Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
A letter is now reading from Captain Bainbridge, with an account of
the loss of the frigate Philadelphia, wreck’d on rocks on the coast of Tripoli—the last
week in October— They were in pursuit of a Tripolitan Cruizer, and struck on rocks, not laid down in any Chart they had on board— Captain
Bainbridge and 307 men, are prisoners in Tripoli.— I have already seen an account of
this misfortune in the Boston Centinel—1
Of course it will be no news to you.
The House of Representatives have made sundry amendments in the Louisiana Government Bill, which amendments are now under discussion in the Senate— They are received somewhat cavalierly— All rejected, but two— One making an appropriation of 15000 dollars to remove the Indians on the Western side of the Mississippi— And the other to limit the bill to [two] years, which was before attempted 353 in the Senate and failed— But now two years is thought too long, and the Senate have shortened it to one year—2
My children both continue quite unwell— We were up almost all the last Night with the youngest— They have coughs and whoop— But the Doctor says they have not the whooping cough—3 There is a sort of catarrh, resembling the whooping-cough, very prevalent abroad, and the Doctor says my children have it.— I am my self much recovered.
RC (Adams
Papers); addressed: “John Adams Esqr / Quincy. /
Massachusetts.”; endorsed by TBA: “20th:
April March 1804 / April Recd.” Some loss of text due to the placement of the seal.
After taking command of the U.S. squadron blockading Tripoli in
Sept. 1803, Como. Edward Preble attempted to tighten the blockade, but the frigate Philadelphia, Capt. William Bainbridge, proved too large
for the shallow waters. The Boston Columbian Centinel, 10
March 1804, reported that Bainbridge, after running aground while chasing a Tripolitan
cruiser on 31 Oct. 1803, surrendered the Philadelphia and
its crew. The newspaper confirmed the report on 17 March 1804. Thomas Jefferson, in a
20 March letter to Congress, enclosed a copy of Bainbridge’s 1 Nov. 1803 letter to
naval secretary Robert Smith, in which the captain reported the loss of the ship and
the subsequent imprisonment of himself and his crew. During his captivity, Bainbridge
devised a plan to destroy the Philadelphia and sent
encrypted instructions in a letter to Preble. In a night raid on 16 Feb. 1804, a party
led by Lt. Stephen Decatur slipped into the harbor, set fire to the frigate, and
escaped back to the squadron. Bainbridge and his crew eventually were liberated
through the 1805 treaty with Tripoli that included payment of a $60,000 ransom (Jefferson, Papers
, 43:63; United States Office of Naval Records and Library, Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the
Barbary Powers, 6 vols., Washington, D.C., 1939–1944, 3:171–173; Frank Lambert,
The Barbary Wars, N.Y., 2005, p. 139, 140, 142–144,
154).
The House of Representatives took up the Louisiana government
bill on 20 Feb. 1804 and from 14 to 17 March debated several amendments, including
those described by JQA and others on the governor’s salary, prerequisites
for government service, frequency of elections, naturalization, and property claims
made prior to the transfer of the territory. The Senate took up the amended bill again
on 20 March, and JQA joined large majorities in rejecting all of the
House amendments except provisions that extended to Louisiana existing regulations of
Native Americans, authorized the president to remove Native Americans from the eastern
to western shores of the Mississippi River, and appropriated $15,000 for these
purposes. They also proposed limiting the legislation to one year, to which the House
agreed on 21 March. The bill was enacted on 26 March (
Annals of Congress
, 8th Cong.,
1st sess., p. 1038, 1185–1189, 1196–1199, 1206–1208, 1229–1230; U.S. Senate, Jour.
, 8th Cong., 1st sess., p. 384–385, 390–391;
U.S. Statutes at
Large
, 2:289).
Georgetown physician John Weems (ca. 1770–1808), University of
Edinburgh 1792, was the Adamses’ physician (
JQA to LCA, 9 April,
below; Madison, Papers, Secretary of State Series
, 10:127; Harrison Dwight Cavanagh,
Colonial Chesapeake Families: British Origins and
Descendants, 2 vols., [Thorofare, N.J.], 2014, 2:229).