Papers of John Adams, volume 21
Without any of your excellency’s esteemed favors, we wish
to give you in consideration whether it would not be convenient & proper
to appoint a Consul here, as we are assured is in Hambg.
1 as your Capns. may have frequent occasions for legal
assistance, as Likewise germans to Settle in your Country, if your
Government may find it usefull, we Should be happy if one of us was
appointed thereto as we should consider it, as a flattering proof of
confidence.—
We need not especially expose to your Excellency our
manifested Zeal for the intrest of the U S, whch. our vigilant exertions will always promote to the Utmost of
our power.
We Leave entirely to your Excellency to Judge abt. the conveniency of this Subject & to act
accordingly, and we have written to nobody on the matter, Since we Should be
too Sensible to an unsuccesfull sollicitation.
We beg Leave to pay our best Respects to your Lady, and have the honor to be with great esteem. / Sir / Your most obed. Humble servant
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “His Excelly: / John Adams Esqr / Phila:.” Dupl
(Adams Papers).
The consortium had not yet received JA’s
30 April
letter, above. George Washington nominated British-born
merchant John Parish (1742–1829) to act as U.S. vice consul at Hamburg
in 1790, but Parish declined to serve until he received the powers of a
full post in 1793. James Greenleaf served as the first U.S. consul at
Amsterdam, from 1793 to 1795 (vols. 14:429,
20:448; Washington, Papers,
Presidential Series
, 12:189, 16:588–589).
The first Thing I have to communicate to you, must be an Explanation of the Date of my Letter. The Legislature of Massachusetts, last Winter, upon a Petition of the North Parish in Braintree, Seperated it from the rest of the Town, erected it into a new one and gave it the Name of Quincy. By this Measure you See they have deprived me of my Title of “Duke of Braintree,” and made it necessary that my Friends Should write me in future, as an Inhabitant of Quincy.2 So much for this Brimborion.
Something that interests me much more is your obliging
Letter of the 12th of this month.
I Should have been happy to have Seen Mr Pinkney before his Departure: but more from
individual Curiosity, than from any Opinion that I could have given him any
Information of importance to him. If he has the Talent of Searching Hearts,
he will not be long at a Loss: if he has not no Information of mind could
give it him.
The Duke of Leeds, once enquired of me very kindly after
his Class Mates at Westminster School the two Mr
Pinkneys, which induces me to conclude that our new Ambassador has many
powerful Old Friends in England.3 Whether this is a Recommendation
of him for the office or not, I have other reasons to believe that his
Family have had their Eyes fixed upon the Embassy to St. James’s for many
years, even before I was Sent there, and that they contributed to limit the
duration of my Commission to 3 years in order to make Way for themselves to
succeed me. I wish they may find as much honour and pleasure in it as they
expected. And that the Publick may derive from it Dignity and Utility. But
knowing as I do the long Intrigue and suspecting as I do much British
Influence in the Appointment, were I in Any Executive Department I should
take the Liberty to keep a vigilant Eye upon them.
Accept of my Thanks for your Reflections on the State of the Union, which I have read with all the Pleasure which the 125 Intelligence, Information, Accuracy, and Elegance of the Remarks on Lord Sheffield inspired.
There is one Secret which you must be careful to keep.
Manufactures must have good Government. They cannot exist where they are,
without it: much less can they be introduced where they are not. But a great
part of the People of America appear to be So determined to have no
Government at all, that if you let them know the whole Truth you will excite
an unmanageable Party against Manufactures. Manufactures cannot live much
less Thrive without honour, fidelity Punctuality, public and private faith,
a Sacred respect, to Property and the moral Obligation of Promises and
Contracts;— Virtues and habits which never did and never will generally
prevail in any populous nation, without a decisive as well as an intelligent
and honest Government. The Science of political Œconomy is but a late Study
and is not yet generally understood
among Us. Tho I have read most of the Authors of Reputation on the subject,
both among the French and English, I pretend not to have digested any Thing
relative to it, with the Precission of a Master. But to me it appears, that
the general Interests of Agriculture in particular as well as of the Nation
in general will be promoted by a discreet and judicious Encouragement of
Manufactures: and that it is only the Land Jobber, who can be benefited in
the rapid rise of his Monopoly, by drawing every Labouring hand into the
Wilderness to fell Trees
The continual Accessions of Foreigners, will endanger and destroy our Peace, if We know not how to govern them. They will moreover corrupt our Elections and tear Us to pieces. Sufficient to the day, however, is its own evil, and in that day and hour it always has been and I doubt not always will be given Us, to provide against its dangers.
remember me affectionately to all Friends / and believe me to be faithfully yours
RC (PHi:Coxe Family Papers); internal address:
“Mr Coxe”; endorsed: “‘John Adams V.P. /
May 1792—”
Blank in MS.
For the Braintree petition, see vol. 20:484. Quincy was set off and
incorporated as a town on 23 Feb. (
AFC
, 9:509).
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Thomas Pinckney, and the
Marquis of Carmarthen all attended Westminster School in London between
1764 and 1767 (George Fisher Russell Barker and Alan Herbert Stenning,
The Record of Old Westminsters: A
Biographical List of All Those . . . at Westminster School from the
Earliest Times to 1927, 2 vols., London, 1928, 2:706, 746).