Adams Family Correspondence, volume 12
I write you a few Lines this mor’g just to inclose to you the News
paper of yesterday which contains an important Message from the President;1 it is a very painfull thing to him that he
cannot communicate to the publick dispatches in which they are so much interested, but
we have not any assurance that the Envoys have left Paris and who can say that in this
critical state of things their dispatches ought to be publick? our foreign ministers can
never be safe, or they will cease to be useful to us abroad, if their communications are
all to be communicated. this was not the case during our revolution. under the old
Congress, dispatches were never made publick. I expect the President will be represented
as declaring War, by taking off the restriction which prevented Merchantment from
Arming. it was always doubtfull in his mind, whether he had a Right to prevent them, but
the former President had issued such a prohibition, and he thought it best at that time
to continue it. you see by the papers that Bache has begun his old bilingsgate again,
because mr J Q Adams is directed to renew the treaty with sweeden which is now just
expiring, and for which not a single sixpence will be allowd him as the King of sweeden
will empower his Minister at Berlin to renew it there.2 Dr Franklin made the treaty in Paris with the
sweedish minister, and the President made the Treaty with Prussia in Holland.3 yet this lying wretch of Baches asserts that no
treaties were ever made without going to the courts to negotiate them, unless the power
where they were made, were concernd in them, and says it is all a job in order to give
mr Adams a new outfit & additional sallery at every Court. but there is no end to
their audaciousness, and you will see that French emissaries are in every corner of 455 the union sowing and spreading their Sedition. we
have renewed information that their system is, to
calumniate the President, his family his administration untill they oblige him to
resign, and then they will Reign triumphant, headed by the Man
of the People.
4 it behoves every
Pen and press to counteract them, but our Countrymen in general are not awake to their
danger— we are come now to a crissis too important to be languid, too Dangerous to
slumber— unless we are determind to submit to the fraternal embrace, which is sure and
certain destruction as the Poisoned shirt of Danarius—5 adieu my dear sister. I intended only a line but
I have run to a great length. we have had snow and rain for three days. what has been
your Weather?
Love and a kind remembrance to all Friends / from your ever affectionate / Sister
RC (MWA:Abigail Adams Letters); addressed: “Mrs Mary Cranch / Quincy.”
The enclosure has not been found but was likely the Philadelphia
Gazette of the United States, 19 March, which printed
that day’s message from JA to Congress, in which JA
explained that after examining the dispatches from the commissioners to France he saw
“no ground of expectation, that the objects of their mission, can be accomplished, on
terms compatible, with the safety, honor, or the essential interests of the nation.”
He urged Congress to provide for the nation’s defense by replenishing arsenals and
establishing foundries, and he informed them that he was removing the restriction on
merchant vessels’ arming themselves before sailing.
Baron Carl Gustav Shultz von Ascheraden served as the Swedish
minister to Prusia until his death on 22 March; he was succeeded by Baron Lars von
Engeström, whom JQA described as being pro-French and unlikely to
negotiate. It was not until 1816 that a new Swedish-American treaty was signed (LCA, D&A
, 1:73, 91; TBA, Journal, 1798
, p. 13;
D/JQA/24, 3 May 1798, APM Reel 27; Miller, Treaties
, 2:601–616).
The Swedish-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce was signed by
Benjamin Franklin and Count Gustav Philip Creutz at Paris on 3 April 1783. The
Prussian-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce was negotiated between 10 Nov. 1784 and
14 March 1785 by Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Thulemeier, based at The Hague, and the
American commissioners—Benjamin Franklin, JA, and Thomas Jefferson—based
in Paris (JA, Papers
, 14:12,
16:373–420).
The Philadelphia Aurora General
Advertiser, 20 March 1798, attacked JA’s 19 March message to
Congress as making war even though the legislature had not declared war on France. One
article called on “the PEOPLE to step forward and
by an expression of their sentiments secure the preponderance of those counsels on
which the Peace, Union, and Prosperity of this country depend.” On 21 March the Aurora further called on JA “to do a most acceptable service to
his country, by retiring from the cares of public life, and giving up the helm … to a
more fortunate pilot.”
AA might also have been quietly alluding to
information gleaned from the recently deciphered dispatches, in which the
commissioners reported a threat made by one French agent: “You ought to know that the
diplomatic skill of France, and the means she possesses in your country, are
sufficient to enable her, with the French party in America, to throw the blame which
will attend the rupture of the negotiations on the federalists, as you term
yourselves, but on the British party, as France terms you; and you may assure
yourselves this will be done” (
Amer. State Papers, Foreign Relations
, 2:164).
Written above this word, in Richard Cranch’s hand, is “Deianira.” For the Greek myth of Deianira and Hercules, see Mary Smith Cranch to AA, 1 April, and note 1, below.