Adams Family Correspondence, volume 13
Three Vessells have arrived from Hambourg Since Thomas was there. The inclosed will shew you that he chose the Alexander Hamilton of New York.1 By this means he will escape the Dangers of our Massachusetts Bay; and I hope soon to hear of his Arrival.
The General Officers nominated Smith for the command of a Regiment— I nominated him to the senate who, after a warm opposition and a day or two’s debate consented to his Appointment. His Pride is capable of stooping very low, or he would not have consented to be nominated. Let him run for Luck. All the Actions of my Life and all the Conduct of my Children have not yet disgraced me so much as this Man. His Pay will not feed his Dogs: and his Dogs must be fed if his Children starve.2 What a Folly! Yet he is brave and capable as an officer: and faithful to his Country as I believe, tho no Politician.
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A.”
JA enclosed TBA’s 27 Oct. 1798 letter to him, above. The ships
Ocean, Capt. Morris; America, Capt. Robert Jenkins; and Barbara, Capt.
Henry Clark; and the brig Betsy, Capt. Joseph Chatfield,
all departed Hamburg after TBA’s arrival in that city and had already
arrived at various U.S. ports by the date of this letter (New-York Gazette, 24 Dec.; Newburyport Herald, 25
Dec.; Baltimore Federal Gazette, 2 Jan. 1799, 27 May
1800; Salem Gazette, 1 Jan. 1799). For TBA’s
voyage home on the Alexander Hamilton, see JQA to AA, 8 Oct. 1798, and note
1, above.
Lieutenant colonel commandants in the infantry were paid $75 per
month (Thomas M. Exley, comp., A Compendium of the Pay of the
Army from 1785 to 1888, Washington, D.C., 1888, p. 48).