Adams Family Correspondence, volume 12
th— [
1798]
Taking up your paper yesterday morning, I was shockd at the Misrepresentation a Writer in your paper has given to the nomination and appointment of J Q. Adams, to sweeden for the purpose of renewing the Treaty with that Power.1 I could not but reflect upon the different feelings which must actuate your Mind, and the writer of the following paragraph, written last october, upon seeing Some ungenerous reflections in your Papers of the last summer upon the Change of [com]mission from Lisbon to Berlin—
“As for mr Bache, He was once my Schoolmate; one of the companions of those Infant Years when the Heart Should be open to strong and deep impressions of attachement, and never should admit any durable Sentiment of hatred or malice. There is a degree of Regard and tenderness that mingles itself in my recollection of every individual with whom I ever stood in that relation. The school and the College are the sources of the dearest friendships. they ought never to be those of malevolence or Envy. Mr Bache must have lost those feelings—or he would never have been the vehicle of abuse upon me, at least during my absence from the Country.”2
452Mr Bache is left to his own reflections. this communication is only to his own Heart, being confident that the writer never expected it would meet his Eye.3
RC (private owner, 1990); addressed to “Mr B Franklin Bache.” This letter is included in the microfilm edition of the Castle-Bache Collection at PPAmP. Some loss of text where the seal was removed.
The Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 16 March, reported: “When John Q. Adams, the son of our President was taken from the Hague, and sent to Berlin on a new appointment with a new outfit, we suggested, that he would be made to perform the circuit thro the Northern Courts of Europe, with a new outfit at each removal; as such business would be found more profitable than any he could follow at home, and as it was the du[t]y of every father to provide handsomely for his son, especially when it could be done at the public expence.” The article then argued that because the House of Representatives was expected to appropriate funds to support diplomatic appointees, the record of the votes in the Senate should be public in order that people could know “what Senators countenance this lavish expenditure of the public treasure?”
See JQA to AA, 7 Oct. 1797, above.
No response to this letter is extant, although the veracity of Bache’s article was challenged in the Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 16 March 1798. “A Member of the Senate” labeled the article “a falsehood from beginning to end” and noted that the appointment was a commission to renew an existing treaty, carried no salary, and would likely be concluded with the Swedish minister at Berlin. Junius offered a similar argument in a second piece but further discussed the expenses JQA had incurred by the sudden change in his mission from Portugal to Prussia, which went without remuneration as a new outfit was not awarded. The Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 17 March, responded to the “anonimous” senator’s assertions by suggesting it would take a “rare” Federalist to serve without compensation and that it would be “unusual, if it be not unprecedented,” for a diplomatic negotiation to be carried out at a foreign court “not interested in the business.” The Aurora, 19 March, responded to Junius, denying that it could be known whether “our chubby itinerent envoy” would not ultimately go to Sweden and thereby be granted further money toward his expenses, “which he may contrive, like another great man, to swell to the full extent, and a little beyond, the amount of the sum usually allowed for outfit.”
When I have written to your Brother I feel as if I had exhausted all the subjects which it is proper for me to write upon, but as your Hand writing allways gives me pleasure tho I see it only upon the superscription of a Letter, or in a few Promissory lines in the cover, I judge you will allways be gratified with a few words from me tho they contain no more than a Bullitin of our Health and that of your Friends. I find in this city many of your old acquaintance who profess Friendship for you, and speak of you with affection. there are several of your sisters yet unmarried, the Miss Brecks miss Westcot & miss Wilson— Miss Breck I have been told is engaged, and has
453
been so for a long time to a French Gentleman. miss Lucy to your old Friend Wycoff. Miss Betsy stael is lately married, and I am told by mrs Judge Cushing who lodges there, when she is in this city, that she is well married.1 dr Rush also frequently inquires after you. he is lately appointed treasurer, of the Mint.2 your master Ingersol goes on getting Money in his Profession.
It is a long time since I received a Letter from you. so many new scenes must open before you that I should receive much entertainment if a free communication was proper. there will be many things which I should like to hear and know, which will have no connection politicks and of which you are very able to detail. The customs and Manners of the people, the fashions of the Ladies all of which you can draw, in an agreable point of view
I can tell you a peice of News— Mrs Law formerly Miss custos, has been to make a visit here this Winter. she says that Nelly is unmarried, and that she thinks few young men of the present day are Worth having She Said that, She should have been very happy to have had her marry one of my sons— now as two of them are married, who could she mean? I have had Some hints as tho your Heart was some where near the city of Washington. as yet it is not fixed at Mount Vernon
You are a freeman. fix where you like. I shall never controul you. all I require is the means of supporting a Family before a young Man engages in so important a transaction.
write to Hamburgh & commit your Letters to the care of mr Pitcarn. if these French men, who have never recoverd the stroke of the Hammer, will but come to reason, and grow quiet and calm, we shall be a very happy people, but I know not when they will cease to torment and afflict. I am my dear Thomas / most affectionatly / Your Mother
RC (MQHi); addressed by Louisa Catharine Smith: “Thomas B. Adams Esqr: / Berlin”; endorsed: “Mrs: A Adams / 18 March 1798 / 17 May Recd: / 16 June acknd”; notation by ECA: “To my / Father / from his / Mother / one hundred / & 2 years / old.”
Hannah Breck, for whom see vol. 9:237, did not marry until 1809; her sister Lucy (b. 1777) died of yellow fever in Sept. 1798 at the same time as her friend Elizabeth Wescott. Mary (Polly) Wilson (1772–1832) was the daughter of Judge James Wilson and his first wife, Rachel Bird. Henry Wikoff (1770–1826) was the son of Philadelphia merchant Peter Wikoff; when TBA returned to Philadelphia in 1799, the two resumed their friendship. Elizabeth Stall (1779–1821) was the daughter of John Stall, in whose boardinghouse TBA had stayed in 1793; she married William Lytle of Kentucky on 28 Feb. 1798 (vol. 9:436, 10:346; Samuel Breck, Genealogy of the Breck Family Descended from Edward
454
of Dorchester and His Brothers in America, Omaha, Neb., 1889, p. 41; Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 12 Sept.; Charles Page Smith, James Wilson: Founding Father, 1742–1798, Chapel Hill, N.C., 1956, p. 42, 49; C. S. Williams, Descendants of John Cox, N.Y., 1909, p. 44–46;
TBA, Diary, 1798–1799, 2 May, 9 June 1799; For Honor, Glory, and Union: The Mexican and Civil War Letters of Brig. Gen. William Haines Lytle, ed. Ruth C. Carter, Lexington, Ky., 1999, p. 4, plates following 114; Byron Williams, History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, 2 vols., Milford, Ohio, 1913, 1:300;
Penna. Archives
, 2d ser., 9:580 [1880]).
JA nominated Benjamin Rush to be the treasurer of the U.S. Mint on 24 Nov. 1797, and the Senate confirmed the appointment three days later. His duties amounted to little more than bookkeeping, but the appointment kept Rush’s finances afloat after the backlash against his use of bloodletting to treat yellow fever harmed his medical practice. Rush retained the position until his death in 1813 (U.S. Senate, Exec. Jour.
, 5th Cong., 2d sess., p. 251; Rush, Letters
, 2:797, 1209–1212;
ANB
).