Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
I find by the newspapers that a Commission of bankruptcy has issued
against Robert Bird, and as it is impossible for me to attend personally before the
Commissioners to make proof of my debt, and demand my claim, I take the liberty of
inclosing them to you, with an earnest request that you would present them for me, at
the next meeting of the Commissioners which I think is to be on the 10th: of this month— I send you also a letter of attorney to
vote for me in the choice of an Assignee, unless he should already be chosen— It is an
object of great importance that he should be a man of commercial and law knowledge of
talents and of integrity— I wish particularly for a man who will dispute and try at Law,
the validity of certain assignments heretofore made by Robert Bird to Mr: Harrison—1
If you have any reason for not choosing to act in my behalf on this occasion, I have
included in the letter of Attorney, a power to substitute any other person you may judge
expedient; and have only to beg you in such case, to let it be a person of great
discretion, and perfectly trusty— I expect to pass through New-York in February or
March, when I can exhibit to the Commissioners or at their office, the proofs of my
debt, and the grounds of my claim.
With my best love to my Sister, and your children I remain, Dear Sir, your’s sincerely.
LbC (Adams
Papers); internal address: “Coll: W. S. Smith.
New-York.”; APM Reel 135.
Enclosures not found. The New York Bankruptcy Commission on 5
Dec. 1803 declared New York merchant Robert Bird bankrupt and ordered him to surrender
to authorities by the 27th. Bird was the principal of Robert Bird & Co., the U.S.
subsidiary of the failed London firm Bird, Savage, & Bird, for which see
JQA to TBA, 2
April, and note 1, above. In a notice in the New York American Citizen, 14 Dec., the commission asked Bird’s creditors to appear
before it on 10 and 24 Jan. 1804 to prove their debts and recommend an assignee to
oversee his assets. In a reply of 15 Jan., WSS reported attending the 10
Jan. hearing and recommended that JQA attempt to join his claim with that
of the U.S. Treasury (Adams Papers).
JQA responded on 23 Jan., thanking WSS for the suggestion
but expressing skepticism about its feasibility and noting that he had begun the
process of filing a claim in London against Bird, Savage, & Bird
(LbC, APM Reel 135).
The Robert Bird & Co. case was not resolved until 1809.
Creditors challenged Bird’s 31 Jan. 1803 assignment of assets to merchant Richard
Harrison, claiming that the assignment a week before the failure of its parent
company, Bird, Savage, & Bird, was an attempt to compensate some creditors at the
expense of others. Chief Justice John Marshall upheld their contention in a 15 March
1809 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that vacated the assignment and ordered the firm’s
assets divided equally among its creditors. The bankruptcy settlement for Bird,
Savage, & Bird took until 1830; the company’s liabilities 320 totaled £280,000 while assets were £69,000.
Creditors, including the U.S. Treasury, received restitution of about five shillings
on the pound (Madison, Papers, Secretary of State Series
, 4:317; Stephen
K. Williams, Cases Argued and Decided in the Supreme Court of
the United States, rev. edn., 60 vols., Rochester, N.Y., 1917–1920, 3:289, 293,
298–302; Stefan A. Riesenfeld, “The Status of Foreign Administrators of Insolvent
Estates: A Comparative Survey,” American Journal of
Comparative Law, 24:290–292 [Spring 1976]).
thJan. 1804
On my return last evening from Atkinson where I have passed the
last eight days in company with your brother Thomas I had the pleasure to receive your
letters of the 23 & 24 ult: with Mr. Tracy’s speech for
which I am much obliged to you
At present I have only time to say that Mr Stedman was the writer
of the letter alluded to in mine of the 13th— Russel when he
shew me the letter did not permit me to see the writers name but I knew the hand writing
& Russel has since told John Gardner that the letter was from Mr. Stedman of
Lancaster1
Very respectfully
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “John Q. Adams Esqr.”
In a letter to JQA of 12 [Dec.] 1803, Shaw enclosed the article criticizing JQA that
appeared in the Boston Columbian Centinel, 10 Dec., for
which see
AA to
JQA, 11 Dec., and note 3, above. Shaw further reported that
prior to the article’s publication, Centinel printer
Benjamin Russell had shown him a letter from a Massachusetts member of the House of
Representatives that commented on JQA’s actions in the Senate with
“several marks of admiration.” Shaw concluded that the printed version in the Centinel had been “vamped up” by Russell and was “the
effusion of his own idle brain” (Adams
Papers).
After learning of the Centinel
piece, JQA made several efforts to identify the author. He wrote to Shaw
on 23 and 24 Dec. (both MWA:Adams
Family Letters), asking that Shaw seek the writer’s identity so that JQA
could “make such explanations to him as will be entirely satisfactory to him and to
me.” JQA wrote a similar letter to Russell on 24 Dec. (LbC,
APM Reel 135). On 8 Jan. 1804 Russell
replied that he would ask the writer’s permission to reveal his name, and on 29 Jan.
he wrote again, noting the author’s refusal (both Adams Papers). In the 29 Jan. letter, Russell also informed JQA
that he had printed the letter without the writer’s permission because he “lamented an
error in your judgment, from whose influence I had expected important consequences”
and wrote that JQA had disappointed his hope for “adding new strength and
energy to the thin ranks of federalism.” On 18 Jan. JQA received Shaw’s
letter, learning that the source of the published letter was Congressman William
Stedman, for whom see vol. 13:157. JQA did not indicate whether he approached Stedman on
the matter (D/JQA/27, 18 Jan., APM Reel 30).