Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
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.
April 1801
th:I have your letter of the 17th:,
which travelled, from Boston hither, in very agreeable company.1 I can readily conceive, the novelty of your
situation in a lawyers office, joined to other novelties of quite as pleasant a
nature, would tend to distract your thoughts, for some time.
Without undertaking to advise you on the subject of your recent
pursuit, I will barely say, that the Office of my principal, were I to be again a
student, should be my place of dwelling, almost uninterruptedly during the first
twelve or fifteen months of my apprenticeship; during this time, you ought to read
Blackstone, Cooke on Littleton, the two first vol’s of Hume’s England; Robertson’s
Charles 5th: & Reeve’s history of the Eng: law.2 What course your patron will advise I
know not, but all other advice ought to be subservient to his direction. As a general
memento, you may learn from me, that the best time to study law, is while you are in
the Office of another person, for after you have one of your own, your attention &
time must be occupied, chiefly by attendance upon Courts &ce:. It was not until I had considerable experience, that I could look upon a
Client in any other light than an intruder into my Office, and nothing but his fee
could persuade me to the Contrary. Jo: Dennie says he used to lock his office door to
keep Clients out. This is no violence to the truth, in his case, as I can readily
conceive.
I shall be obliged to you, for occasional memoirs of town & Country occurrences, and will give you similar coin in return.
I am glad you have a chief magistrate, of your choice, and hope this may always be your lot, as it is mine, never to have been gratified in this particular.
The Shee Genl: after all, would not
be Marshall, & therefore a far more ignoble man, has been appointed in his room—a
man of crimes; if report be true. I do not know the man, even by sight; his reputation
is much of a piece with that of many of our State Officers; indeed, I think it a pity,
that the President, in appointing this man, has, so far, diminished the list of
Candidates for the patronage of our Governor.3
I have nothing new to offer— Present me kindly to all friends,
and particularly to Mr: & Mrs: Foster—
Your’s
Tell Mr: Callender, if you please,
that the lottery in which he is interested has commenced & nearly finished
drawing— I leave the examination of his tickets ’till the last.4
RC (MWA:Adams Family Letters); addressed: “William S Shaw / Boston”; internal address: “W. S. Shaw”; endorsed: “T B Adams Esqr / rec 11 May”; docketed: “1801 April 27.”
Not found.
In addition to the standard texts by William Blackstone, Edward
Coke, and David Hume, TBA recommended William Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V, 3 vols., London, 1769,
and John Reeves, History of the English Law, 2 vols.,
London, 1783–1784.
Thomas Jefferson on 28 March commissioned Philadelphia merchant
John Smith as marshal of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania after Col. John Shee
declined to serve. Jefferson submitted to the Senate a nomination for Smith’s
reappointment on 6 Jan. 1802, which the Senate confirmed on the 26th. Smith, an
officer in the city militia, helped organize a Philadelphia celebration of Jefferson’s
inauguration. In an 11 March 1801 letter to the president, Smith denied “a Cruel
report by some ill disposed person” that he supported Gen. John Peter Gabriel
Muhlenberg over Thomas McKean for governor. The “ill disposed person” may have been
Philadelphia sheriff Israel Israel, a political opponent of Smith and a confidant of
TBA (vol. 14:482; Jefferson, Papers
, 33:246–247, 675; U.S. Senate, Exec. Jour.
, 7th
Cong., 1st sess., p. 403, 405).
The Easton Delaware Bridge Lottery was authorized by the
Pennsylvania legislature to raise money for the construction of a covered bridge
across the Delaware River between Easton, Penn., and Phillipsburg, N.J. Tickets cost
$10 each and prizes ranged from $10 to $5,000, with a series of drawings begun on 3
April and set to end on 25 May. TBA monitored the lottery on behalf of
Harvard College classmate and Boston attorney John Callender (vol. 9:236; Steven M. Richman, The Bridges of New Jersey, New Brunswick, N.J., 2005, p.
97–98; Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 27
April, 1 May).