Adams Family Correspondence, volume 13
oJune 14 1798
As the extract which you marked in yr
Son’s letter was too long for one paper I divided it & gave one half to Benjn & the other half to John Russell, the latter part
appears in the Commercial Gazette of this day, the former I hope will come out on
Saturday.1
I have read Robisons Conspiracy with astonishment, it contains
the seeds of all the mischiefs which we have been tormented with for years past— God
grant we may be able to stop the progress of this worse than mortal pestilence.
Thinking men are very much alarmed about the matter— The book is getting into repute
notwithstandg the acco wh the Analytical Reviewers have given against it— Are not
they probably among the illuminati?
Pray who or what is General Eustace?
& what is his errand to this Country?2
Will you be so good as to ask the Presidt whether he has in his Library Thurloe’s State papers?3 & if so whether he will allow me the
inspection or loan of such part of the work as I may want?
I send you another & the only Subscription paper wch I have. I am much obliged by your very kind offer of
assistance— I wish to have both returned by the beginning of next month. The book is
now at the press & will probably be published in all July.
If you are not tired, Madam, with my Queries I beg to know one
thing more, & that is Whether any of our armed Vessels will be employed to convoy
trading vessels to the W. Indies this Summer— The reason of my asking is that one of
my Sons who has had a mercantile Education & is now of age has some prospect of
making a Voyage thither as Super cargo, but it will depend on the prospect of safety either by insurance or convoy & the latter may
sensibly affect the former.4
I will not trouble you with another Word but only to assure you of my readiness to do you or the public thro’ your means any Service in my Power.
124Mrs B reciprocates your obliging
Salutations & joins me in respectful & cordial compliments to the Presidt & yourself—
I am madam / yr obliged friend &
/ hbl servt
Mr Appleton the Loan Commissioner
lies dangerously ill of a putrid fever & will probably not recover.
RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “Mrs Abigail Adams”;
endorsed: “Dr Belknap 14 / June 1798.”
As Belknap notes, the extract that AA had sent of
TBA’s 4 March letter to JA was broken into two parts and
published in the Boston Russell’s Gazette, 14 June, and
the Boston Columbian Centinel, 16 June.
Gen. John Skey Eustace, a frequent political agitator, was
arrested in the Netherlands in 1794 and then expelled from France and England in 1797.
William Vans Murray wrote to Timothy Pickering on 8 March 1798 (MHi:Pickering Papers) that Eustace planned to renounce his
American citizenship but changed his mind after reading Robert Goodloe Harper’s Observations on the Dispute between the United States and
France, Phila., 1797, Evans, No. 32226, for which see vol. 12:257. In her reply to Belknap of 25 June
(MHi:Jeremy Belknap Papers),
AA explained that Eustace had been arrested again in the Netherlands
and ordered to leave the country. He arrived in New York on 30 May. AA
further reported that Murray had written in support of Eustace as a “man of tallents
& much general information,” but AA thought he might be “classd, in
the List of Adventurers” (vol. 10:402; Madison, Papers, Congressional Series
, 17:182–183; Hamilton, Papers
, 22:213; New York Argus, 1
June).
A Collection of the State Papers of John
Thurloe … Containing Authentic Memorials of the English Affairs from the Year 1638,
to the Restoration of King Charles II, 7 vols., London, 1742. In her letter of
25 June, AA reported to Belknap that JA did not own a copy
of the work (MHi:Jeremy Belknap
Papers).
This was probably Belknap’s youngest son, Andrew Eliot
(1779–1858), who had just turned nineteen. He served as supercargo on the schooner Samuel, Capt. Williams, in 1801, and became a prominent
merchant in Boston during the nineteenth century (Kirsch, Jeremy
Belknap
, p. 11; Boston Independent Chronicle,
13–16 April 1801; Boston Weekly Messenger, 27 Jan.
1858).
On 18 June 1798 AA wrote a short letter to Belknap
(NhD:Ticknor Autograph Coll.)
enclosing two pamphlets: John Dennis, An Address to the People
of Maryland, Phila., 1798, Evans, No. 33626, and Anthony Aufrere, The Cannibals’
Progress; or, The Dreadful Horrors of French Invasion, Phila., 1798, Evans, No. 33334.