Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
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.
th:April 1801.
Ten days ago, I shipped your Carriage on board a Schooner called
the Hannah of Nantucket bound for Boston, and as there was no room below, I had to
consent to its being secured upon Deck. Since the vessel sailed, we have had, until this
day, a constant Succession of North Easterly storms, which has given me uneasiness on
account of your property on board, and in order to cover the loss, in case it should
happen, I have had serious thoughts of Insuring, at least the amount of four hundred
dollars, which may be done, I presume, at about 4 or 5 per cent. Should this intent be
realized, I shall inform you of it. The Bill of lading I enclosed to Mr: Smith, to whom the Carriage is also consigned.1
Your friends here are all well; Dr:
Rush is reading a course of lectures to some intelligent ladies of the upper order,
being extracts from his annual course delivered to Medical Students. Your friend, Mrs: Bradford is among the number of his hearers,2 & she told me, last evening, that the
Professor had been descanting upon the comparative qualities, merits, & excellences,
of the sexes; wherein he had attempted to make the discrimination which constitute their
appropriate characters. She said it was a fertile theme & had been pretty well
treated, though she differed from the Dr: in several of his
positions; one of these was, “that men are more prone to disclose their own secrets,
than women; but women are most apt to disclose the secrets of others, which have been
confided to them.” I told her, that I thought the Dr: was
right. She said we neither of us, knew the ladies.
I remember to have heard an Oration delivered before the Royal
Society at Berlin, by a french Emigrant of some distinction, whose name I have
forgotten— His theme was upon the influence which females have had in the affairs of
Empires, from the remotest periods & of their capacity to direct the Councils of
Nations.—3 Of all 63 the discourses I ever heard pronounced, this was the most eloquent. The style was
perfectly adapted to the delicacy of his subject—the sentiment, pure, correct &
refined; & the manner of the speaker was doubtless the more animated by the presence
of a few females, who were invited & selected for the refinement of their taste
& the culture of their minds. One of the most striking examples which he referred to
for the illustration of his subject, was the story of Pericles & Aspasia, which he
described in such glowing colours, that you almost saw the parties in your presence by
the magic of his pencil.4 If Dr: Rush could charm an audience, in this manner it would be an
entertainment, superior to the stage, to attend his lectures.
I have nothing more in point to the above subject to add, than to
inform you, that Mr: Lewis, the celebrated lawyer, was
married to the widdow Durdon, an English-buxom lady, of whom might be said without much
exageration on the score of age—“fat, fair & forty,” as was said, on a former
occasion of another English lady— The Bishop performed the office on the 23d: of January last, but for some unknown reason, the thing was
kept secret until a few days ago.5
Mr: & Mrs: Bingham, Maria & Miss Willing, embarked a fortnight ago, for Lisbon, a
voyage prescribed by Mrs: Binghams physician as the only
chance of her recovery.6
I am dear mother, with best love to all / & duty to my father / your son
RC (Adams
Papers); internal address: “Mrs: A Adams.”
The schooner Hannah, Capt. Hussey,
departed Philadelphia for Boston on 17 April. William Smith Shaw notified
TBA in a letter of 5 May, not found, that the carriage arrived safe in
Boston (Philadelphia Gazette, 18 April; TBA
to Shaw, 10 May, MWA:Adams Family
Letters).
The lectures Benjamin Rush presented to Susan Vergereau Boudinot
Bradford and her peers were probably extracted from those published in November as Six Introductory Lectures … upon
the Institutes and Practice of Medicine, Delivered in the University of
Pennsylvania, Phila., 1801, Shaw-Shoemaker, No. 1274 (vol. 14:305; Philadelphia Gazette, 19
Nov.).
On 9 Aug. 1798 TBA attended a lecture at the Berlin
Academy of Sciences given “by M. le vi-comte de Goyon a french Emigrant” and reported
that he was “ shighly pleased with it” (TBA, Journal, 1798
, p. 24).
Aspasia was the consort of Pericles and is said to have convinced
him to launch the Peloponnesian War (
Oxford Classical Dicy.
).
Philadelphia attorney William Lewis and Frances Esmond Durdin, a
native of Ireland and widow of Dublin attorney Richard Durdin, were married on 23 Jan.
1801 by Episcopal bishop William White at Christ Church, Philadelphia, though a
newspaper notice of the marriage did not appear until 14 April. In characterizing the
bride, TBA quoted the title of a 1786 London cartoon depicting Maria Anne
Smythe Weld Fitzherbert, whose unsanctioned marriage to George, Prince of Wales, in
1785 caused a stir in London (vol. 7:xi–xii; “Marriage Record of Christ Church, Philadelphia, 1709–1806,”
Penna.
Archives
, 2d ser., 8:155; Philadelphia Gazette of
the United States, 14 April 1801; Howard M. Jenkins, The Family of William Penn, Phila., 1899, p. 217–218; Mary Dorothy George, Catalogue of
64
Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of
Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 11 vols. in 12, London, 1870–1954,
6:290).
For Anne Willing Bingham’s illness and death, see TBA to AA, 31 May, and note 4, below.