Papers of John Adams, volume 19
I have received with a great deal of pleasure the account of your safe arrival and joyful reception at Boston. mr̃ Cutting was so kind as to send me a copy of the address of the assembly to you & your answer, which with the other circumstances I have sent to have published in the gazette of Leyden, and in a gazette here.1 it will serve to shew the people of Europe that those of America are content with their servants, and particularly content with you.
The war with the Turks, Russians, & Austrians goes on. a great victory obtained on the black sea over the Turks commanded by the Captain Pacha, by the Russians commanded by Admiral Paul Jones will serve to raise the spirits of the two empires. he burnt six ships, among which was the admiral’s & vice admiral’s, took two, and made between three & four thousand prisoners. the Swedes having hastily armed a fleet of about 16. sail of the line, & marched an army into Finland, the king at the head of it, made us believe they were going to attack the Russians. but when their fleet met with three Russian ships of 100 guns each they saluted & passed them. it is pretty well understood that the expences of this armament are paid by the Turks through the negociations of England. and it would seem as if the king had hired himself to strut only, but not to fight,
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expecting probably that the former would suffice to divert the Russians from sending their fleet round to the Mediterranean. there are some late symptoms which would indicate that Denmark would still be opposed to Sweden though she should shift herself into the opposite scale. the alliance between England, Holland & Prussia is now settled. in the mean time this country is losing all it’s allies one by one, without assuring to herself new ones. Prussia, Holland, Turkey, Sweden are pretty certainly got or getting into the English interest, and the alliance of France with the two empires is not yet secured. I am in hopes her internal affairs will be arranged without blood. none has been shed as yet. the nation presses on sufficiently upon the government to force reformations, without forcing them to draw the sword. if they can keep the opposition always exactly at this point, all will end well. peace or war, they cannot fail now to have the States general, & I think in the course of the following year. they have already obtained the Provincial assemblies as you know, the king has solemnly confessed he cannot lay a new tax without the consent of the States general, and when these assemble they will try to have themselves moulded into a periodical assembly, to form a declaration of rights, and a civil list for the government. the Baron de Breteuil has lately retired from the ministry & been succeeded by M. de Villedeuil. Monsieur de Malesherbes will probably retire.2 the Marquis de la Fayette with several others have lately received a fillup for having assembled to sign a memorial to the king which had been sent up from Brittany. they took from the Marquis a particular command which he was to have exe[rcised] [dur]ing the months of August and September this year in the South of France.3 your friends the Abbés are well and always enquire after you. I shall be happy to hear from you from time to time, to learn state news and state politics, for which I will give you in return those of this quarter of the earth. I hope mr̃s Adams is well; I am sure she is happier in her own country than any other. assure her of my constant friendship and accept assurances of the same from Dear Sir / Your most obedt. / & most humble servt
P.S. make freely any use of me here which may be convenient either for yourself or mr̃s Adams.
P.S. Aug. 6. later accounts inform us there have been two actions between the Russians & Turks. the first was of the gallies F. on both sides. in this P. Jones, being accidentally present, commanded the right wing. the Russians repulsed the Turks. the second action was 332 of the Russian gallies against the Turkish ships of war. the effect was what is stated in the preceding letter. but the command was solely in the prince of Nassau, P. Jones with his fleet of ships of war being absent. Prince Potemkin immediately got under march for Oczakow, to take advantage of the consternation it was thrown into. the Swedes have commenced hostilities against the Russians, & war against them is consequently declared by the empress.4
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “J. Adams esq.”; endorsed: “Mr Jefferson.”; notation by CFA: “August 2. 1788.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed.
See the Mass. General Court’s 18 June letter to JA
, and his reply of the same day, both above. John Brown Cutting copied both addresses in his [ca. 24 July] letter to Jefferson, and Jefferson enclosed copies of the addresses in a 30 July letter to C. W. F. Dumas. Dumas likely arranged for their publication in the 22 Aug. Gazette de Leyde, where the addresses appeared with an account of JA’s Boston homecoming (Jefferson, Papers
, 13:401–403; 436–437).
Louis Auguste Le Tonnelier, Baron de Breteuil, resigned as minister of the royal household in July and was replaced by Pierre Laurent de Villedeuil (1742–1828). Chrétien Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes resigned from the royal council in August (vol. 9:229; Colin Jones, The Longman Companion to the French Revolution, London, 1990, p. 77; Marquis de Bombelles, Journal, 8 vols., Geneva, 1977–2013, 2:131; Julian Swann, Exile, Imprisonment, or Death: The Politics of Disgrace in Bourbon France, 1610–1789, Oxford, 2017, p. 430).
During the summer of 1788, the Marquis de Lafayette signed two petitions from Breton noblemen. The first petition denounced those who served in the new plenary court in lieu of the Rennes parlement; Louis XVI returned the petition unread. The second, more controversial petition denounced the tyranny of the king’s ministers. When a group of Breton noblemen arrived at Versailles to present the petition, Louis XVI refused to see them. On 12 July, at a meeting of sixty Breton noblemen who were in Paris and Versailles, many added their signatures to it. In response, twelve Breton deputies were jailed in the Bastille, and four more, including Lafayette, were deprived of posts. He retained his military rank but lost his command of the army in Languedoc and Roussillon (Gottschalk, Lafayette
, 4:387–391).
In Dec. 1787 Catherine II offered John Paul Jones a commission in the Russian Navy, at the rank of rear admiral. Jones accepted and proceeded to the Black Sea in May 1788, taking command of the flagship Vladimir. A month later, Jones participated in the first and second battles of the Liman, fighting against the Ottoman admiral Cezayirli Ghazi Hasan Pasha. While the Ottoman fleet had more ships, the Russian flotilla was more heavily armed. The first battle of the Liman, 17–18 June, ended with a Russian victory, as did the second battle, 28–29 June, which resulted in the loss of 15 Ottoman vessels and 4,673 casualties; the Russians lost one frigate and suffered 85 casualties. Russian forces then besieged the Ochakov fortress from June to December, when they finally gained control of it.
Jefferson was mistaken, however, about Jones’ role in the second encounter. Although Charles Henri Nicolas Othon, Prince of Nassau-Siegen, claimed credit, Jones was also present and played a considerable role in the battle. In the reports sent to Prince Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin, Jones downplayed his own role, while the prince overstated his part in the victories. On 2 Aug., Jefferson also wrote WSS, congratulating him on his safe return to the United States, giving an account of French political activities, and repeating what he wrote here about Jones (vol. 8:49; Morison, John Paul Jones
, p. 362, 365–366, 369–380, 384; Jefferson, Papers
, 13:458–459).