Adams Family Correspondence, volume 8
Portsmouth
It may perhaps afford you satisfaction to learn that Mr Adams and his secretary pro tempore1 arrived at the Crown Inn within the ramparts of this naval arsenal last evening before eight, after a journey as pleasant as coud be expected considering the unverdant aspect of far the greater portion of the country through which we travel'd. To speak candidly (excepting the farm at Cobham) I never beheld so complete a fulfilment of Churchills prophesy of famine as stares one in the face on each side of the hedge from Kingston to Portsmouth.2 Mr Adams protests that he will never return by the same road: how chearfully do I acquiesce!
The culprit Muir was had before us this morning and underwent an examination. His answers were all contradictory inexplicit and evasive. He seems to be either a subtle and supereminent practitioner in dissimulation, or a vulgar villain without capability of mighty mischief or any ingenious system of enormity. I am rather inclin'd to the latter opinion at present. Perhaps he may be the agent of more crafty contrivers. He says he is a native of Scotland. I believe him. He has a hollow, hungry hanging look. The Court of Quarter Sessions, who have conducted with extreme propriety in this bussiness have just recommitted him for three months. This measure is pleasing to Mr Adams since it furnishes time to investigate & detect whatsoever may or can be investigated or detected in London or elswhere.3
Mr Wren guided us to view Fortune Prison this afternoon—and tomorrow if the weather shall be favourable Mr Adams is resolute to survey on horseback the rural felicity of the Isle of Wight. He has just gone to rest in high spirits at the prospect. I believe from circumstances we may condescend to revisit the smoak of the Metropolis within a fortnight.
Particular compliments to Mrs Smith and little Steuben. from, Dear Madam, Yours respectfully
RC (Adams Papers).
That is, Cutting himself.
JA and Cutting traveled the seventy miles from London to Portsmouth on 24 April, passing through Kingston upon Thames and the village of Cobham in Surrey, site of the gardens at Painshill, which the Adamses had previously visited in June 1786. Charles Churchill's 1763 political satire The Prophecy of Famine predicted that a growing Scottish influence on English culture would result in a metaphorically barren England of the future: “Far as the eye could reach, no tree was seen, / Earth, clad in russet, scorn'd the lively green.” In 1787, the Portsmouth Road was already known for passing through particularly barren country, “past ragged heaths, tumbled commons, and waste lands, chiefly unenclosed” (Karl Baedeker, Great Britain: Handbook for Travellers, 8th edn., N.Y., 1927, p. 55;
AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 13 June 1786, note 9, vol. 7:221; Thomas Lockwood, Post-Augustan Satire: Charles Churchill and Satirical Poetry, 1750–1800, Seattle, 1979, p. 133–139; Charles Churchill, The Prophecy of Famine, London, 1763, p. 15; Charles G. Harper, The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries: To-day and in Days of Old, London, 1895, p. 194, 197).
In March Robert Muir, a native of Scotland, arrived in London from Charleston, S.C., in the guise of “a common seaman.” He soon began contacting engravers and printers in an attempt to counterfeit the paper currency of North and South Carolina. London metalworker William Caslon made plates of decorative elements on the currency at Muir's request in early April. When Muir approached London engraver Richard Carpenter and Portsmouth printer Walter Mowbray, however, they reported his plans to authorities, and Muir was arrested and imprisoned. Rev. Thomas Wren, who had assisted American prisoners of war in Forton Prison in the late 1770s, hosted JA when he visited Portsmouth to interrogate Muir. From April to July, Wren sent JA updates on the case, acted as a liaison between American and British officials, and advanced funds for Muir's board in jail. On 25 June, JA wrote to recommend that Muir be released for lack of evidence. Wren responded on 12 July to say that rather than be released as innocent, Muir would be tried later that month and acquitted for lack of evidence, an outcome that had been judged more likely to serve as a deterrent to further nefarious activity (Sheldon S. Cohen, “Thomas Wren: Portsmouth's Patron of American Liberty,” The Portsmouth Papers, 57:11, 23, 28 [March 1991]; vol. 4:201; Thomas Wren to JA, 12 July, Adams Papers; JA to Wren, 21 April and 25 June, both LbC, APM Reel 113; Dipl. Corr., 1783–1789, 2:738–739, 741–744; Devon Libraries Local Studies Service, The London Book Trades 1775–1800: A Checklist of Members, www.devon.gov.uk/etched, 6 Feb. 2006).
I write you a few lines my dear Lucy to thank you for your kind Letter, and to inform you that I am a Grandmamma! my Grandson be sure is a fine Boy, & I already feel as fond of him as if he was my own son, nay I can hardly persuade myself that he is not, especially as I have been sick for six weeks, I cannot however Nurse him so well as his mamma, who is already so fond of him, that I sometimes quote mrs Storer to her. who could have thought it?
He was Christened last thursday1 by dr Price and called William after his pappa. in this Country Children are not carried to church, so we had the Christning in the House and about a dozen of our Friends together upon the occasion. we supped & drank the young Heroes Health, & that of our Country and Friends. Mrs Smith dinned below with us, the day 3 weeks frum her confinement, and I 25have carried little master to ride 3 or four times already. he is very quiet and good, but his pappa is already obliged to leave him, & yesterday morning very reluctantly set of on a journey to portugal, in his way to which he takes France & Spain, & will be absent we expect near four Months, but thus it must be with those who are in publick office. at the same time mr Adams set of for portsmouth in order to hear the examination of a set of villians who have been counterfeiting the paper money of the American States, and mr Cutting accompanied him, so that we are quite alone. as soon as mrs Smith is able we shall make a little excursion into the Country, which I hope will reestablish my Health. My disorder has been long accumulating, & arises from a Billious state of my Blood. it has afflicted me spring & fall for several years, and has at last produced a slow intemitting fever. some days I am able to go out, others not, but it has wholy prevented my attendance upon Routes dinners2 theatres &c and o Lamentable, I have not been able to go to saint James for more than two months. all this I could have borne with tolerable patience, but what has been really matter of regret to me, is that I have been dissapointed of Seven Lectures out of 12 to which I Subsribed, and which I fear I shall never have the opportunity of attending. they would have afforded me much matter for future recollection & amusement from a retrospect of the Beauties of Nature, and her various opperations manifested in the Works of creation, an assemblage of Ideas entirely new, is presented to the mind. the five Lectures which I attended were experiments in Electricity, Magnetism Hydrostatics optics pemematicks, all of which are connected with, and are subservient to the accommodation of common Life.3 it was like going into a Beautifull Country, which I never saw before, a Country which our American Females are not permitted to visit or inspect, untill dr Moyes visited America,4 all experimental Phylosophy was confined within the walls of our Colledges— The Study of Household Good, as milton terms it, is no doubt the peculiar province of the Female Character.5 Yet surely as rational Beings, our reason might with propriety receive the highest possible cultivation. knowledge would teach our Sex candour, and those who aim at the attainment of it, in order to render themselves more amiable & usefull in the world would derive a double advantage from it, for in proportion as the mind is informed, the countanance would be improved & the face ennobled as the Heart is elevated,6 for wisdom says Soloman maketh the face to shine.7 even the Luxurious Eastern Sage thought not of rouge or the milk 26of roses—but that the virtuous wife should open her mouth with wisdom & the law of kindness dwell upon her Tongue,8 nor did he think this inconsistant with looking well to the ways of her household, or suppose that she would be less inclined to superintend the domestick oeconomy of her family, for having gone beyond the limits of her dressing room & her kitchen I quote Soloman on this occasion, as we may naturally suppose the picture drawn of a virtuous wife to be the result of his experience & his wisdom, after ranging at large amongst the Eastern Beauties: he pronounces the price of a virtuous woman to be far above rubies & the only character on which the Heart of a Husband may safely rest—9 the present mode of fashionable education is not calculated to form the rising generation upon the system of soloman. futile accomplishments are substituded in stead of rational improvements settled principals of Truth integrity & Honour are little attended to, Laudible motives of action & incentives to virtue, give place to the form of the Body, the Grace of motion, and a conscious air of superiority which knows neither the Blush of modesty, or diffidence. a Boarding school miss, that should discover either would be thought quite a novice—
But whither has my subject led me? I must return to the Female sphere & talk to you of fashions— the Sandals which I send, I fear will prove too large, but the shoe maker says they are according to the measure. the Novelty of taste has brought the immitation of the Scotch plad into vogue, Waistcoats Bonets & ribbons are all plad, sashes &C I send you a specimin of their Beauty and must quit my Pen to pay my devotions to the kind goddess of Health; whom I am to seek in the Park, or if warm enough in kensington gardens. Flora & Virtumnus10 will meet me there. adieu my dear girl. may the best of Heavens blessings rest upon you
Your ever affectionate
May 6th
from the Character of the reviewers I bought Louissa a novel11 the story of which is very interesting I send it you for your amusement
RC (MWA:Abigail Adams Letters). Dft (Adams Papers), filmed at 25 April.
19 April.
In the Dft AA adds “Card parties, &c.” here.
Robert Young taught a twelve-week lecture series discussing “the Mechanism and Motions of the Universe,” which began on 30 January. The lectures were held at No. 43, Gerard Street, in Soho (London Daily Universal Register, 27 Jan. 1787).
Dr. Henry Moyes, a blind “philosopher of Natural History” from Britain, had lectured in Boston in fall 1785 (vol. 6:419, 420, 501).
Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IX, line 233.
The Dft ends the paragraph on a more secular note: “& thus may she become a pleasing companion to the man of Science & of Sensibility, enabled to form the minds of her children to virtue & to knowledge & not less capable or willing to superintend the domestick oeconomy of her family for having wanderd beyond the limits of the dressing room & the kitchen, to which even some men of sense have been illiberal enough to wish us confined but as mankind appear in the present age to acquire more freedom of thought & action in politicks in Phylosophy & in religion, it is to be hoped that the liberality of their Sentiments with extend to the cultivation & improvement of the Femal mind which stands much in need of motives & incentives to draw it from the present pernicious modes of fashionable Levities & polite accomplishments—as they are termed to more rational & durable improvements, what is life, or its enjoyments without setled principals Laudable purposes & mental exertions, a mere vapour indeed & as pope expresses it
The quotation is not from Pope but from William Whitehead, “On Ridicule,” Poems on Several Occasions, London, 1754, lines 45–46.
Psalms, 104:15, and Ecclesiastes, 8:1.
Proverbs, 31:26.
Proverbs, 31:10–11.
Flora was the Roman goddess of flowering plants; Vertumnus was the Roman god of seasons and plant life, especially orchards (J. Lempriere, A Classical Dictionary, N.Y., 1816).
Elizabeth Helme, Louisa; or, The Cottage on the Moor, London, 1787. The Critical Review described Louisa as “a pleasing little artless tale, much superior, both in its plan and conduct, to the numerous productions of this class. Curiosity is skilfully excited, expectation kept momentarily alive, and, at last, the intricacies are unravelled very satisfactorily” (63:308 [April 1787]).