Diary of John Adams, volume 2
1775-09-15
Archibald Bullock and John Houstoun Esquires, and the Revd. Dr. Zubly, appear as Delegates from Georgia.2
Dr. Zubly is a Native of Switzerland, and a Clergyman of the Independent Perswasion, settled in a Parish in Georgia. He speaks, as it is reported, Several Languages, English, Dutch, French, Latin &c. —is reported to be a learned Man. He is a Man of a warm and zealous Spirit. It is said that he possesses considerable Property.
Houstoun is a young Gentleman, by Profession a Lawyer, educated under a Gentleman of Eminence in South Carolina. He seems to be sensible and spirited, but rather inexperienced.
Bullock is cloathed in American Manufacture.
Thomas Nelson Esquire, George Wythe Esqr., and Francis Light-foot Lee Esq. appeared as Delegates from Virginia.
Nelson is a fat Man, like the late Coll. Lee of Marblehead. He is a Speaker, and alert and lively, for his Weight.
Wythe is a Lawyer, it is said of the first Eminence.
Lee is a Brother of Dr. Arthur, the late Sheriff of London,3 and our old Friend Richard Henry, sensible, and patriotic, as the rest of the Family.
Deane says, that two Persons, of the Name of De Witt of Dutch Extraction, one in Norwich the other in Windham, have made Salt Petre with Success—and propose to make a great deal. That there is a Mine of Lead at Middletown, which will afford a great Quantity. That Works are preparing to smelt and refine it, which will go in a fortnight. There is a Mine at Northampton, which Mr. W. Bowdoin spent much Money in working, with much Effect, tho little Profit.
Langdon and Bartlett came in this Evening, from Portsmouth. 400 Men are building a Fort on Pierce's Island to defend the Town vs. Ships of War.
Upon recollecting the Debates of this Day in Congress, there appears to me a remarkable Want of Judgment in some of our Members. Chace is violent and boisterous, asking his Pardon. He is tedious upon frivolous Points. So is E. Rutledge. Much precious Time is indiscreetly expended. Points of little Consequence are started, and debated
Dyer is long winded and roundabout—obscure and cloudy. Very talkative and very tedious, yet an honest, worthy Man, means and judges well.
Sherman's Air is the Reverse of Grace. There cannot be a more striking Contrast to beautifull Action, than the Motions of his Hands. Generally, he stands upright with his Hands before him. The fingers of his left Hand clenched into a Fist, and the Wrist of it, grasped with his right. But he has a clear Head and sound Judgment. But when he moves a Hand, in any thing like Action, Hogarths Genuis could not have invented a Motion more opposite to grace. It is Stiffness, and Aukwardness itself. Rigid as Starched Linen or Buckram. Aukward as a junior Batchelor, or a Sophomore.
Mr. Dickinsons Air, Gate, and Action are not much more elegant.
First entry in booklet “24” as numbered by CFA (our D/JA/24), the first of a series of small memorandum books bound in red-brown leather covers, presumably purchased from Robert Aitken in Philadelphia (see his receipted bill, 8 Dec., below), in which JA kept his Diary and notes of debates for a year. D/JA/24 contains entries through 10 Dec. 1775.
The Georgia delegates had actually appeared in Congress on 13 Sept., and their credentials were read that day (
JCC
, 2:240–242). The present entry is therefore at least in part retrospective.
The “late
1775-09-16
Walking to the Statehouse this Morning, I met Mr. Dickinson, on Foot in Chesnut Street. We met, and passed near enough to touch Elbows. He passed without moving his Hat, or Head or Hand. I bowed and pulled off my Hat. He passed hautily by. The Cause of his Offence, is the Letter no doubt which Gage has printed in Drapers Paper.1
I shall for the future pass him, in the same manner. But I was determined to make my Bow, that I might know his Temper.
We are not to be upon speaking Terms, nor bowing Terms, for the time to come.
This Evening had Conversation with Mr. Bullock of Georgia.—I asked him, whether Georgia had a Charter? What was the Extent of the Province? What was their Constitution? How Justice was ad-174ministered? Who was Chancellor, who Ordinary? and who Judges?
He says they have County Courts for the Tryal of civil Causes under £8.—and a C
Parson Gordon of Roxbury, spent the Evening here.—I fear his indiscreet Prate will do harm in this City. He is an eternal Talker, and somewhat vain, and not accurate nor judicious. Very zealous in the Cause, and a well meaning Man, but incautious, and not sufficiently tender of the Character of our Province, upon which at this Time much depends. Fond of being thought a Man of Influence, at Head Quarters, and with our Council and House, and with the general Officers of the Army, and also with Gentlemen in this City, and other Colonies.—He is a good Man, but wants a Guide.2
That is, JA's letter to James Warren, Philadelphia, 24 July 1775, which brought more notoriety to its writer than anything else he had yet written. Entrusted (with others) to a well-meaning but meddlesome young Boston lawyer, Benjamin Hichborn, it was captured by a British naval vessel at a ferry crossing in Rhode Island. JA had written the letter in a mood of exasperation with John Dickinson's “pacific System” and alluded to Dickinson as “A certain great Fortune and piddling Genius Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News Letter, 17 Aug. 1775. From this source they were widely reprinted. The most readily available published texts are in JA, Works
, 1:178–180; also at 2:411, note, from early transcripts in the Adams Papers. The story of the interception, Hichborn's escape from a British vessel in Boston Harbor, his efforts to clear himself with JA and others, and the sensation produced by the published letters both in America and England, is too long to tell here and more properly belongs elsewhere. But see, besides JA's account in his Autobiography,
Warren-Adams Letters
, 1:88–89, 106, 118; Gage, Corr.
, 1:412–413; Stiles, Literary Diary
, 1:650–652 (an acute analysis of the offending passages in JA's letters); Hichborn to JA, 28 Oct., 25 Nov.–10 Dec. 1775, 20 May 1776 (Adams Papers); Jeremy Belknap, “Journal of My Tour to the Camp,” MHS, Procs.
, 1st ser., 4 (1858–1860): 79–81. Procs.
, 65 (1932–1936) : 460–474, a study of Benjamin Harrison's letter to Washington, 21–24 July 1775, which was also captured on the person of Hichborn and which, when published, was embellished with a forged paragraph on “pretty little Kate the Washer-woman's Daughter.”
Despite the buzzing of tongues and waggling of ears that ensued, it was JA's considered opinion that the inter-175ception and publication of his letters “have had no such bad Effects, as the Tories intended, and as some of our shortsighted Whiggs apprehended: so far otherwise that I see and hear every day, fresh Proofs that every Body is coming fast into every political Sentiment contained in them” (to AA, 2 Oct. 1775, Adams Papers). To Hichborn, who was still offering abject apologies, JA wrote on 29 May 1776 that he (JA) was not “in the least degree afraid of censure on your Account,” and indeed thought his own aims had been more promoted than injured by Hichborn's gaucherie (LbC, Adams Papers).
The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States (London, 1788)DAB
;Procs.
, 63 (1929–1930):303–613. JA's marginalia in his own copy of Gordon's History (in the Boston Public Library) have been printed by Zoltán Haraszti in the Boston Public Library Quarterly, 3:119–122 (April 1951).