Adams Family Correspondence, volume 13
th1798 Sunday Evening
’Though I have been writing a very long letter, to my wild,
random, laughter loving Walter and have made it very late, still I want to thank my
aunt for her letter of Dec 20th received yesterday
morning, before I sleep.1
Logan is chosen Representative for this State by a very large
majority. It so happened that the day, L took his seat, a new carpet was placed on the
floor of the house. The Aurora, the morning after said that the Legislature of
Pensylvania were so pleased with his late conduct and wishing to show him every
possible attention and respect, ordered a new carpet to be placed on the floor.2 What will the directory say when they
hear that L has returned and chosen Repe. of his state.
Instead of being hung and quartered, as he ought to have been, he returns home and is
honored with a seat in the Legislature of Pensylvania. L’s inteferance is not new Fox
in 1791 or ’2 did the same. Charles Fox sent a Mr. Adair, as his representative and
with his cypher, to St Petersburgh, there to frustrate the objects, for which the
minister from the crown, was authorized to treat. He succceeded in his design and the
rascal did actually frustrate the kings minister, in some of the objects of his
negociation.3 But this mode of
proceedinge will never do for this country. If we allow the principle, if cabinet
factions abroad, are to be connected with popular factions here, I see nothing but the
constitution and government, must fly to pieces, like a glass bottle.
The president has received a letter from Lyons son, begging that his father may be liberated, signed by upwards of two hundred men.4
The Aurora says, the president has appointed his one son, a foreign minister, another his
Secretary and even his wifes nephew to be his own private
Secretary!!!5
Good night / With affection I am your nephew
I have been writing so long that my fingers ache & my pens are very bad— I am almost sleep, as you will see by my letter.
I have not received a single letter from my mother as yet. I have written to her.
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “W s shaw 30 / 1798 / december.”
Arthur Maynard Walter (1780–1807), Columbia A.M. 1799, was one of
Shaw’s closest friends. They attended Harvard together, though Walter did not graduate
because he refused to perform at commencement. In 1805 Shaw and Walter were among the
founders of Boston’s Anthology Society, which was formally incorporated and renamed
the Boston Athenæum in 1807 (Katherine Wolff, Culture Club:
The Curious History of the Boston Athenaeum, Amherst, Mass., 2009, p. xvii;
Josiah Quincy, The History of the Boston Athenæum, with
Biographical Notes of Its Deceased Founders, Cambridge, 1851, p. 13–19; Officers and Graduates of Columbia University, Originally the
College of the Province of New York Known as King’s College, General Catalogue,
1754–1900, N.Y., 1900, p. 107).
Philadelphia Aurora General
Advertiser, 27 Dec. 1798.
In mid-1791 during the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792), British
opposition leader Charles James Fox was suspected of dispatching Robert Adair to St.
Petersburg in an attempt to foil the diplomatic objectives of William Pitt and his
specially appointed envoy, William Fawkener (Jeremy Black, British Foreign Policy in an Age of Revolutions, 1783–1793, Cambridge, Eng
1994, p. 324–325;
DNB
).
This letter from James Lyon (1776–1824) to JA has
not been found. On 5 Oct. 1798 Matthew Lyon was the first person indicted under the
Sedition Act. On 9 Oct. he was sentenced to four months in jail and fined $1,000 for
criticizing JA’s presidency and publishing and promoting “scandalous and
seditious writing, or libel,” including Joel Barlow’s 4 March letter to Abraham
Baldwin. During the senior Lyon’s imprisonment, however, he published essays defending
his political stance, and these garnered him widespread support among
Democratic-Republicans as a symbol of political martyrdom. He was subsequently
reelected to Congress in December and was released from prison on 9 Feb. 1799 (Jefferson, Papers
, 32:261–262; Smith, Freedom’s Fetters
, p. 221–246; Aleine
Austin, Matthew Lyon: “New Man” of the Democratic Revolution,
1749–1822, University Park, Penn., 1981, p. 110;
ANB
).
Shaw accurately quoted the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 27 Dec. 1798, which alleged that there was
considerable nepotism within the U.S. government. The newspaper similarly criticized
cabinet members James McHenry, Oliver Wolcott Jr., and Timothy Pickering.