Adams Family Correspondence, volume 10
I have recd yours of the 30th. Ult. and given the inclosed to son Thomas, who will do with it what he can.1
Congress have been together, more than two Months and have done nothing, and will continue Sitting two Months longer, and do little.2 I for my part am wearied to death with Ennui— Obliged to be punctual by my habits, confined to my Seat, as in a Prison to see nothing done, hear nothing Said, and to Say and do nothing. Oh that my Rocks were here within a mile or two, and my little habitation and pretty littl Wife above all. Ah I fear that some fault unknown has brought upon me such Punishments to be Seperated both when We were too young and when We are too old.
I dont believe We shall adopt Mr Madisons Motions nor build a Navy: But if We do not purchase a Peace with the Algerines We shall all deserve to become their Captives.
The Genetians had a frolic on the 6th in commemoration of the Treaty and drank Toasts enough to get merry. so cordial so loving so
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fraternal, so neat and elegant, so sweet and pretty! have you read them. Franklin Bryant, Reed, Hutchinson & sargeant the Heroes. fit company for Dallas Mifflin & Genet.—3 No harm done however that I hear of.— a sharp shot or two at the President.
The Havock made in our Trade I fear will distress Us— I suspect that immense sums borrowed of Banks have fallen a sacrifice in France, as well as on the seas and When the day of Payment comes, more Credits must be given or Bankruptcies ensue. Borrowing of Banks for a trading Capital, is very unmercantile. However, We shall not go to War, and nothing is to be dreaded so much as that.
I fear The English will have all the West Indies leaving a little to Spain.4 This I dont like at all. We shall see what another Campain will do in Europe. If the English assist La Vendee, which if they had been cunning or wise they would have done last Year it is thought that Brittany Normandy and Pichardy will declare for a King: But of this there can be no certainty.
I am going to dinner at Mr Daltons with Judge & Mrs Cushing who will call on you on her return and tell you the News in the South.
My Mother I hope is growing better— Remember me to her tenderly
Tenderly says Eccho yours
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Febry 8 1794.”
On 30 Jan. AA wrote a brief note to JA primarily to enclose a letter from “Mr. Newcomb our Mason” to TBA with bills for TBA to loan. Mr. Newcomb was probably John Newcomb, for whom see vol. 8:372. The letter has not been found.
The first session of the 3d Congress sat from 2 Dec. 1793 to 9 June 1794 (
Biog. Dir. Cong.
).
Two gatherings occurred in Philadelphia on 6 Feb. to commemorate the sixteenth anniversary of the Franco-American alliance, one by “officers of the second regiment with a number of other officers of militia and a large and respectable number of democratic citizens,” and the other by “the French patriotic society of friends to liberty and equality.” Among the toasts of the evening was one to “The Virtuous republicans, Franklin, Reed Bryan, Hutchinson and Sargeant—may their memories be consecrated by every citizen who is a friend to the rights of man and may their services and their virtues ever live in the bosoms of the Freemen of America.” Besides commemorating the efforts of Benjamin Franklin, the toast also memorialized Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant and Dr. James Hutchinson, both ardent supporters of the French Revolution who had died in the recent yellow fever epidemic; George Bryan (1731–1791), a Pennsylvania judge and strong proponent of states’ rights; and Joseph Reed (1741–1785), a Revolutionary War general, member of the Continental Congress, and president of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Executive Council (Philadelphia General Advertiser, 8 Feb.;
DAB
).
The Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 7, 8 Feb., reported that a large British naval force, along with some 12,000–13,000 troops, had sailed from Madeira toward Barbados on 22 Dec. 1793, ostensibly with the objective of taking Martinique from the French. The actual size of the fleet was considerably smaller (some 8,000 troops), but the information was otherwise accurate. The
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fleet reached Barbados by mid-Jan. 1794 and launched its attack on Martinique on 4 February. After a series of skirmishes, followed by a lengthy siege, the British took control of the island in late March (Michael Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower: The British Expeditions to the West Indies and the War against Revolutionary France, Oxford, 1987, p. 44, 56, 59–60, 67, 72, 87).
On 9 Feb. JA wrote another letter to AA, again reporting on British activities in the West Indies. He commented, “So! The Tables are turn’d on the French Faction! And The English Faction will exult in their Turn, in the Prospect of The West India Islands a Conquest to England: The French Navy wholly ruined: and Insurrection spreading from Province to Province. Alass I see no Cause of Joy in all these Exultations in either side. I am compelled to console my self as well as I can” (Adams Papers).
Vive la Baggatelle! Dulce est desipere.1 I have no other Resource in my solitude, amidst all my gloomy forebodings of the future Miseries of my beloved Species. Our Allies, Our only Alies as the Demi-Crazies pathetically call them, have compleated their System by turning all their Churches into, Je ne seais quoi and if they should have any Government erected among them either by Themselves or others, they may substitute Chorus’s of Boys and Girls to chant Prayers like the Romans
What think the Clergy of New England? What says Mr Wibird? Do they still Admire the French Republicans? Do they think them virtuous? Do they wish to see them imitated by all Nations? Do they wish to resign all their salaries? and to have their Churches all
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turned into Riding Houses, the Sabbath abolished, and one day in ten substituted to sing songs to the Manes of Marat. Oh my Soul! come not thou into the Secrets of such Republicans.4
The Guillotine itself would not make me a sincere Republican upon such Conditions.
The Spirit, Principals and system of rational Liberty to All Nations is my Toast: but I see no tendency to any Thing but Anarchy, Licentiousness and Despotism. Mankind will not learn Wisdom from Experience.
yours affectionately
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Febry 9th 1794.”
That is, Dulce est desipere in loco, “’Tis sweet at the fitting time to cast serious thoughts aside” (Horace, Odes and Epodes, transl. C. E. Bennett, Cambridge, 1952, Book IV, Ode 12, line 28).
“Moved by your prayer he shall ward off tearful war, wretched plague and famine from the folk and from our sovereign Caesar, and send these woes against the Parthian and the Briton” (same, Book I, Ode 21, lines 13–16).
Isaiah, 23:1–14, describes the prophesied destruction of the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon (or Zidon).
Veneration of the French revolutionary leader Jean Paul Marat began immediately following his assassination by Charlotte Corday in July 1793. His funeral was orchestrated to emphasize his martyrdom, with one writer even comparing him to Jesus: “O heart of Jesus, O heart of Marat … you have the same right to our homage. O heart of Marat, sacré coeur … can the works and benevolence of the son of Mary be compared with those of the Friend of the People and his apostles to the Jacobins of our holy Mountain?” (Schama, Citizens,
p. 741–746).
New England clergy were generally quite supportive of the French Revolution, viewing it as an important event for the promotion of liberty and, at the same time, a useful check on Roman Catholicism. Even after many Federalists turned against the Revolution in 1792–1793, citing the growing violence of the Terror and attacks on all forms of organized religion, clergy tended to remain proponents, arguing that these events were merely stages to pass through before a peaceful, republican society could be established that would naturally embrace Protestantism. These attitudes would shift in late 1794 and early 1795 because of political and social changes in the United States, but JA was premature in his expectation that events in France at this time would sway the thinking of New England’s ministers (Gary B. Nash, “The American Clergy and the French Revolution,”
WMQ,
3d ser., 22:392–412 [July 1965]).