Adams Family Correspondence, volume 3
1780-01-19
I can never keep my pen out of my hand when ever there is an oportunity of writing and as there is one now by a Captn. Lovett I will make the best of it.
I am Sorry to inform you that the Jason and Monmouth are taken and Manly for a third time is in a british prison but you very probably will have heard of this before this reaches you but what more than makes up for it is that there are 50,000 Men in arms in Ireland all united in the generous intention of freeing themselves from the yoke of that Tyrant George the 3d.
271We are anxious about the Confederacy having heard nothing of her Since we Left America.1 The last papers from France mention nothing of her arrival but I must conclude in Subscribing myself your most dutiful Son,
PS Excuse the writing I being a little unwell and not having a very good pen.
The Continental frigate Confederacy, Capt. Seth Harding, had sailed from the Delaware late in October bound for France, with C. A. Gérard, Mme. Gérard, John Jay, and Mrs. Jay among the passengers. Eleven hundred miles at sea it was dismasted in a storm but managed to creep into St. Pierre, Martinique, in mid-December, whence the diplomats took passage in a French vessel. See Morris, Peacemakers
, p. 1–6.
1780-01-20
I return you thanks Sir for the trouble you took in exchangeing my Money, our currency is some thing like the Stocks abroad, rises and falls with the News of the Day.
Letters of Mrs. Adams, the Wife of John Adams, ed. CFA, 2d edn., Boston, 1840, vol. 2, frontispiece. At foot of text: “Honble. Oliver Wendell.”
1780-02-12
On Wednesday, the 9th. of this Month, We all arrived in tolerable Health at the Hotel De Valois, in Paris where We now are.1 On Thursday the 10th We waited on Dr. F
I put my three Children to Mr. Pichini's Accademy the next day after my Arrival, where they are all well pleased.3
We had a tedious Journey by Land, from Ferrol in Spain, of not much short of four hundred Leagues. My dear Charles bears travelling 272by Land and Sea as well as his Brother. He is much beloved wherever he goes.
Since my Arrival here I had the Joy to find a Letter from you which came by your Unkles ship to Cadiz.4 It gives me more Pain than I can express to see your Anxiety, but I hope your fears will be happily disappointed.
I wrote you, from Cape Anne, from the Banks of Newfoundland, from Corrunna and from Bilbao, from whence I ordered you some Things by a Vessell to Mr. Corbet
The Adams party had remained in Bilbao until 20 Jan., when they left and proceeded to Bayonne in France, arriving on the 23d. From there JA addressed a letter of thanks to the Messrs. Gardoqui, remarking on the improved roads and tavern accommodations in Biscay and Guipuzcoa and adding that “We discovered two or three fine Chimneys besides that which you mentioned to Us, which contributed not a little to our Health and Comfort” (24 Jan., LbC, Adams Papers). At Bayonne, JA later recalled, “We paid off our Spanish Guide with all his Train of Horses, Calashes, Waggon, Mules, and Servants,” and “purchased a Post Chaise and hired some others” for the journey to Paris (
Diary and Autobiography
, 4:238). They were on the road from Bayonne to Bordeaux from 25 to 29 Jan., paused at the latter until 2 Feb., and spent a
week on frozen roads before arriving in Paris on the afternoon of the 9th (same, 2:433–434; 4:239–241). They followed the same route that JA and JQA had traveled in the preceding April, namely through Coué, Angoulême, Poitiers, Châtellerault, Tours, Orléans, and Toury. Much the most detailed record of this last part of the long journey that had begun in December is in Francis Dana's Journal, or what he called his “Memo, made While in Spain” (MHi:Dana Papers). JA's Accounts as printed in his
Diary and Autobiography
, 2:435 ff., furnish glimpses of his personal and domestic activity during his early weeks in Paris.
Jean Frédéric Phélypeaux, Diary and Autobiography
, 4:48; see Hoefer, Nouv. biog. générale
). Antoine Raymond Jean Gualbert Gabriel de Sartine, Diary and Autobiography
, 2:295 and passim; Hoefer, Nouv. biog. générale
).
On this day JA addressed a letter to Vergennes, as suggested by Vergennes during their meeting at Versailles, asking whether JA should assume “any Public Character” or whether he should remain for the present “upon the Reserve.” This letter and Vergennes' reply of 15 Feb., which JA found irritating and humiliating, are given in full in JA's Diary and Autobiography
, 4:243–245.
The “three Children” were of course JQA, CA, and Samuel Cooper Johonnot. Pechigny and his wife conducted a pension academy in Passy favored by Americans who had children in France. It was sometimes called the Pension or Ecole de Mathématiques. Apparently JQA had attended this school at least briefly during his first stay in Europe. 273See JA, Diary and Autobiography
, 2:434, 439–440, 442;
Cal. Franklin Papers, A.P.S.
, 5:55, 75, 88, 507; several letters under date of 16 and 17 March, below; and JA to Pechigny, 16 May, also below.
AA to JA, 10 Dec. 1779, above.
The initials in this sentence stand for Rev. Anthony Wibird, the Adamses' minister at Braintree; Rev. Daniel Shute, minister at Hingham; and Dr. Cotton Tufts, AA's uncle. On 22 Feb. JA wrote to James Moylan at Lorient:
“As the Alliance is bound to America, and probably will go to Boston, I wish to avail myself of the opportunity to send a few Necessaries to my Family, and a black Coat or two to a few Parsons in my Neighbourhood, whose Salaries are so reduced by the Depreciation of our Paper Currency that they cannot afford to buy a black Coat nor a Band at home. . . . I should be glad if you could distinguish the Parcels—for Mr. Wibirt—for Mr. Shute—and for Mr. P. B. Adams, for Mr. Cranch and for me. Let each be separated from the other but all packed up in one Chest or Box, and I suppose a very small one will contain the whole” (LbC, Adams Papers; see also Moylan's reply, 28 Feb., Adams Papers).