Adams Family Correspondence, volume 12
we have made every thing as ready for your reception as we can. but alass I fear we Shall not see you. I think it will not be possible under the present State of affairs for the President to leave with prudence the Seat of Goverment for So long a journey but I hope you will leave the city If you do not come you will be Sav’d the melancholy prospect of your ruin’d Barley field & distroy’d Garden. we had a fortnight Since Such a Storm of hail as your eyes never beheld it lasted about an hour it was attended with thunder lightning & a torrent of Rain with a violent wind.1 the hail Stones were between three & four inches round it thresh’d all the Barley broke the 219 corn, kill’d the vines & tore the cabbages & ever vegetable out of the ground all to peceis where ever it extended there is a hollow in our Farm from which was carried pailfulls of hail a week after to make punch with. it kill’d all my chickens & the bird lay thick in many places kill by it the windows on the west Sides of houses were broke all to peceis the Doctor will write you what he has had to do to repair yours2
I thank you my Sister for your kindness to my Son. he inform’d us of mr websters proposal. we knew not what to advise him I hope he will act prudently. I have advis’d him to open an office where he is immediately for he cannot come away Suddenly if his prospects here were ever So inviting he may be able then to judge what he can do if he Should think it best to stay washington is now at its lowest Stage I immagene at present his character I believe is establish’d there for honour & probity I know the President thought he did right to go there & I would wish him now not to do any thing which he Should think unadvisable I Should rely much upon his opinion
what a Family of Blounts are there any more of them—
Providence has Still an eye over us for good. more Blounts will be found out or I am mistaken— the V. P had no curiosity I think or he would not have taken himself of just as he did & tho tis customary to ask leave of absence before the rising of congress yet his doing it just as Bs trial was coming on did not look like the late V Ps doings—thats all— far be it from me to speak evil of dignitys—where there is really any—3
mr Cranch thanks you for the Pamplight— it exceeded in weight what a Postmaster has a right to receeve Post free, & he was charg’d three dollars & an half for it— I do not know if a President may not write Free upon any weight but a Postmaster cannot receeve any thing above a certain weight unless he can— mr Cranch is writing to the Postmaster Generall about it4
Jo Beal was buried yesterday he was in a dreadful Situation a mortification in both his Feet all the Toes on one Foot had been taken off & before he dy’d his whole Foot drop’d off
he has been in terrible distress—& has left a numerous helpless Family unprovided for I beleive.5 […] Beals Black Tom was buried the day before he was drown’d a Sunday Washing himself in the water just below mr Careys—
I had a Letter last week from sister Peabody She & her Family were well but Charles she Says is in a poor State of health
220I am concern’d about him— Cousen Betsy is at Weymouth the Post is come Love to the P. & Cousen from Your / truly affectionate Sister
RC (Adams Papers); addressed by Richard Cranch: “To Mrs. Adams the / President’s Lady / Philadelphia.”; endorsed: “Mrs Cranch July / 26 1797”; notation by Richard Cranch: “Quincy July 26th. 1797. Free.”
The Boston Columbian Centinel, 15 July, noted that on the 14th “a severe thunder storm accompanied with hailstones of very uncommon dimensions” broke the glass in windows throughout the city.
Cotton Tufts wrote to AA on 27 July detailing the destruction from the storm: “It broke, in your Dwelling House & out Houses, from 130 to 140 squares of Glass—destroyed in your Garden a considerable part of the Vegetables and injured the Rest greatly.” Tufts also described the damage to the Adamses’ field crops: the barley “was broken down” and could only be used “for Fodder,” but he hoped the corn would “in some Measure recover” (Adams Papers).
On 5 July Thomas Jefferson obtained a leave of absence from the Senate for the remainder of the congressional session. He left Philadelphia the following day, prior to William Blount’s expulsion on the 8th. The New York Minerva, 12 July, remarked that “Jefferson was taken ill the very day” the Blount affair “was detected,” suggesting ulterior motives for Jefferson’s early departure. However, the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 21 July, justified Jefferson’s leave-taking, stating that when JA was vice president, he “usually had leave of absence a few days before the close of the session” so that the Senate could “chuse a President pro. tem.” to act in case the president or vice president were “incapable of exercising their respective functions” (
Annals of Congress
, 5th Cong., 1st sess., p. 37; Malone, Jefferson
, 3:318).
For a discussion of the president’s free postage allowance, see vol. 9:95.
Joseph Beale (b. 1743) died on 23 July, leaving behind eleven children. Beale served in the Revolutionary War and lived in the Squantum neighborhood of Quincy (Sprague, Braintree Families
).