Kaufmann, Fortress America: The Forts that Defended America 1600 to the
Present, Cambridge, 2004, p. 144). For a previous discussion on fortifying
ports and harbors, see
CA to JQA, 8 June 1797,
and note 1, above.
On 23 Feb. 1798 JA presented a memorial from the
Washington, D.C., commissioners asking Congress for additional funds. The House passed
a bill on 20 March approving a loan for completing the construction of government
buildings; the bill passed the Senate on 12 April. The loan authorized $100,000, of
which half would be disbursed in 1798 and 421 the remainder in
1799 (
Annals of
Congress
, 5th Cong., 2d sess., p. 539, 1063, 1275, 3722). For a
previous discussion of the commissioners’ monetary requests, see William Cranch to AA,
21 Nov. 1797, note 7, above.
The enclosure was from the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 23 Feb. 1798, for which see
AA to Mary Smith
Cranch, 15 Feb., and note 4, above.
In Oct. 1789 George Washington, during a visit to New England,
was escorted by Lt. Gov. Samuel Adams but not Gov. John Hancock. Washington noted the
slight in his diary: “Having engaged yesterday to take an informal dinner with the
Govr. to day (but under a full persuation that he would have waited upon me so soon as
I should have arrived) I excused myself upon his not doing it.” That evening Hancock
sent messengers to Washington “to express the Govrs. Concern that he had not been in a
condition to call upon me so soon as I came to Town. I informed them in explicit terms
that I should not see the Govr. unless it was at my own lodgings.” The following day
Hancock visited Washington, claiming “that he was still indisposed; but as it had been
suggested that” the governor “expected to receive the
visit from the President, which he knew was improper, he was resolved at all hazds. to
pay his Compliments to day” (Washington,
Diaries
, 5:473–476).
On 2 Feb. 1798 Thomas Jefferson purchased a ticket to attend
Washington’s birthday celebration, but on the 23d he wrote to Thomas Willing, one of
the organizers of the ball, hoping that “his non-attendance will not be misconstrued,”
as he had “not been at a ball these twenty years, nor for a long time permitted
himself to go to any entertainments of the evening, from motives of attention to
health” (Jefferson, Papers
, 30:112, 132).
AA had previously written to William Smith, on 22 Feb., enclosing a letter for Dorothy Quincy Hancock Scott and requesting him to send “two more quontal of fish” (MHi: Smith-Carter Family Papers).
Yesterday the secretary of state received Letters from mr Adams at
Berlin dated Nov’br 10th &
17th in which he says that he left Hamburgh on the 2d and
reachd Berlin on the 7th. he had an interveiw with the
Minister. the King was informd of his arrival, and desired the Minister to express to
him the extreem regreet he felt at not being able to give him Audience, as his dangerous
illness wholy prevented him from doing buisness. he desired the Minister to express to
him the satisfaction he received from this Mark of attention from the united states, as
well as his regreet at being unable to give him his first Audience.1
Mr Adams’s Letter of the 17th informs
that the King of Prussia died yesterday morning at 9 oclock, and was immediatly
succeeded to the Throne by his son Frederic William the 3d.
concequently Mr Adams’s Credentials cannot be presented, untill new ones are sent him,
which will be as speedily as possible2
He mentions having written Letters from Hamburgh of 31 of october, which are not come to Hand;3 as these Letters are to the secretary of state & wholy upon publick buisness—no mention is made of his private affairs, and as yet We have not any private Letters, tho 422 I cannot but hope there are some. It was however a great Satisfaction to me, to learn their safe arrival at Berlin; and my pleasure would be incompleat, if I did not embrace the earliest opportunity of communicating it to you, Who I have not a doubt, take an equal interest in the safety and prosperity of our Children
From our Envoys in France no official Communications have been received, only vague News paper reports. their situation must I think be very painfull. if they have attempted any communications with their Government, they have failed. that they have been altogether silent, I know not how to believe. The Jacobins as usual, are very insolent false and abusive upon the occasion— Indeed my dear Madam, the service of this Government is not a Bed of Roses— in any department of it
The President unites with me, in presenting his Regards to mr Johnson and Family. I forwarded a Letter to you from mrs smith.4 I hope you received it—
I am dear Madam with Sentiments / of Esteem and Friendship / Yours &c
RC (Adams
Papers); notation by CFA: “To Mrs
Catherine Johnson.”
When JQA arrived in Berlin, there were three primary
foreign ministers serving under Frederick William II—Count Karl Wilhelm Finck von
Finckenstein, Philipp Karl von Alvensleben, and Count Christian August Heinrich Kurt
von Haugwitz. Here, AA accurately summarized JQA’s 10 Nov.
1797 letter to Timothy Pickering (LbC, APM Reel 132) reporting his meeting with Haugwitz and
noting that Commandeur Joseph de Maisonneuve, then representing the Maltese Order of
the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in Berlin, had asked him to forward a letter to
JA (Brendan Simms, The Impact of Napoleon:
Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive,
1797–1806, Cambridge, Eng., 1997, p. 49; D/JQA/24, 9,
10 Nov., APM Reel 27; LCA, D&A
, 1:294).
In his letter to Pickering of 17 Nov., JQA also reported that he had presented his credentials to renew the Swedish-American treaty to the Swedish minister, Baron Carl Gustav Schultz von Ascheraden (LbC, APM Reel 132).
For JQA to Pickering, 31 Oct., see JQA to AA, 22 Feb. 1798, and note 1, above.
Not found.
AA wrote again to Johnson on 12 April informing her that public dispatches from JQA reported his presentation to the new Prusian king. She also sent Joshua Johnson the recently published dispatches and instructions of the U.S. envoys to France, reporting, “I hope our Envoys will not be the sufferers, in concequence of their being made public; I should feel much happier if I was sure they were out of that Man trap of Paris” (Adams Papers).