Papers of John Adams, volume 19

From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 8 February 1789 Adams, John Rush, Benjamin
To Benjamin Rush
My Dear Friend Braintree Feb. 8 1789

Your obliging favor of the 22d Ult I recd. last night.— I remember so much of the transactions, at the formation of the Pensilvania Constitution, that I wish you could save time enough from almost any other pursuit, to arrange your materials for an History of the Revolution in Pensilvania, to be published hereafter; at present perhaps it might not be prudent. The four respectable characters, who had much influence in the fabrication of your Constitution, Mr. Matlack Mr Cannon Mr Paine & Dr Young, should be analyzed and developed in a manner that would give offence.1 Let me give you the character of one of them, (Young) in a conversation which really passed in 1772 between Timothy Ruggles, & Royal Tyler.

Ruggles. That Tom Young, is a firebrand, an incendiary an eternal fisher in troubled waters. Boston will nev[er] be in peace while that fellow is in it. He is a scourge a pestilence, a judgement.

Tyler. come! come! dont abuse Dr Young; He is a necessary man in the town of Boston. He is in the city, what you are in the House of Reps.: a useful man.

Ruggles. useful for what? Tyler. I was yesterday in a watch makers shop, and look’d over his shoulder while he put a watch together: 379 The springs and wheels, were all clean, and in good order, every one in its place as far as I could see, but the watch would not go: the artist at length with his thu[mb] and forefinger groping in the dust, upon his shop board took up a little dirty pin, scarcely visible to my naked sight blew off the dust and screwed it into a certain part of the wheelwork, the watch then click’d in an instant and went very well.— This little dirty screw are you in the Legislature and Dr Young in the town of Boston. Here was a loud roar of Laughter at Ruggles’s expence; but his wit has seldom failed him as his power of face; with all the gravity of a Judge he replied. Ruggles. Since you are upon clock work, I’l tell you what you resemble, the Pendulum—eternaly vibrating from one side to the other; but I must do you the justice to say I never knew one swing so clear. the answer hit the character so exactly, that the tide of laughter was now turned the contrary way.2

We have had my dear sir, in all the States in the course of the late revolution, two many of these little Pins who have acquired the reputation of great wheels and main springs. How few in any age or country have been equal to it; in America, we should have been very excusable if we had found none; neither our Education our prospects or expectations led us to this frame of thinking. Ages of anarchy and distraction preceeded the formation of such characters as those of Lycurgus and Solon. And long study and laborious travel, with a single view to discover the best forms of government were scarcely sufficient for their purpose. An anxiety for the consequences of the form of government which I found planning for Pensilvania, induced me to throw out those thoughts on Government which were printed I believe by Dunlap in 1776, if you can find one of them you will oblige Me by sending it; I have not seen it these ten years, and have not been able to find one here since my return. I remember that you wrote a series of speculations in the Newspapers about the same time upon the same subject; as I thought them at the time both Spirited and ingenious, I wish to see them again. With the character of Mr Tench Coxe, I have had for some time, an agreeable acquaintance, but knew not that he had employ’d many of his thoughts about me, till I received your letter. I have not seen a Pensylvania paper since my return, nor did I know but from a paragraph or two extracted into the Boston papers that any thing had been written concerning me.

The character you give me of Mr McClay is very agreeable, and the more so because he is your Friend; his real character was little known here.

380

If it should be my destiny to have any share in the new government, you will be very sensible of the delicacy of my situation, and of the necessity of a more accurate discretion, than nature perhaps has afforded me. I shall be very happy in your correspondence, but you will readily agree, that it must be very confidential. If my sensibility, by long and severe exercise, had not been almost exhausted, it would have been deeply affected, at the late descision in this state. After all the manœuvers and intrigues of a certain popular first magistrate, 213 and his faithfull emisaries, there was not one man returned by the people, from all the districts of the commonwealth, as an Elector, whose sentiments were even equivocal; unless it were one in a remote part, whose name I never heard before—and his opinion was only dubious.

I am my Dear Sir, your affectionate Friend

Dft in an unknown hand (Adams Papers); internal address: “Dr Rush.” Some loss of text due to wear at the edge. Filmed at 3 Dec. 1788.

1.

James Cannon, Timothy Matlack, and Dr. Thomas Young led the faction that produced the 1776 Pennsylvania constitution, which was influenced by the political thought of Thomas Paine (vol. 13:498).

2.

JA evidently savored this anecdote of “a very vulgar dialogue between Brigadier Rugles and Counsellor Tyler” (to William Smith Shaw, 16 June 1821, ICN:Herbert R. Strauss Coll.). Lawyer Timothy Ruggles (1711–1795), Harvard 1732, of Hardwick, Mass., served as speaker of the Mass. house of representatives from 1762 to 1764. Ruggles, a loyalist, relocated to Nova Scotia in 1783. Boston merchant Royall Tyler Sr. (1724–1771), Harvard 1743, was a veteran of the Massachusetts governor’s council in the 1760s and an active member of the Sons of Liberty (JA, D&A , 1:85; 2:77, 226–227; Sibley’s Harvard Graduates , 9:208, 221; 11:317; JA, Earliest Diary , p. 22).

3.

At this point there is a notation “21,” perhaps referring to Rush’s 21 Feb. 1789 reply, below.

To John Adams from John Murray, 10 February 1789 Murray, John Adams, John
From John Murray
Glouster Feby. 10— 1789

How grateful, how thankful, this moment I feel— To who, for what? To the infinitely good, the infinitely great, who, having the hearts of all in his hand, hath in the course of his Providence, dis-posed one of the best, one of the greatest of his speies to feel kindly disposed towards his humble thankful servant.

You will, good Sir, (I might had said great, but great you may be, and not good, and then, little as I am, I shall neither be grateful or thankful for your condescending notice) be at a loss to concieve why I thus address you— Alass, Sir, you must submit to a thousand im-pertinent addresses— You are going to asscend an eminance where, when seated, the eyes of multitudes will be fixt upon you, and you 381 will look down upon them, not with contempt, but with pity. I venture to present myself before you, I presume, if not the first, in the very first line. I present myself before you, not only to offer my sincere congratulations on your being called by your lov’d, your grateful Country to fill so important a station, where, acting yourself, you must do good unto all, and be the public Benefactor of the Continent—where, after serving your Country—(not yourself, or, rather, in serving that Country, more effectually serving yourself by indulging your finer feelings) in the first Courts of the Elder world, you will now, have an opportunity of giving being to the first Court in the new world, where honor and honesty will take up their residence, never, I trust, in future to be considered a stranger there.

But what, you will say does all this tend to— first, without any doubt, the gratification of myself— I have alway found pleasure in declaring the Truth. secondly—I embrace this opportunity to gratify my Friend—

I have dear Sir, a Friend in this place, who I really think feels a strong affection for your Humble servant— I, therefore, you will readily conclude feel a strong affection for him— now this Friend hearing me so often dwell with delight on your praises, took it in his head that you had honored me with your friendly attention, and convinced I am his Friend he wished to oblige me by giving me an opportunity of obliging him by soliciting your kind condescending assistance to put him into the place of Naval Officer in this Town.

The friend, then, I have the honor to solicit your favor on the behalf of is one of the first characters in this Town, and tho’ the son of one who was not a Whig (Mr Epes Sargent) yet this Mr. Epes Sargent Junr. has been himself, from the begining a very stanch one, and but for some reasons that you, dear Sir, as a Father, must approve of, would on sundry occasions have consented to gratify the Electors of this Town in representing them in the general Court.1

The place he would wish to occupy is not a very lucrative one, but his business is small, and his Family large— small, however, as the place is, I make no doubt but there will be a plurality of Petitioners anxious to obtain it— as you, dear Sir, will have but one wish—to do good—first for your Country in general, next for the most deserving members of the Community in particular, I venture to incourage hope you will do what in your own wisdom you see fit, to put into the naval Office, the Friend of him, who have the honor to be with very respectful, and sincere regard / Your most obedient, / most devoted, / Humble Servant

John Murray
382

I beg leave to add, that, I am requested by Mrs. Murray to beseech you to allow her to accompany me in sincere gratulations, on the present occasion. she also begs she may be indulged with the favor of presenting, with your humble servant, her most grateful Compliments to your ever Amiable Lady and the lovely Youth she had the pleasure of seeing in your hospitable Mansion—2

RC (Adams Papers).

1.

Murray, minister of the Independent Church of Christ in Gloucester, Mass., and a founder of American Universalism, recommended a member of his congregation, Epes Sargent Jr. (1748–1822), Harvard 1766, a former privateer and the son of loyalist merchant Epes Sargent Sr. (vol. 17:211; Sibley’s Harvard Graduates , 16:422–424). The younger Sargent wrote to JA on 26 Jan. (Adams Papers), soliciting a post as “Naval Officer, or the principal department of the Customs for this Port.” Although JA made no reply, the younger Sargent was appointed revenue collector of Gloucester in 1790, a position he held until 1795.

2.

Gloucester-born author Judith Sargent Stevens (1751–1820) married Murray on 6 Oct. 1788, and they visited the Adamses at Peacefield the following day. JQA found Judith Murray to be “agreeable, though she appears a little tinctured with what the french call le precieux.” After penning essays for the Massachusetts Magazine in the 1790s, she anthologized her writings in a three-volume work, The Gleaner, Boston, 1798, Evans, No. 34162 ( ANB ; JQA, Diary , 2:457; Selected Writings of Judith Sargent Murray, ed. Sharon M. Harris, N.Y., 1995, p. xxi). She first sought JA’s patronage for The Gleaner on 1 Nov. 1796 (Adams Papers).