Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
th1801
This will be deliverd to you by the children who leave me this day.
I hope they will return to their Studies with undiminishd zeal, they have had three
months dissipation, in which I hope they have not acquired any ill habits, but close
application will be necessary for them to retrieve the past time. William if he chuses
may be fitted for colledge by the next july twelvemonths and it is the desire of his
Friends that he may be— in the mean time writing and arithematic should be attended too,
by both of them, their Mother has written to you, and no doubt exprest her mind upon several Subjects relative to them, committing them
to Yours and mr Peabody’es parental care1
I feel easy upon their account as far as it respects Your attention to them, but there
is much they must do for themselves, for as Archimidies told the King, who finding much
study necessary to acquire a knowledge of the Mathematicks inquired if there was no
easier method; there is no Royal way to the Mathematicks, replied the Sage,2 Study and application is very requisite for
those who would attain proficiency in any art or Science. I hoped You would have made us
a visit this spring: but your numerous Family I fear will be the means of preventing You
I hope and desire that you would furnish Yourself with proper help or You will find Your
task become too arduous; the Growth and prosperity of your institution, depend more upon
your Family than the Whole Town beside—
Your son was well this morning. he visits us on saturdays and keeps Sunday with us, if he fails his uncle Seems quite unhappy— You requested to know what he wants that you can supply Stockings for winter, and some linnen draws appear most necessary
we repose here at Quincy, amidst the Green Grass and Blossoms of
the Season which are in great abundance; if we do not look down and pitty Things, we
have equal reason to commisirate an infatuated deluded Multitude who are hastning upon
themselves more missery, than they have enjoyed of tranquility & happiness for
twelve years past.— Measures are in agitation which will darken our Hemisphere, and
overspread the whole Horizon; and the Multitude are driving, not knowing the destruction
will which must overwhelm us in one common
calamity—
I pray you to give my Love to Abbe I wish you could spair her to pass a little time with us this Summer—
78we present you our affectionate Regards with undiminished esteem; I am my dear sister / yours
RC (DLC:Shaw Family Papers); addressed: “Mrs Elizabeth Peabody / Atkinson”; endorsed: “May 19— 1801.”
No letter from AA2 to Peabody regarding the education of her sons, William Steuben Smith and John Adams Smith, has been found.
AA was referring to Euclid’s comment to Ptolemy as
relayed in Proclus, Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s
Elements, Prologue, Part II, chapter iv.
Your Letter of March the 10th is before
me; Your Brother informs me that he has one of April.1 It is true my dear Son, that I have read with
much interest, and sincere pleasure, Your Letters to your Brother Thomas, and with many
others, have been highly entertaind with Your journey into Selicia Whilst those Letters
convey usefull information, to the Merchant, the Mechanic, and the Farmer, they are
calculated to delight the Man of taste and Science, the lover of Literature; the
Patriot, the Phylosopher, and the Divine. the Sentiments contained in them, are so
congenial to my heart; that I feel them as my own; tho they wear a dress superior, to my
talents to have given them; Your Newburry Friends who remember you I think with more
attachment than any others, are reprinting them from Dennies Paper,2 to that they have given a greater celebrity, and
a more extensive circulation, than all his other publications.
I have not been so remiss as from the failure of my Letters, I may
appear to have been, tho I confess I have not written so frequently as formerly; before
I left Quincy in October last, I wrote you a very lengthey Letter, (at the same time I
wrote to Louissa)3 in mine to you, I
Stated the divisions which had taken place amongst the Federilists, the causes which had
produced it, the blind infatuation which had possesst them, and the concequences which I
expected would follow; Hamilton found that he was not consulted as an oracle, Pickering
that, he could not inquire communicate the
resentments of his own Breast to that of the President; McHenry and Wolcott were drawn
in by those Men to adopt Sentiments, and to pursue a conduct, which I have every reason
to believe, the latter repented of most sincerely, but Hamilton was the active, the
envious, the 79 Secreet, and the unblushing contriver of all the
Mischief— he had in all the NEngland States warm partizens, and great admirers of his
talents, devoted to him; and to him as the principle may be attributed the Division of
the federilists. he could not however bring NEngland to revolt against her old faithfull
and long tried Friend, but he forced an other into their list, against the opinion,
against the judgement, of the most judicious, and firm Friends of the Government; The
other Party exulted to find that a division existed, they fomented it; and exerted all
the powers of darkness to triumph over them.
accordingly Callender the infamous, is pardoned and released from
confinement duane has been patronized by a remission of all suits against him
insstituded by the Attorney General, Lyon has been call’d in as an adviser and
counsellor with Steven Thomson Mason; and Gallitian is appointed to the important trust
of Secretary of the treasury— a Man, who beside his being a Foreigner; was implicated in
the insurgency, and took Shelter in the general amnesty, who has uniformly been in
opposition to every measure of the Government, and whose every effort has been to pull
it down, who cannot articulate a word of our language.—5 Such is the Man exalted to one of the highest
trusts of confidence. I say nothing of Lincoln, & Madison, upon the principles of
the Party. they are wisely placed. Dearbone will Show how competent he is to his
Department. I presume he is not less so, than McHenry was— Many Men have been removed
from office merely for their opinions, and those against whom any Charge of Toryism ever
existed, however unimpeachable their conduct in office have been, are sure to feel the full effect of the new powers—
Marshalls are universally removed where the power of chusing Jurymen lay with them.
If I did not apprehend a prospect of confusion, and had not a dread of anarchy, If I had a soul capable of rejoicing at the terpitude of Man; I Should be amply revenged to see the junto and their Sattilites so foild so mortified, so compleatly put to route; and that by their own folly and desertion.
80To say that Your Father and I have not felt for our Country, and
for ourselves, would be to deny the best of Sentiments the consciousness of having
merrited more gratefull returns from those who are daily reaping the fruits of a Life
Devoted to the Service, and best Interest of the Country; I See not in him, nor do I
feel in my own Breast, any animosity, or resentment against the World, or even those
individuals who have maligned and abused us; we know what allowence to make for a Spirit
of party which has unhappily taken full possession of our Countrymen. it is of all
others the blindest, and most absurd. it refuses to do justly, to excercise mercy or
demean itself Humbly. it blinds the understanding and perverts the judgment. This State
has had its vibrations, and in some measure partook of the contagion which has spread
from the Head, to the remotest Limbs. When the whole Head is Sick; the Body partakes
largely of the disease.8 the State at
large is sound; but the weight added to the light particles from the change produced in
the National Counsels, have produced a various coulourd Fabrick; the Town of Boston
represented exclusively by the most voilent Democrats, Jarvis Austin Fellows &c (of
the Senate, a majority are Federal;) opposed to this medly, is a Federal Gov’r, chosen by a majority of 5000 votes—9 N York, all in the wrong—Clinton and Birds of
the Same feather compose their legislature;10
Your prospects my dear son are not very bright. You must summons resolution and return to the druggery of the Bar. be not disgusted with the prospect; I know how reluctant you feel at the Idea; at the same time I know how zealously You will seek after that independance, without which no Man can feel himself happy.
Your Father and I were both much affected with the Fillial and affectionate tender of what, thank God we have not any occasion for; you know our Habits; and tho we feel many curtailments necessary, and have made them; we have many comforts and enjoyments; and we can adopt the words of Shakespear
I have had domestick calamity to encounter and a portion of sorrow which has weighd heavier at my Heart, than any change I have experienced from the ingratitude or fickleness of the World. I wrote to you from Washington soon after the Death of your Brother which from the circumstances which produced a premature dissolution, the State of Health in which I found him, the Situation of his Family, the prospect for them, and for me if he had lived; were of a most distressing Nature, and I could not but consider the Event afflicting as it was; as a dispensation of Heaven in Mercy to his near connection’s.12 Such was the infatuation which had taken possession of him; that he was lost living, and renderd every one misirable, who possesd a regard and affection for him— of his restoration to Reason and temperance; all hopes and expectations faild in his last sickness, which was rapid. he appeard most tender and affectionate he suffered, much, endured much, his mind was constantly running upon doing justice, and making reperation; early principles tho stiffled, now discoverd themselves; and Mercy I hope was extended to him; but it rends my Heart to think upon the Subject—in Silence I must submit
all that is left of him we have. His wife and two Children, they are fine promising Children. Susan I have had for more than a year; Your Father is very fond of them; and they amuse us in our retirement; Your Father is quite the Farmer, so far as the rural Scenes delight and amuse him.
I hope to see you return before the expiration of the Seventh year. I have had it hinted me that Louissa is like to become a mother. I shall feel anxious for her, untill I learn the event. She has been So unfortunate that I Scarcly know how to believe the report, especially when I know what a Tour She made through the Summer. My Love to her. She will feel I hope an additional motive to return to America—
I was very sorry to learn that through the mere wantoness of a Printer, you was made unhappy upon your Fathers reputed Sickness. both he and I feel the advances of old Age; Seven Years has “added to our furrows[”] but thank God, we are in the enjoyment of a greater portion of health than for many years past; Your sister and Brother were both well, the last week. hopeing that this Letter may have a more fortunate passage to you than my two last, I am my dear Son your ever affectionate / Mother—
RC (Adams
Papers); endorsed: “My Mother— 30. May 1801. / 30. Septr: recd— at Boston.”
JQA to TBA, 4 April, above.
JQA’s Silesia letters were reprinted from the Port Folio in the Newburyport
Herald, 20, 27, 31 March; 3, 10, 14, 17, 24, 28 April; 1, 5, 8, 12, 19 May; 2,
9, 12, 19 June; 7, 10, 14, 17, 24, 31 July; 11 August.
AA to JQA, 1 Sept. 1800, for which see vol. 14:392–396. Her letter to LCA has not been found.
Shakespeare, King John, Act III,
scene iv, lines 138–141.
AA’s criticism of Thomas Jefferson’s executive
actions began with his pardon of James Thomson Callender. Callender completed a
nine-month prison term for sedition on 3 March 1801 and on the 16th Jefferson cited
“divers good causes and considerations” in issuing him a presidential pardon.
AA’s comment on Matthew Lyon and Stevens Thomson Mason likely arose
from her knowledge of a letter from William Cranch to JA of 9 May (Adams Papers), in which Cranch reported that
the pair were among six who helped Jefferson select candidates to replace those
appointed to federal posts by JA late in his administration. She was also
critical of the president’s newly appointed treasury secretary, Albert Gallatin, whose
early opposition to a federal excise tax on spirits was seen by some as a trigger to
the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion. The view was so entrenched that JA in 1813
referred to the uprising as “Gallatins Insurrection” (vol. 14:228; Jefferson, Papers
, 33:111–114,
125, 309–310; Jefferson, Papers, Retirement Series
, 6:254).
Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV, scene
iii, lines 189–190.
AA conflated Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, scene i, lines 35–36; The Merchant
of Venice, Act I, scene i, line 81; and King Henry IV,
Part II, Act I, scene iii, lines 93–94.
Isaiah, 1:5.
Benjamin Austin Jr., Dr. Charles Jarvis, and merchant Nathaniel
Fellows (1743–1806) were among seven Democratic-Republicans who won Boston’s seats in
the Mass. General Court in a 13 May 1801 town meeting at Faneuil Hall. The city’s
delegation in the state senate was comprised of two senators from each party, though
Federalists controlled the incoming senate by a two-thirds majority. For Federalist
Caleb Strong’s victory in the governor’s race, see
JA to TBA, 6 April, note
1, above (A New Nation Votes; Vital Records of Gloucester, Massachusetts, to the End of the
Year 1849, 3 vols., Topsfield, Mass., 1917, 1:256; New-England Palladium, 16 May 1806).
Former New York governor George Clinton was reelected on 1 May
1801 after a hiatus of six years, succeeding John Jay. Clinton’s return to office was
“truly gratifying to the Republicans thro’-out the continent,” according to the Boston
Independent Chronicle, 7 May, which also reported that
“the Democratic ticket for Representatives to the Legislature in that great
metropolis, has succeeded beyond any former example” (
ANB
).
Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II,
scene i, lines 2–4.
For AA’s letter of 29 Jan., see vol. 14:547–551.