Papers of John Adams, volume 20
It was a very singular pleasure to me to receive a Line from you
approving the discourse which I did myself the honor to send to you; the good opinion of
such a Gentleman as Mr Adams & the very great honor wch he has done me will not easily be effaced from my
remembrance.
Not till this Week have I met with the political annals of George
Chalmers printed in London 1780 in one Vol 4to.
1 From what little I have as yet had Opportunity
to read of the work, I conceive the 84 author to have the
spirit of indefatigable enquiry which is necessary in a historian, tho’ I think not so
much of that Candor which is becoming in judging the characters & actions of those
who have trod the Stage before us— The reason of my mentioning him to you is to
introduce an enquiry whether you know the Man—Whether he be an American refugee or an
Englishman—a Lawyer I think he is—& whether there is or is likely to be a second
volume of his work. When I observe his having had access to the papers in the plantation
Office, I feel a regret that an Ocean seperates me from such a grand repository. how
necessary to form a just judgment of the secret springs of many American
transactions!
The want of public repositories for historical materials as well as
the destruction of many valuable ones by fires, by war & by the lapse of time has
long been a subject of regret in my mind. Many papers which are daily thrown away may in
future be much wanted, but except here & there a person who has a curiosity of his
own to gratify no one cares to undertake the Collection & of this class of
Collectors there are scarcely any who take Care for securing what they have got together
after they have quitted the Stage. The only sure way of preserving such things is by
printing them in some voluminous work as the Remembrancer—but the attempt to carry on
such a work would probably not meet with encouragement— the publication of Govr Winthrop’s journal labours & I fear will come to
nought.—2
You have done what I wished in publishing the Letters to Dr Calkoen, a Copy of
which I was favoured with the Sight of by Mr Cranch before
this publication was made. It is certainly an important point in the History of our
Revolution that it was the work of the people at large & not of any party or faction
as our Enemies have affected to believe. There is another point which ought to be as
fully ascertained & that is that our Opposition to Great Brittain did not originate
in a desire of Independence, but that we preserved our loyalty & affection to the
Crown of Great Brittain as long as was practicable considering the immense provocation
which we received.
Pray my dear Sir is it a fact that Baron Kalb was sent over hither by the Court of France to sound the inclinations of the Americans after the Repeal of the Stamp-act & that he found us so passionately attached to the British nation as to report the impossibility of attempting a seperation?3
You will pardon me for thus intruding on your more important engagements—& if you think me too forward or impertinent in my 85 enquiries, suggest to me the propriety of being less so & you shall be obeyed—for really Sir I have a regard for your Character little short of veneration.—
Believe me therefore yr truly
respectful / & much obliged friend & humble Ser[vant]
RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “The Honourable / Mr
Adams / Vice President of the United States / New York”; endorsed: “Rev. Jeremiah
Belknap. / July 18. ansd. 24. 1789.” Some loss of text
where the seal was removed.
The same edition of George Chalmers’ Political Annals of the Present United Colonies, from Their Settlement to the Peace
of 1763 is in JA’s library at MB. Chalmers (1742–1825), a prolific Scottish antiquarian,
studied law in Edinburgh and practiced in Baltimore. Appointed chief clerk of the
British Privy Council’s Board of Trade and Plantations in 1786, Chalmers drew on
official records to publish various historical works (
Catalogue of JA’s
Library
;
DNB
).
Then comprising two manuscript volumes, the journal of
Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop (1588–1649) circulated widely in early
American antiquarian circles. Connecticut governor Jonathan Trumbull Sr. (1710–1785),
Harvard 1727, toiled with secretary John Porter to transcribe the journal for
publication, but he died before finishing the task. Belknap, inspired by London editor
John Almon’s monthly newspaper of Anglo-American politics, The
Remembrancer, sought to preserve the new nation’s past through publication. He
recovered Winthrop’s journal from Trumbull’s Lebanon, Conn., estate and brought it
home to Boston.
In 1790 Noah Webster published a Hartford, Conn., edition of
Winthrop’s account entitled A Journal of the Transactions and
Occurrences in the Settlement of Massachusetts and the Other New-England Colonies,
from the Year 1630 to 1644: Written by John Winthrop, Esq. First Governor of
Massachusetts: And Now First Published from a Correct Copy of the Original
Manuscript. A third volume of Winthrop’s manuscript, discovered in 1816, was
temporarily deposited with the Massachusetts Historical Society, which Belknap founded
in Jan. 1791 (The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630–1649,
ed. Richard S. Dunn, James Savage, and Laetitia Yeandle, Cambridge, 1996, p. xi, xvi,
xxii;
Sibley’s Harvard Graduates
, 8:267, 268, 298;
DNB
; Louis Leonard
Tucker, Clio’s Consort: Jeremy Belknap and the Founding of the
Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 1990, p. 93, 115, 116).
Maj. Gen. Johann von Robais, Baron de Kalb (1721–1780), of
Hüttendorf, Germany, gathered political intelligence for the Duc de Choiseul, French
minister of war and foreign affairs, during his travels through Amsterdam and London
in 1767. Arriving in Philadelphia on 12 Jan. 1768, and observing Americans’ fury with
the British parliament over a new wave of taxes, Kalb reported that the Stamp Act
“affair is very far from being adjusted.” Intending to learn specifics about the
colonists’ military capabilities, Kalb described a rising tide of violence within the
provincial assemblies of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. He sailed to New York City
two weeks later and made side trips to Boston and Halifax to gauge the political mood.
Kalb informed the French ministry that Americans, while liberty-minded, would not
invoke foreign aid, expecting that independence would evolve naturally in time. With
his mail repeatedly intercepted and no reply from Choiseul, Kalb returned to Paris in
mid-June. He sent Choiseul a memorandum listing British Army forces stationed in the
colonies, which the minister dismissed as inflated. Kalb continued to report for
several months on American affairs despite Choiseul’s indifference (Reneé Critcher
Lyons, Foreign-Born American Patriots: Sixteen Volunteer
Leaders in the Revolutionary War, Jefferson, N.C., 2014, p. 141, 145–147;
Friedrich Kapp, The Life of John Kalb: Major-General in the
Revolutionary Army, transl. Charles Goepp, N.Y., 1884, p. 46–71).