Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
We feel, my dear Sir the Want of your Society on sundays and hope
the Weather and Roads will soon bless us with it. Never at the Age of 18 when I was a
great Reader and Admirer of Tragedies did I take more pleasure in them, than I have
lately in Reading La Harps […]ent of Corneille Racine Voltaire Moliere La Fontaine
&c1 did not mean to express a Wish
that you should make a serious study of Greek & Italian at present: But Dr Kippis’s method of reading a few 185 Paragraphs every day, if it were only a Part of a Chapter in the New Testament would
keep alive what you have.2 Your
Professional Learning will soon come. I am delighted with your Experiments. hope you
will state them in Writing and communicate them to the Accademy.3 For myself I never was more busy. I am impatient
to read La Harp’s History of the Resurrection of Epicureanism in the 18 Cent.— Oh! how I
enjoyed his basting of Diderot.4
My Love to yours
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “J. Q. Adams Esq.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed.
Jean François de La Harpe offered critiques of the literature of
Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Voltaire, Molière, and Jean de La Fontaine in his Lycée; ou, Cours de littérature ancienne et moderne. He
devoted more than a volume to Voltaire’s tragedies and detailed analyses of Racine’s
tragedies to show that love was unfairly characterized as a weakness by Corneille.
JA’s translations of passages from Lycée
on Racine and Voltaire are in the Adams Papers (M/JA/9, APM Reel 188) (Andrew Hunwick, “La Harpe:
The Forgotten Critic,” The Modern Language Review,
67:287–288 [April 1972]).
That is, Rev. Andrew Kippis, whom the Adamses had known in London
(vol. 7:155, 156; JA, Papers
, 20:169).
JQA wrote to JA on 2 March (Adams Papers) stating his aspirations to gain “a familiar and intimate acquaintance” with Greek and Italian but noting that his time was “engrossed by the pursuit of professional learning.” JQA also wrote that he and members of the Society for the Study of Natural Philosophy were engaged in electrical experiments on positive-negative attraction. Those experiments took place weekly between February and May, and on 19 March JQA lectured “on the subject of the electrical spark” (D/JQA/24, 9, 12, 18 Feb., 5, 12, 19, 26 March, 2, 9, 23, 30 April, 7 May, APM Reel 27).
La Harpe, in his profiles of classical figures in the early
volumes of Lycée; ou, Cours de littérature ancienne et
moderne, criticized Denis Diderot’s treatment of Seneca as “pêle-mêle” and
lacking precision and exactitude (vol. 3, part 2, p. 161–167, 261–268, 303–309,
327–345). In the volumes on eighteenth-century philosophers that were published in
1804 and 1805, for which see
JA to JQA, [Feb.
1802], above, La Harpe questioned Diderot’s morals and blamed him in part
for the excesses of the French Revolution, dedicating more pages to him than to any
other philosopher (R. N. C. Coe, “The Fortunes of the Code de
la Nature between 1755 and 1848,” French Studies,
11:119, 120 [April 1957]).
JQA wrote to JA on 22 March, enclosing
a 12 Jan. letter from Rufus King to JA and accompanying documents that
discussed King’s negotiations regarding British depredations on U.S. shipping (both
Adams Papers). JQA wrote
again on 4 April (private owner, 2009), first letter, updating JA on his
accounts with Wilhem & Jan Willink and asking his father about his participation
in a 1777 maritime case in New Hampshire (JA, Legal Papers
, 2:378–395). JA
replied on 6 April 1802, confirming his participation (CSmH).
th.1802
I recd. last night, your Letter of the
3d.—
1 It
was far from my thoughts to assign you a task. I meant only to turn your mind to a
Subject, which must necessaryly engage much of your contemplations, as long as you live.
The Folc Right, the Peoples Right, the common law, is the natural, Inheritance of Us
all. It is our Birth 186 Right. But precious as it is, and dear as it ought
to be to all our hearts, it is likely to be a subject of controversy in this country,
untill an examination of it, on a large Scale, Shall be undertaken and accomplished by
you or Some other, whose Industry may be equal to the Subject. The assistance to be
expected from me, must be very Small. I have Scarcely a Law Book of any kind left in my
office. It is almost 30 Years since I abandoned my Office and Law Library, and now I
have none. My Recollections of the contents of Law Books, you may well Suppose to be
very faint confused and incorrect.
A Lawyer, Should have in his Desk, or Bureau, more pidgeon holes, than a Coiner of constitutions. In these he should deposit, in exact, numerical or Alphebetical order, all the Effects of his Researches into moot Points, as well as the States of his Cases and his notes of Arguments or Authorities relative to them. One of these Apartments in your Scrutoire or your Case or Drawers for writings you may dedicate to the common Law, and fill it up with your disquisitions as Slowly or as Swiftly as you please.— And if it Should be growing upon you at intervals for fifty Years; instead of injuring your mind body or estate, it may be of great benefit to the first and last, at least. Hæc Olim meminisse juvabit.— Indocti discant, et ament meminisse periti.2 The Plan indeed is vast, and will require a long time: but nothing presses for haste. The United States and the State of Pennsylvania are now within your reach. See what progress you make in ascertaining the common Law in them. You may pursue the Clue when you shall have Seized it, into other States at your Leisure.
Judge Addisons thoughts may be of Use to you: but figures of Spech are not always Science of Law. Passion Politicks and Eloquence Should always be Studied with diffidence and Jealousy in discussions of Laws and Government. Avail yourself however of every thing that can afford you any light.
Lord Chief Justice Hale, wrote a Book under the Title of An History of the common Law I had it, and Suppose you have it now among my Law Books that I lent you. In this Work, an Octavo Volume well worth your reading, you will find much perhaps to your purpose. Fortesque Aland’s Reports You have among my Books. In a Preface to that Work there is much concerning the Saxon Language and the Saxon Folc Right. Ther is the best Deffinition, or description, or History if you will of the common Law, in that Preface, which I remember to have read. Blackstone took his Account of the common Law from that preface. Reeves’s History of the Law will probably assist you.3
187If you look into the Journal of Congress for 1774 you will find a Declation of the Rights of the Colonies and another of the Violations of those Rights— These declarations or Lists were drawn up by two Committees. I was one of the first Committee and drew up the Report. in this you will See, not only the rough materials of the Declaration of Independence made two years after, but you will See in what Light the common Law was Seen by that Congress and by all America at that time. Extracts from these Journals, Should go into your common Law Pidgeon hole. There is a public printed declaration of the Town of Boston Some time anteriour to the meeting of the first congress which will deserve your Attention.4
I can keep no Copies of my Letters to you and therefore I pray you to keep them Safely or to burn them, that they may not fall into the hands of the Ennemy of all good. I am your / affectionate Father
RC (private owner, 2008); internal address: “T. B.
Adams Esqr.”
In his 3 March letter to JA, TBA agreed to his father’s suggestion that he undertake a study of common law on the condition that JA assist him with the task. He also noted his satisfaction with U.S. district judge Alexander Addison’s statement that the common law arose from the laws of nature and dictates of God (Adams Papers).
“It will some day be a joy to recall,” from Virgil’s Aeneid, and “let the unskillful learn, and let the learned
improve their recollection,” a common inscription on literary works of the time. The
latter quotation appeared on the title page of La Harpe, Lycée; ou, Cours de littérature
ancienne et moderne
, which JA was then reading (Virgil,
Aeneid, transl. H. Rushton Fairclough and G. P. Goold,
rev. edn., Cambridge, 1999, Book I, line 203; A Dictionary of
Quotations, in Most Frequent Use, 2d edn., London, 1798).
A copy of the 1736 edition of Sir Matthew Hale’s Historia Placitorum Coronæ, 2 vols., London, is in
JA’s library at MB.
JA also referred to Sir John Fortescue Aland’s preface to Sir John
Fortescue’s The Difference between an Absolute and Limited
Monarchy, 2d edn., London, 1719, p. xx–xxv, which discussed the Saxon origins
of common law and was referenced in William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vols., Oxford, 1765–1769, 1:65–67. A
copy of the original Oxford edition and a 1771–1772 Philadelphia edition are in
JA’s library at MB. The
final work JA referenced was John Reeves, A
History of the English Law, from the Saxons to the End of the Reign of Edward the
First, 2 vols., London, 1783–1784 (
Catalogue of JA’s Library
).
The Declaration of Rights and Grievances was adopted by the
Continental Congress on 14 Oct. 1774 and listed ten rights that the Congress
determined all colonists held, including the right “to life, liberty, and property.”
It also detailed recent parliamentary acts that were deemed “infringements and
violations of the rights of the colonists” and noted the pending implementation of a
trade boycott and the preparation of an address to the inhabitants of Britain and “a
loyal address” to George III. JA successfully argued that the document
should emphasize the relatively unassailable tenets of natural law over the more
tenuous and variable precepts of common law. To support his claim JA
pointed to the Nov. 1772 resolutions of the Boston committee of correspondence, which
listed grievances against Parliament and detailed colonists’ constitutional rights as
Britons. The resolutions were published as The Votes and
Proceedings of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston,
Boston, [1772], Evans, No. 12332. TBA replied to this letter
on 18 April 1802 (Adams Papers), noting the
“remarkable uniformity in the expressions used” by the Continental Congress’ delegates
when they presented their 188 credentials. He
also summarized the “leading principles” of the Boston committee of correspondence’s
resolutions and further discussed the roles of natural and common law in current legal
practice (JA, Papers
, 2:145–146, 159–163;
JCC
,
1:63–73).