Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
I have read Your Brothers Letters, with much pleasure; that part of
them; in which he so dutifully, affectionatly, and generously tenders all his property
for the use of his parents, affected both your Father and me most tenderly; thank God,
we have not any occasion for it; our desires are moderate, our oeconomy strickt, our
income, tho moderate, will furnish us with all the necessaries, and many of the comforts
of Life; and if it bears not any proportion to 40 years of Labour, hazard and fatigue,
of risk of Life; and character—who is there to accuse? we shall go down to our Graves,
certainly not in debt to the public; I hope you will publish that part of his your Brothers Letter which accuses his Country
men, of a sordid Spirit of gain; and an Infamous spirit of party.— of a deficiency of
taste, for the fine arts, and literature, in a degree unworthy of a people who are so
apt to be vain of their acquirements, and boast themselves, “as the freest and most
enlightned” people upon the Globe;1 This
State have given an honorable Majority to Govr Strong, the
votes are near 5000 Majority—so that Jacobinism has not triumphd as was designed; in
every 58 instance in this State; tho it has shown it self
too powerfull in many instances— I See the little General has been Spouting in NYork,
but notwithstanding his proffers; he will mar the cause he wishes to defend, in vain may
he strive to tread back the path he has wandered from; he and his associates have
merritted all they feel and all they fear; the changes which have taken place create
murmers but dumbness itself reigns upon the past, and one would imagine the last four
years of the administration annihilated, the writers who proclaim daily the wisdom of
Washington’s, scarcly deign to notice that he had a successor— at a late federal feast
in N York, where the memory of Washington is celebrated and Jay justly toasted, Hamilton
is Eulogized, whist Adams is passed by in total neglect.2
I Mention this as one proof amongst a thousand, which daily occur, to show the unjust spirit of party, and the determination that a President shall be Subject to their controul, or be sacrificed by them, and this is, as evident a struggle for power in the federilist, as can be manifested by their opponents— I feel thankfull that Your Father bears, and sees all these things with a total indifference towards them; that he is not embitterd by them, but Views them with Calmness, pitty and compassion— there is no temper of mind which I wish to strive harder against, than a sour discontented complaining disposition; if Benifits have been rendered, to which those are insensible who have received them; are we not all more or less Guilty of the same offence; against that Being who impartially makes the Rain to desend, and the Sun to shine upon the Evil, and unthankfull, as well as upon the most gratefull and upright of his creatures?3
You will observe by an Extract of some late dispatches from mr King, how much disposed Great Britain is to preserve a harmony and civility towards the United States—4 Would this have been the case, if we had not made a convention with France? Yet no man asks this Question. the writers in Ben’s paper were no longer than last week, calling it a disgracefull Humiliation, and abuseing Jefferson for ordering the Bearceau to be given up.— the feds injure their own cause, when they complain of just and honest measures.5
my dear Thomas I have a word to say to you, if upon any exigency you have occasion for a little money 50, or a hundred dollars, let me know. I have a little fund from which I can draw it, and You shall repay it me again when you are able So do not feel yourself embarressed at requesting it— I wish you was Settled in the County of Worster, there is said to be a good opening now Lincoln, provided 59 for. Strong a judge & Spraige dead—but I must leave you to your own judgement—6 I have found here a pr of Your black Silk Stockings which You said You missd— I suppose they were brought here last summer— Let me know when the Coachee is Shipt. I see dagget is up for Philadelphia; he can take it I Suppose if not already sent; I want it.7 Your sister inquires after You and Says she hears nothing from You; the Boys are not yet returnd but are to come in May—
we have had one of the sourest coldest Springs I have known for many years, the trees Scarcly show a leaf and the ground is brown; they call it Jeffersonian Weather here he may produce warmth enough for them: before the end of the year however
a kind remembrance to all inquiring Friends / affectionatly Your Mother
RC (Adams
Papers); endorsed: “Mrs: A Adams / 22d: April 1801, / 29th: Do Recd: / 2d: May answd:.”
JQA’s letter to TBA of 27 Dec. 1800 was
enclosed in
TBA’s to
JA of 10 April 1801, above. In the letter to his brother,
JQA lamented the rise of party in the United States, writing that “an
exclusive abandonment of the human mind to the sordid pursuits of avarice & the
rancorous passions of party politics, has an unquestionable tendency to contract &
debase it.” A focus on idle pursuits and party rancor left little time for Americans
to engage in more edifying activities, he wrote: “Hence it is that our countrymen have
incurred the imputation of a barbarous contempt for literature, science & the
arts.” In commenting on JQA’s argument, AA quoted a Dec.
1796 draft reply of the House of Representatives to an address of George Washington
that gained popular currency after consuming two days of debate about whether the
reply should call the country “the freest and most enlightened in the world.” The
phrase was changed to “a free and enlightened nation” when it was delivered, and
Washington repeated the revised line in his response (vol. 14:368;
Annals of Congress
, 4th Cong.,
2d sess., p. 1612–1653, 1674; New York American Citizen,
19 Nov. 1800).
On 31 March 1801 in Utica, N.Y., seventy Federalists honored
their former congressional representative Jonas Platt. JA was left out of
the proffered toasts, which included those to Washington—“May a double portion of his
spirit invest the Presidential Chair to the latest posterity”—to a “capable” and
“just” John Jay, and to Alexander Hamilton, “whose tried patriotism, talents and
integrity, entitle him to our highest confidence” (New York Daily Advertiser, 15 April).
Matthew, 5:45.
U.S. minister to Britain Rufus King reported to Secretary of
State John Marshall on 23 Jan. that his repeated protests about British depredations
against U.S. shipping in the West Indies had at last been addressed. King wrote that
orders had been dispatched the day before that would result in the recall of British
privateers and the reform of the Vice-Admiralty Courts overseeing West Indian
captures. The Boston Commercial Gazette, 20 April,
reported the news and claimed that George III had conveyed a message to the U.S.
minister that he did not authorize the attacks and had no wish “to interrupt the good
understanding engaged between the two countries” (King, Life and Corr.
,
3:375–377).
The U.S. frigate Boston captured the
French corvette Berceau off Guadeloupe on 12 Oct. 1800.
The French vessel was condemned as a prize and acquired by the U.S. government in Jan.
1801, but Thomas Jefferson ordered it returned to France under the terms of the
Convention of 1800. On 1 April 1801 acting naval secretary Samuel Smith asked Boston
naval agent Samuel Brown to restore the vessel to its condition at capture in
preparation for the transfer. The vessel was restored at a cost of $32,800 and turned
over 60 to the French at Boston on 22 June. The Boston
Columbian Centinel, 15 April, excoriated the order to
refit the vessel, claiming it was now clear “that the Treaty with the French Republic
would involve this country in expence, as it had already entailed upon us disgrace”
(vol. 14:456; Jefferson, Papers
, 34:548–549;
Naval Documents of the Quasi-War
, 7:171). For the
September court-martial of several Boston officers, see
JA to
JQA, 12 Sept., and note 1, below.
The ranks of central Massachusetts attorneys thinned when
Worcester, Mass., resident Levi Lincoln began the dual duties of U.S. attorney general
and acting U.S. secretary of state on 5 March. In addition, Simeon Strong (1736–1805)
of Hadley, Mass., was appointed to the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court, taking his seat
in March, and John Sprague, a judge of the Worcester County Court of Common Pleas,
died in 1800 (
Biog.
Dir. Cong.
; William T. Davis, Bench and Bar of
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2 vols., Boston, 1895, 1:73, 246; 2:152,
280–281; JA, Legal
Papers
, 1:cx;
Brookfield, Mass., Political Repository, 17 March
1801).
An advertisement in the Boston Columbian
Centinel, 18 April, stated that the schooner Sylvia, Capt. Seth Daggett, would soon sail for Philadelphia. For the shipment
of the coachee on another vessel, see
TBA to AA, 26 April, and note 1, below.
As I am informed there is a vessel soon to sail from Amsterdam for
Boston, I now forward to Mr. Bourne to go by her, this
letter enclosing copies of my numbers 2 and 3. upon the Etat de
la France &c. The book itself will go with the copy of my first letter
concerning it, from Hamburg— Hauterive has generally been given out as its author; but
Talleyrand himself is now understood to have had the principal hand in writing it— I
think you will perceive in it the discovery of a system pursued by the present french government, of most imminent danger to the
political liberties of all Europe, and even of the United States—1 It is high time for us to be aware that mere resolves of Congress, or proclamations of the Executive, not to engage in the quarrels and dissensions of
Europe, will not alone suffice to keep us out of them— Here is a french minister of
foreign affairs, who tells the world that Europe must have a new Law of Nations; that
France must make it; and that in the system of Europe, France includes the United States—2 At
the same time a report is circulating all over Europe, that Spain has ceded the
Florida’s and Louisiana to France— At least in the peace of Luneville they have realized
in favour of the duke of Parma, the plan which Carnot has publicly declared he urged for
the peace of Campo Formio, as the price of Louisiana, in order
to obtain a powerful influence over the United States.—3 We must be upon our guard.
My box of books, which I mentioned in a former letter, sailed from
Holland the 15th: instt: in a
vessel of Mr: Smith’s—Captain Atkins— 61 and address’d to him— I have already requested you would permit them to be lodg’d
with the rest of my books.4
My wife continues to be recovering.— Ever faithfully.
RC (Adams
Papers); addressed: “John Adams Esqr / Quincy /
near / Boston. / United States of America.”; internal address: “J. Adams Esqr.”; endorsed by TBA: “J Q Adams / 25th: April 1801 / 4th: Augst: Recd:”; notation: “Per Cap n Ingham” and “Per
Capn Ingham.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 134.
As the notations on this letter indicate, after it was forwarded
to U.S. consul at Amsterdam Sylvanus Bourne it was carried on the brig Jane Maria, Capt. Joseph Ingham, which docked on 30 July at
New York rather than Boston. JQA enclosed copies of his letters to
JA of 21 and 25 April, first letter, which constituted second and third
installments of a four-part review of Alexandre Maurice Blanc de Hauterive, De l’état de la France, a la fin de l’an VIII, Paris, 1800.
The first installment was sent by JQA to JA on 11 April and
the fourth on the 28th (all LbC’s, APM Reel 134). In the letter of the 11th, JQA called Hauterive’s
book “a work of considerable ability, written with much elegance of style” in which he
argued that the French Revolution was a necessary catalyst leading to “the
establishment of a perfect & unrivalled preponderance of France in the affairs of
Europe.” The book itself, which is in JA’s library at MB, and the copy of the 11 April
installment were likely carried aboard the schooner Betsy, Capt. Lovett, which arrived at Beverly, Mass., from Hamburg on 16 June.
The review was printed in Port Folio, 1:201–203, 220–221,
227–228, 234–236 (27 June; 11, 18, 25 July) from the recipient copies, which reached
TBA earlier (New York Commercial
Advertiser, 30 July; New York American Citizen, 12
April 1802; Boston Columbian Centinel, 17 June 1801;
JQA to TBA, 11
April, above, 21 April, Adams
Papers;
Catalogue of JA’s Library
).
Thomas Jefferson in his 4 March inaugural address espoused a
foreign policy of neutrality that eclipsed those of George Washington and
JA to border on isolationism. The United States, he claimed, was
“kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one
quarter of the globe,” and his administration would strive for “peace, commerce, and
honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” Hauterive’s book,
which JQA believed was influenced by French foreign minister Charles
Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, presented a counterview calling for a revised Law of
Nations and characterizing the United States as an active player in European politics
(p. 14, 67, 73, 154–155). JQA derided these ideas as “a pretension on the
part of France to give an all comprehensive Law of nations to the world” by “summoning
all Europe, & the United States, to acquiesce in a
new system of public law, commenced and to be completed by France” (Jefferson, Papers
, 33:150; David J. Lorenzo, Debating War:
Why Arguments Opposing American Wars and Interventions Fail, N.Y., 2016, p.
25–27; JQA to JA, 25, 28 April, LbC’s, APM Reel 134; Port
Folio, 1:228, 235 [18, 25 July]).
In April 1799 JQA noted that French revolutionary
Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot in his Réponse de L. N. M.
Carnot, citoyen François, London, 1799, advocated for France’s reacquisition of
Louisiana from Spain as a means to gain influence over the United States. The two
nations pursued such a course on 7 Oct. 1800 when they negotiated the secret
Convention of San Ildefonso, in which France promised Tuscany to Don Louis, Duke of
Parma, in return for the Spanish cession of Louisiana, a transaction that was
finalized with the signing of the Treaty of Lunéville on 9 Feb. 1801. The London Morning Post and Gazetteer, 7 March, accurately reported
the exchange. William Vans Murray wrote to JQA on 30 March that the
transaction was complete, and JQA responded on 7 April that “natural
antipathies” would blunt France’s ability “to debauch our southern planters,”
declaring: “Let them take Louisiana” (vol. 13:456–457, 459; Roberts, Napoleon
, p. 286, 290–291; Madison, Papers, Secretary of State
Series
, 1:56; Murray to JQA, 30 March, Adams Papers; JQA to Murray, 7 April,
LbC, APM Reel 134).
The shipment of books that JQA mentioned in his letter of 24 March, above, was 62 carried in William Smith’s schooner Nancy, Capt. John W. Atkins, which arrived in Boston on 22
May after a voyage of 37 days from Rotterdam. JQA kept a “Catalogue of
Books Sent from Europe” (M/JQA/52, APM Reel 248) that listed books sent from The Hague to
Lisbon in 1797 and on to the United States in 1799. On the final page with text he
added a list titled “From Berlin. 1801.” that included 35 titles in 60 volumes of
literature, biography, and philosophy (vol. 10:434; Boston Columbian Centinel,
23 May 1801; Boston Independent Chronicle, 3 Nov. 1800).
For the storage of JQA’s library at the John Quincy Adams Birthplace and
then at the home of Moses Black, see vol. 14:172, 209.