Adams Family Correspondence, volume 13

John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 12 October 1798 Adams, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Boylston
John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams
My dear Brother. 12. October 1798.

We have received and been entertained with your letters from Dessau, Magdeburg and Brunswic.—1 We hope to hear from you, to day or to-morrow, at Hamburg, where upon your arrival, you must have found abundance of letters, either to, or for you.

You ask for news; but you are now so much nearer the sources of all the important news, that it must rather come from you to us, than go from us to you.

Buonaparte, is neither dead, nor like to die— The newspapers may say about him what they will.2 That there has been great sickness in his army might be presumed, without positive intelligence— But as it is unquestionable that he is in possession of Alexandria, and of Cairo, there can be no danger of his starving, and as little of his being overcome by Turks or Egyptians, Arabs or Mammalukes.3

Here, all goes on with us according to the old routine— We have been out since you went away, only to the Princess Henry’s, and to Bellevue—4 The Princess Ferdinand desired me to request you upon your return home, to present her compliments to General Washington; for whose character she has a great esteem.

We have not been to Charlottenburg since you left us; but Mrs: A. is gone there this morning. And we have scarcely once seen any of Dr: Brown’s family; who when they come to town, have not time to call.— They miss you very much.— I have heard, but not directly from them, that William has obtained a Lieutenant’s Commission.5

We have had no letters from America since your departure— The public accounts announce the yellow fever again at Philadelphia.— I hope you will conclude on your return to settle somewhere else, and should wish it might be at Boston.

260

I find by letters from Mr: Murray, that Dandridge has left him, and that for the present Mr: Mountflorence serves him, as Secretary.6

God bless you! and give you a prosperous voyage!

RC (MQHi); addressed: “Mr: T. B. Adams. / Hamburg.”; internal address: “T. B. Adams.”; endorsed: “J Q Adams Esqr: / 12 Octr: 1798 / 16 Recd / 17 Ansd.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 133.

1.

Not found.

2.

Rumors that Napoleon and Rear Adm. Horatio Nelson had both been killed in a naval engagement had been reported in Hamburg and London since August (London Oracle and Public Advertiser, 29 Aug.; London Mirror of the Times, 8–15 Sept.; London Whitehall Evening Post, 20–22 Sept.).

3.

Napoleon took Alexandria on 2 July and Cairo on 24 July. French military advances stalled, however, after British warships defeated the French fleet at Aboukir Bay in the Battle of the Nile on 1 Aug., cutting off supply lines to Napoleon’s troops. During the weeks that followed an estimated 10 to 15 percent of Napoleon’s soldiers suffered illness in undersupplied hospitals (Strathern, Napoleon in Egypt , p. 64–66, 130–132, 154, 215, 219).

4.

JQA and LCA spent the evening with Wilhelmina of Hesse-Cassel, Princess Henry, on 1 Oct. and visited Bellevue on 8 Oct. (D/JQA/24, 1, 8 Oct., APM Reel 27; LCA, D&A , 1:91–93).

5.

William Brown was described by LCA as “very young very handsome and very wild.” On a 1798 trip to England, Dr. Charles Brown met Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, and soon after the duke conferred upon William a commission in the 13th Regiment of Light Dragoons, with a one-year deferral to allow him to pursue studies in Berlin. JQA wrote again to TBA on 15 Oct. (LbC, APM Reel 133), confirming the younger Brown’s commission and reporting the deferral (LCA, D&A , 1:60; E. H. Adamson, “Sir Charles Brown,” Archaeologia Aeliana, 19:139, 140 [1898]).

6.

In letters of 6 and 28 Sept. (both Adams Papers), William Vans Murray informed JQA that his secretary, Bartholomew Dandridge Jr., would depart on 20 Sept. for London to become secretary to Rufus King. On 28 Sept. Murray reported that Maj. James Cole Mountflorence had agreed to serve as his secretary on a temporary basis. Mountflorence (ca. 1745–1820) was a native of Ireland who immigrated to North Carolina in 1778 and served during the Revolutionary War as a militia officer and quartermaster. A surveyor and land agent of western lands following the war, Mountflorence subsequently served several U.S. diplomats in Paris and The Hague from the mid-1790s until his death in Paris (Washington, Papers, Revolutionary War Series , 22:526).

John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 16 October 1798 Adams, John Adams, John Quincy
John Adams to John Quincy Adams
My Dear sir Quincy Oct. 16. 1798

The inclosed Letter from the sec. of state will go by the Way of England. In the paragraph quoted from me I wish you not to mistake. I dont mean that I have any aversion to a Treaty with Prussia or sweeden, upon Terms consistent with your Instructions. You may agree to such a Treaty as soon as you please.1 But in the present State of Things, if the Neutral Powers will not go to War with France and We are compelled to do so, I have no Scruple to say I will not bind the United states to let French Dutch & spanish Property pass, under Neutral Flaggs. I hope the Dutch & the Spaniards will not 261 force Us into a War with them. But if they do they must and shall take the Consequences.2

Your Mother has been sick of a Complication of Disorders, a chronic Diarrhea, an intermittent fever and almost a Diabetes sometimes for three Months. she is still very weak, but We think better, and hope will get well. We are in hopes of seeing your Brother in a few Weeks. Love to your best Friend and to your new sec. I am / your affectionate

John Adams

Be pleased to make my best Compliments to Mr De Thulemeyer and thank him for his kind Remembrance of me: I recollect with great Pleasure his kind & polite and even friendly Treatment of me for some Years, when We resided at the Hague. I would go a Great Way to have the Pleasure of a few Hours Conversation with him.— What Effect upon the World does he think our old Country of Holland, and the Austrian Low Countries will have in the Hands of France?3

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mr Adams.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 119. Tr (Adams Papers).

1.

The enclosure was Timothy Pickering to JQA of 24 Sept., in which Pickering responded to JQA’s proposal that in negotiating a treaty with Sweden the United States should insist on a provision protecting neutral navigation in the event of war, “provided the enemy of the warring power admitted the same principle.” Pickering offered both his and JA’s agreement to the suggestion, telling JQA that insistence on such a provision in treaties with both Sweden and Prussia should thereafter be considered part of his instructions (Adams Papers).

2.

Tensions were high between the United States and Spain as Spain continued to move closer to the political orbit of France and its client state the Batavian Republic. A particular source of friction was Spain’s reluctance to turn over forts in the Louisiana territory in compliance with the terms of Pinckney’s Treaty ( Cambridge Modern Hist. , 7:323–324).

3.

JQA’s letters to JA frequently included the greetings of Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Thulemeier, “a judge of the supreme judicial tribunal” who served as the Prussian minister to the Netherlands during JA’s years at The Hague (JQA to JA, 18 May, 25 Sept., both Adams Papers). For Thulemeier, see vol. 7:307 and JA, Papers , 16:ix.