Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15

John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 27 August 1802 Adams, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Boylston

John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams

My dear Brother. Boston 27. August 1802.

I duly received your letters of the 21st: enclosing the pamphlet of Gentz, and likewise the post-note, with your account—1 This last I have not yet examined, but I presume it to be substantially correct.— I am again to repeat my thanks for your attention to my affairs.

I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you soon here, though I hope also that the tremendous menaces of malignant yellow fever at Philadelphia, have permanently subsided— The weather here for a fortnight past has been very oppressive, and with strong putrid tendencies— We hope and pray for the best.

My family and our father’s, are generally in average health— Your mother continues at intervals to be very unwell— My child suffers by 223 the season, and at this critical time is cutting several large double teeth—

You have seen two letters from your father to S. Adams, written in 1790. lately published in the Newspapers— They have been attacked with characteristic violence and bitterness, by the fifty-dollar men at Washington, Worcester and Boston— They are defended in the Boston Gazette— The first publication was to defeat the basest misrepresentations, which were circulating here by the paid slanderers, who had seen them, by the treachery of the old prophet, and who were affirming that the letters in so many words urged the establishment of an hereditary monarchy, and nobility in this Country, and named the families of which this nobility was to be composed—2 Judge how much the publication has exasperated these fellows, by taking the lie out of their mouths, and holding it up to the public view— They are flouncing, and foaming and spouting, and dashing with the tail at a furious rate; but the harpoon is in them—they shall have their full length of rope to plunge downward; and then if they are not drawn up, cut up, barreled up and ~~salted~~ tried down for the benefit of the public, say to all the world that I am the disgrace of New-England whale-men.

Your’s faithfully.

J. Q. Adams.

RC (MQHi); internal address: “T. B. Adams Esqr.”

Neither the letters from TBA to JQA of 21 Aug. nor the enclosures have been found. The first enclosure mentioned was Gentz, Origin and Principles of the American Revolution , which JQA had requested from TBA on 10 Aug. (MHi:Adams Papers, All Generations). The second enclosure was a post-note for $1,805.94 for JQA’s shares in the Bank of North America. JQA had asked TBA to sell the shares in a 30 July letter, not found, and TBA reported on 5 Aug. (Adams Papers) that it would be a straightforward process. He also informed JQA that he would take care if yellow fever returned to Philadelphia. JQA’s 10 Aug. letter was in reply, and in addition to requesting the Gentz pamphlet, he asked for William Loughton Smith’s Phocion essays, published as The Pretensions of Thomas Jefferson to the Presidency Examined; And the Charges against John Adams Refuted, 2 vols., [Phila.], 1796, Evans, Nos. 31212, 31213, and James Thomson Callender’s The Prospect before Us (vol. 11:438, 439; M/JQA/12, APM Reel 209).

The Boston Commercial Gazette, 19, 22 July, published JA’s letters to Samuel Adams of 12 Sept. 1790 and 18 October. The letters were apparently obtained from Adams by Dr. Charles Jarvis, who sent copies to the newspaper and to Thomas Jefferson. In the 12 Sept. letter, JA remarked that a recent visit to Philadelphia had sparked memories of their service in the Continental Congress, and he also commented on the state of current politics: “What? my old Friend is this World about to become.? … Are there any Principles of political Architecture?” In the 18 Oct. letter JA continued his political discussion, arguing that a “natural and actual Aristocracy among Man kind” has a legitimate role in republican government and citing as an example the leadership of Boston’s “noble Families.” Although Adams’ replies of 4 Oct. and 25 Nov. demonstrate an exchange of political ideologies, it was only JA’s letters that were initially published. They received a mixed response, with Federalist newspapers characterizing them as innocent discourse and Democratic-Republican publications condemning them as monarchical. The Boston Commercial Gazette, 224 26 July 1802, praised the 18 Oct. 1790 letter as “universally read and eulogised, by all men, who have the capacity to think and the honesty to speak.” Whereas the Worcester, Mass., National Aegis, 28 July 1802, stated that JA had “a thorough contempt and detestation, even for the very name of ‘Republic’”; the Washington, D.C., National Intelligencer, 4 Aug., called the letters a “Libel upon liberty, upon all that is sacred in America”; and the Boston Republican Gazetteer, 7 Aug., noted that had JA’s letters been published prior to the presidential election of 1800, “he would not have obtained ten votes.” The full exchange was published as a pamphlet on 16 Aug. 1802 (JA, Papers , 20:413–414, 417–419, 424–429, 434–439; Jefferson, Papers , 38:249–250; Four Letters: Being an Interesting Correspondence between Those Eminently Distinguished Characters, John Adams, late President of the United States, and Samuel Adams, late Governor of Massachusetts, on the Important Subject of Government, Boston, 1802, Shaw-Shoemaker, No. 1713; Boston Commercial Gazette, 16 Aug.).

John Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 26 September 1802 Adams, John Smith, Abigail Adams

John Adams to Abigail Adams Smith

My dear Daughter. Quincy Sepbr: 26. 1802.

I received last night your favour of the 17th and thank you for the pamphlets you sent me—1 I had read these before. Most of the pamphlets are sent me by one or another, as well as the newspapers. To read so much malignant dulness is an odious task; but it cannot well be avoided— I have the History too of my Administration.— Good God! Is this a public Man sitting in Judgment on Nations? And has the American People so little Judgment, Taste and Sense to endure it? The History of the Clintonian Faction as it is called I should be glad to see. The Society he asserts to exist and which you say has not been denied I fear is of more consequence than you seem to be aware of.2 But to dismiss this Society for the present, there is another sett of beings, who seem to have unlimited influence over the American People— They are a detachment I fear from a very black Regiment in Europe which was more than once described to me by Stockdale of Piccadilly whom you must have seen at my house in Grosvenor Square— “Mr: Adams,” said this bookseller “the Men of learning in this town are stark mad. I know one hundred Gentlemen in London, of great learning and ingenuity, excellent writers upon any subject; any one of whom I can hire at any time for one guinea a day to write upon any theme, for or against any cause, in praise or in defamation of any character.” A number of the most profligate of these have come to this Country, very hungry, and are getting their bread by destroying all distinction between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, virtue and vice.

You speak of “moderate people on both sides”— If you know of any such, I congratulate you on your felicity. All that I know of that description are of no more consequence than if there were none.

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Commerce will decline, and the revenue fail— What expedient the Government will have recourse to, I presume not to conjecture.— I mourn over the accumulated disgraces we are bringing on ourselves; but I can do nothing.

The prisoners from Saint-Domingo, will be dangerous settlers in the Southern States.3 The french care very little whether turning them loose is insult or injury; provided we will cordially receive, or tamely connive at them.

My health is good, and my Spirits would be high, if the Prospect before us did not present clouds, portending bad Weather.— My love to Coll: Smith and the children.— The young Gentlemen I hope, think of Greece and Italy.— I am your affectionate father.

LbC in JQA’s hand (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs: A. Smith— New-York.”; APM Reel 118.

Not found.

John Wood’s A Full Exposition of the Clintonian Faction; and the Society of the Columbian Illuminati, Newark, N.J., 1802, Shaw-Shoemaker, No. 3580, was published on 7 September. Wood criticized James Cheetham and offered an animated description of the Clintonians’ connections to deism and the Theistical Society of New York (Burr, Political Correspondence , 2:727–728).

In August about 1,500 prisoners from among the formerly enslaved population of Guadeloupe arrived in New York City aboard the French frigates La Consolante and La Volontaire and the corvette Salamandre. The prisoners were among about 3,000 expelled from the island for rebelling against French rule after the reestablishment of slavery. The Boston Columbian Centinel, 8 Sept., printed reports that numerous battle-tested prisoners bent on rebellion had escaped the ships, adding, “Should they journey South they will be an unwelcome sample ‘of oppressed humanity.’” The French navy relocated around 2,000 of the exiles on the Florida coast and about 1,000 in Brest, France (Boston Columbian Centinel, 21 Aug.; Madison, Papers, Secretary of State Series , 3:503, 555–556, 599; Jefferson, Papers , 38:303, 384–386).