Adams Family Correspondence, volume 10
Upon the receipt of your excellent Letter of the fifth of this month I Yesterday sent for our son Thomas and desired him to remit to his Brother at Boston for your Use two hundred Dollars.1 I have been at Expence to Purchase a Horse Saddle Bridle and Saddlebags to fix out Thomas to ride the Circuit with his Master Mr Ingersol. He begins his Journey on the 28th of this Month. This has left me without Money to pay my Board and my Journey home. If the Money you have is not Sufficient ask my Friend the General whose kindness has so often obliged Us to lend you what you want and I will repay him in June.
The House Yesterday passed a Resolution in Committee of the whole, whose Depth is to me unfathomable. The Senate will now be called upon to show their Independence, and perhaps your Friend to shew his Weakness or his Strength.2 The Majority of the House is certainly for Mischief, and there is no doubt they represent the People in the southern States and a large Number in the Northern. Vox Populi Vox Dei, they Say: and so it is sometimes, but it is sometimes the Voice of Mohamet of Cæsar of Cataline the Pope and the Devil. Britain however has done much amiss and deserves all that will fall thereon. Her Insolence which you and I have known and felt more than any other Americans, will lead her to ruin, and Us half Way. We indeed are in point of Insolence her very Image and superscription. As true a Game Cock as she and I warrant you shall become as great a scourge to Mankind.
Our Furniture has had its last removal. Your Distress and Distraction at its landing is very strongly described— Whatever Crashes have happened shall be the last from Removals.
My Countrymen are going into a Career, that I shall not long follow. I dont expect another Election If I should peradventure ride out the storm for the Remainder of my Term.
I long to see you, but I fear it will be late in May if not the beginning of June
I am with ardent Gratitude and Affection / your
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A”; endorsed: “April 15th / 1794.”
Neither AA’s letter to JA of 5 April nor TBA’s to JQA has been found, but JQA noted the receipt of a letter from TBA in his Diary on 22 April (D/JQA/22, APM Reel 25).
The House of Representatives passed a resolution on 15 April, “That, until the Government of Great Britain shall cause compensation for all losses and damages sustained by the citizens of the United States, from armed vessels, or from any person or persons acting under commission or authority of the British King, contrary to the laws of nations, and in violation of the rights of neutrality; … all commercial intercourse between the citizens of the United States and the subjects of the King of Great Britain … shall be prohibited.” The vote was 53 to 44 (
Annals of Congress,
3d Cong., 1st sess., p. 595–596). The Senate took no action on this resolution as they considered instead the House’s proposed action to extend the general embargo, for which see
JA to AA, 22 April, and note 3, below.
This same day AA wrote a short letter to JA complaining of the unseasonably hot weather and asking that TBA be attentive to Leonard White, the bearer of the letter, during White’s visit to Philadelphia (Adams Papers).