Adams Family Correspondence, volume 12
th1798
mr Thorntons stay has been protracted much beyond the time I expected, and it gives me an other opportunity of adding to what I have already written, and of sending you the Printed coppy of the instructions given to our Envoys. the liberality of them has extorted acknowledgments from the minority, that they were eaquel to their most sanguine wishes, and satisfied many who had been imposed upon that the President has been Sincere in his desires for Peace, and an amicable adjustment of our differences with the French Republic1
the publishing the dispatches & instructions, tho a measure which could not have been warranted, but by the peculiar situation of our Country, has been the severest Death wound the Jacobins have ever received. it has laid open to the People base and corrupt designs of the French Directory, and given them to know their real Friends, and protectors from their pretended ones. the real Jacobins are for the Present struck dumb.
there is much more union and harmony in Congress, and they are proceeding to the defence of the Country with a degree of Spirit which has not before appeard. I hope in my next Letter to be more particular, to prove to you the great alteration in the sentiments of the people in this city. the French have divested themselves of the National Cockade, and scarcly one is to be seen— no native American is willing to be sold indignation succeeds to affection, and the weaning will be compleat, if we must have recourse to Arms. but we have a dreary prospect before us I hope however that the virtuous spirit of the Fathers will descend to their Son’s and that the present generation will not tamely yeald those Rights for which the former shed their Blood.
By the packet col Pickering received the duplicate of your Letter of December the 6th.2 mr King writes that he had put on Board a vessel bound to N york from Liverpool Letters from you— this vessel I presume waits a convoy I pray she may arrive safe. I most ardently long for Letters from you. I have comfort in those which the 499 secretary receives, for in the duplicate is both your Brothers and Your Hand writing by which I presume you are both well.
I cannot form any judgement when congress will rise. I hope before the very Hot weather
Your Father is well and sustains the cares and fatigues of his station to admiration.
My Love to Thomas and to mrs Adams. I never receive any intelligence from you, or of you without communicating it to her Family.
not a word from our Envoys Since Janry 10th why, why, do we not hear that they have left Paris, shaking the dirt from their feet.3
Mr Pinckney is here as member of Congress. his plain affable Manners are agreable to every one. he is Esteemed and beloved. he is quite the Gentleman
The spainard was married this week to miss sally mcKean.4
But I must close or the post will go with mr Thornton.
I am my dear son / your ever affectionate
RC (Adams Papers). Tr (Adams Papers).
The Philadelphia Gazette, 13 April, printed the resolutions of a meeting held the previous evening at Dunwoody’s Tavern, where Philadelphia residents from the Southwark and Northern Liberties districts unanimously declared that “the measures pursued by the President … to establish a permanent good understanding between the two nations as the same are specified in the Instructions to the Envoys Extraordinary, have been wise, just, liberal and sincere, and entitle him to the grateful acknowledgments of his country.” The newspaper further remarked that although the meeting had been “composed of gentlemen whose political sentiments have hitherto been diametrically opposite, the greatest harmony and unanimity imaginable prevailed on every motion.” The memorial was among a number presented in the House of Representatives on 26 April (U.S. House, Jour.
, 5th Cong., 2d sess., p. 274).
For AA’s summary of JQA’s letter to Timothy Pickering, 6 Dec. 1797 (LbC, APM Reel 132), see her letter to Mary Smith Cranch, 13 April 1798, below.
Passports were not issued to the envoys until 13 April, and then only to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and John Marshall, both of whom left Paris in mid-April. In a letter to JA of 15 April (Adams Papers), JQA reported his assumption that the envoys were “doubtless before this upon their return home,” although he intimated that Elbridge Gerry would remain in France: “The system of dividing to conquer is pursued as usual by the Directory and amidst all the proofs of malevolence, of perfidy, and of over-bearing insolence which their whole conduct towards the United States exhibits, they have at length intimated a disposition to negotiate with one of the three Commissioners, whose dispositions they consider as more entitled than those of the others to their confidence.— That one, is your particular friend and acquaintance.” Gerry remained in France until August (Albert Hall Bowman, The Struggle for Neutrality: Franco-American Diplomacy During the Federalist Era, Knoxville, Tenn., 1974, p. 324–325, 349–350).
Sarah (Sally) Maria Theresa McKean (1777–1841), daughter of Thomas and Sarah Armitage McKean, married Carlos Martínez de Irujo in Philadelphia on 10 April 1798 (Cornelius McKean, McKean Genealogies from the Early Settlement of McKeans or McKeens in America to the Present Time, 1902, Des Moines, Iowa, 1902, p. 118, 122, 123).
AA had previously written to JQA on 8 500 April, enclosing a copy of the envoys’ dispatches and informing him of the deaths of Dr. John Clarke and Abigail Phillips Quincy (Adams Papers).
I inclose a Letter to cousin Betsy who has been very frank with me upon the subject of her approaching connection. I hope they will live to enjoy mutual happiness—1
I believe I have been deficient in not mentioning to you that mr Greenleaf was liberated from Prison on saturday week. I have not seen him. mr Malcomb was present at Court and heard the examination. he returnd quite charmed with mr Greenleafs manners and deportment, tho not so with the counsel against him, who he said used mr Greenleaf in a very ungenteel manner but still mr G——f did not forget what belongd to himself—by which means he obtaind many advocates—2
I know my dear sister you will rejoice that I can hear from my Children publickly, that is officially, tho I have not received any Private Letters. mr King writes that he has put on board a vessel bound to Liverpool Letters from mr Adams to his Family. that vessel I presume waits to sail under the convoy granted The secretary of state has received by the British packet duplicates of Letters from mr Adams at Berlin dated 6 december—in which he writes that he was received by the New King of Prussia on the 5th of december, that the King had waved the common ussage with respect to him, considering the distance of the united states, and received him. upon presenting his Credentials, he assured the King that he had no doubt that new ones would be sent him, and that he doubted not he should be warranted by his Government in assureing him of the interest the united stats take in his welfare and prosperity, and that he should but fulfill their wishes by reiterating to him the Sentiments of Friendship and good will which he had in Charge to express to his Royal Father and Predecessor—, to which his Majesty answerd, that he was much gratified by the mark of attention which the united states had shown to the Government, and wished to assure him of his recipriocal good will, and good wishes for their happiness and prosperity. That the similarity of the commercial interests of the two Countries renderd the connection between them important, and might be productive of mutual benifit. on the same Evening mr Adams had an Audience of the Queen mother—
This is rather different from the treatment which our Envoys meet with from the 5 Kings in France— The publick opinion is changeing here very fast, and the people begin to see who have been their firm unshaken Friends, steady to their interests and defenders of their Rights and Liberties. the Merchants of this city have had a meeting to prepare an address of thanks to the President for his firm and steady conduct as it respects their interests.3 I am told that the French Cockade so frequent in the streets here, is not now to be seen, and the Common People say if J——n had been our President, and Madison & Burr our Negotiaters we should all have been sold to the French—4 it is evident that the whole dependance of the French is the devision amongst ourselves. their making such a Noise & pretending to be very wroth at the Presidents speech, is designd only to effect a Change in the chief Majestracy. they dare not openly avow it, but the declaration that all vessels should be subject to capture which had passports on board signd, with the Presidents Signature is one amongst the many personal insults offerd—5 but they have sprung a mine now which will blow them up. they have discoverd a greedy appetite to swallow us all up, to make us like the Hollanders, to cut us up like a capon, and deal us out like true Gamesters—
I sent and bought Kings Pantheon as soon as I found myself foild in my recollection6
I shall write to your son tomorrow; I have not heard lately from him7
I dont care whether Mrs Pope puts me down any butter, if she will only let me have fresh when I come home. I could never find any body who would take the pains which she does, and make so good Butter in the heat of summer.
My Love to mrs Norton & Greenleaf. to each I have sent a simplicity cap— Respects to mr Cranch & Mrs Welch from your truly affectionate / Sister
RC (MWA:Abigail Adams Letters); addressed: “Mrs Mary Cranch / Quincy.”
Not found.
James Greenleaf was not released from debtors’ prison until August; see
AA’s letter to Cranch, [1] Feb., note 7, above.
A group of Philadelphia merchants, traders, and underwriters met at the City Coffee House on 11 and 12 April and agreed to express to JA “their determination to support the measures of our government.” On 17 April they waited on JA, presenting an address bearing 500 signatures and noting that they would “always unite in opposing the attempts of any foreign nation to diminish our rights as an independent people.” The group further assured JA, “We are prepared to meet any state of suffering to which our commerce may be exposed” and “shall give our sincere and firm support to the measures which may be adopted for the general welfare” (Philadelphia Gazette, 13 April;
502
Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 18 April).
Contained within the published dispatches were comments from Jean Hottinguer, “Mr. X,” of 3 Nov. 1797 stating “that intelligence had been received from the United States, that if Colonel Burr and Mr. Madison had constituted the mission, the differences between the two nations would have been accommodated before this time” (Philadelphia Gazette, 9 April 1798).
The Philadelphia Porcupine’s Gazette, 24 March, reported that the French Directory proposed that “as John Adams
was in the pay of England, all vessels, having his name on their papers, should be condemned as good prize.” With JA “stigmatized as a base wretch” and “a subsidized traitor” by the French, the article wondered if there could be “a drop of American blood, that does not tingle with indignation at the insult!”
William King, An Historical Account of the Heathen Gods and Heroes, Necessary for the Understanding of the Ancient Poets, London, 1772.
In her letter to William Cranch of 13 April, AA noted several recent deaths in Quincy and Boston and erroneously reported Greenleaf’s liberation from debtors’ prison. She also forwarded copies of the envoys’ dispatches and instructions (private owner, 2006).