Adams Family Correspondence, volume 13
st1799 Monday Eve
I am almost dead with a horrid cold and fear that before I shall half finish this letter I shall drown it with water, from my eyes.
I wish I felt well and in good spirits enough to give you an account of the presidents ball— it was brilliant indeed, and the ladies were drest and looked almost too beautiful. The president enjoyed himself much better, than he would have done, had not Cousen Thomas been present. When any gentlemen came to him and congratulated him on his sons arrival and enquired for him, the president told them to look for a young man with a blue coat with black hair, cropt close to his head and the greatest looking democrat in the room. Ah! is your son a democrat? Yes, the reply was, as much as his father.1
In the course of the Evening I happened to overhear a conversation
of Dallas’s which diverted me not a little. He said that president Adams differed in one
very essential point from the former president. Gen W. was very fond of the company of
the ladys and of conversing with them; but the present president did not appear to
relish their company in the least.— he did not know how to talk
to the ladies. If I had not a most violent head ache I am sure I could make you
laugh.
There was a considerable warm debate to day in congress, whether
the report of the Secy of State acompanying the dispatches
of Mr. Gerry, should be published with them or not. It passed in the affirmative by a
small majority. There were many ill natured things said against the Secy. Gen S
Will you remember me affectionately to Uncle and Aunt Cranch and believe me to be your affection- / ate nephew
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “W S Shaw Jan’ry / 21
1799.”
In his short letter to AA of 21 Jan., JA noted that TBA “runs about with his black head and blue Coat among his old Quaker Acquaintances, who all accost him in the friendly style” (Adams Papers).
After striking several passages that he believed were overly
censorious of Elbridge Gerry’s conduct, JA submitted to Congress on 21
Jan. Timothy Pickering’s report on Gerry’s correspondence with Talleyrand. In the
report Pickering argued that Talleyrand’s actions were designed to create the pretense
on 371 which France could blame the United States for an
ensuing war between the countries. He viewed French overtures to limit privateering in
the West Indies as a diversion and concluded that France “from standing erect, and in
that commanding attitude requiring implicit obedience—cowering, it renounces some of
its unfounded demands. But I hope we shall remember ‘that the tiger crouches before he
leaps upon his prey.’” After the report was submitted to Congress, a resolution was
introduced to have both the dispatches and the report published. A lengthy debate
followed, in which Democratic-Republicans objected to printing Pickering’s report
because they viewed it as unnecessary and degrading to Congress. More particularly,
Samuel Smith of Maryland insisted that it should not be construed as coming from
JA but rather from an “improper interference” by Pickering. The
Federalist counterargument was that the report contained pertinent details the public
should see. The inclusion of the report in the order for publication passed by a vote
of 46 to 36, and the materials were published as separate pamphlets: Message from the President of the United States, Accompanying
Sundry Papers Relative to the Affairs of the United States, with the French
Republic, [Phila., 1799], Evans, No. 36551, and Message from the President of
the United States, Accompanying a Report of the Secretary of State, Phila.,
1799, Evans, No. 36547.
Pickering’s report was first printed in the Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 23 Jan.; Gerry’s correspondence was printed in
the Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser, 22, 23, 24,
25, 26, 28 Jan. (Elkins and
McKitrick, Age of Federalism
, p. 614; Timothy
Pickering, A Review of the Correspondence between the Hon.
John Adams … and the Late Wm. Cunningham, Salem, Mass., 1824, p. 128–132;
Amer. State
Papers, Foreign Relations
, 2:229–238;
Annals of Congress
,
5th Cong., 3d sess., p. 2729–2740).
Shaw was referring to Edward Livingston, who was not present in
Congress until 14 Jan. (U.S. House,
Jour.
, 5th Cong., 3d sess., p. 431).
Shaw wrote again to AA the following day, enclosing copies of the Gerry dispatches and reporting to AA on a bill in Congress that would further suspend relations between the United States and France (Adams Papers).