Papers of John Adams, volume 20

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Descriptive List of Illustrations

1. “ADIEU BASTILLE,” 1789	111[unavailable]
“The king is now perfectly sincere in his surrender at discretion to the states general and will do whatsoever they desire him,” John Brown Cutting wrote to John Adams on 24 July 1789, shortly after the fall of Paris’ Bastille prison (below). Deserted by his supporters in the clergy, nobility, and army, King Louis XVI of France accepted the National Assembly’s goal of creating a constitutional monarchy. Correspondents like Cutting and the Bordeaux-based merchant John Bondfield kept Adams informed of the opening stages of the French Revolution. The author of the Discourses on Davila was intrigued to see what form the French government might take, given the chance of reinvention. Writing to Bondfield on 16 September, Adams asked: “In what will be the fermentations in France and the rest of Europe end? Will the spirit and the system of constitutional liberty prevail or will confusion preceed despotism?” (below).
This 1789 caricature by an unknown artist depicts the end of the ancien régime and the birth of a constitutional monarchy dominated by the third estate. The figures of a peasant, a cleric, and a nobleman represent the three estates. A towering peasant wears a tricolor cockade and acts as puppet master. A lion symbolizing the French monarchy crouches at his feet, docile in chains. Meanwhile, a cleric and a nobleman spar on the side as the peasant pulls their strings. In the background, workers dismantle the Bastille (Bosher, French Rev. , p. 147–148; William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution, Oxford, 1989, p. 107, 110–111; Ernest F. Henderson, Symbol and Satire in the French Revolution, N.Y., 1912, p. 44).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
2. CATALOG OF BOOKS IN JOHN ADAMS’ LIBRARY, JUNE 1790	187[unavailable]
When he moved from Braintree to New York City in spring 1789, Vice President John Adams asked his wife, Abigail, to gather a selection of his books, mainly works by classical authors and political theorists touching on constitutionalism. As he drafted his Discourses on Davila that fall, Adams’ mind often turned back to his bookshelf. He tasked Mary Palmer, a longtime family friend, with cleaning and arranging the volumes held at Peacefield. William Cranch, the xii Adamses’ nephew and Palmer’s cousin, aided by compiling a full inventory, of which the first page is shown here.
Written entirely in Cranch’s hand, this is the earliest and most comprehensive catalog of John Adams’ library found in the Adams Papers. Dated June 1790 by his grandson Charles Francis Adams, it is a bound book measuring 7 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches with a dark brown cover. Cranch used 48 of the pages and left four blank. He inscribed “Books at Braintree” on the front cover, and on the back cover he wrote “Catalogue of Books. 1790.” He divided Adams’ library into several discrete categories of law, religion, history, natural philosophy, poetry, classical literature, and reference works. Cranch recorded the author, title, number of volumes, and, occasionally, the date of publication. Adams’ law books were plentiful at 138 volumes, exceeded only by historical topics at 245. Adams owned diverse works written in English, French, Latin, Greek, Italian, and Dutch. Cranch listed 873 titles in all, but by counting each volume separately, he claimed a sum total of 1,674 volumes. Cranch’s final count should have totaled 2,248 volumes because he neglected to count numerous titles and a few were recorded twice. The bulk of these books are extant in Adams’ library at MB (from Palmer, 25 Nov. 1789, below; AFC , 8:358; Catalogue of JA’s Library ).
Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
3. “A SOUTH-WEST VIEW OF NEWPORT,” BY SAMUEL KING, 1795	219[unavailable]
As 1789 drew to a close, Rhode Island remained the only state yet to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Politically divided between commercial and agricultural interests, the state legislature at first refused to call a convention. After several months of heated debate, lawmakers relented under the threat of the federal Collection Act, which would have required the state to pay high foreign tonnage duties after 15 January 1790. Delegates met in March and agreed to a bill of rights and suggested amendments before adjourning. They reconvened and ratified the Constitution on 29 May, finally entering the union.
Leading Federalists such as Jabez Bowen, John Brown, and Henry Marchant kept John Adams informed of the unfolding process. Repeatedly, they sought his influence to secure congressional intervention and petitioned for a renewed exemption from the costly duties. Intent on strengthening the fragile union, Adams viewed Rhode Island’s outlier status thus: “There can be no medium. Enemies they must be, or fellow citizens, and that in a very short time” (to Brown, 15 Sept. 1789, below).
Newport artist Samuel King (1749–1819) drew this seascape in 1795, capturing the importance of maritime trade to Rhode Island’s economy. It was engraved by Enfield, Conn., printer Luther Allen (1780–1821) and featured prominent landmarks, including Trinity Church in the center and, in the distance, the State House, where citizens deliberated ratification (from Marchant, 29 Aug. 1789, and note 4; from Bowen, 9 March 1790, both below; vol. 19:404–406; Oxford Art Online; Clarence S. Brigham, “Librarian’s Report for the Year 1907,” Proceedings of the Rhode Island Historical Society, 29:35 xiii [1910]; Mantle Fielding, American Engravers upon Copper and Steel, Phila., 1917, p. 4; Doc. Hist. Ratif. Const. , 26:711, 984).
Courtesy of the Rhode Island Historical Society.
4. “BENJAMIN FRANKLIN DRAWING ELECTRICITY FROM THE SKY,” BY BENJAMIN WEST, CA. 1816	307[unavailable]
Benjamin Franklin’s death on 17 April 1790 sank the world into mourning and inspired John Adams to organize his reflections on his former colleague and onetime rival. As he confided to Benjamin Rush on 4 April: “The History of our Revolution will be one continued Lye from one End to the other. The Essence of the whole will be that Dr Franklins electrical Rod, Smote the Earth and out Sprung General Washington. That Franklin electrifed him with his Rod—and thence forward these two conducted all the Policy Negotiations Legislation and War.” Perhaps recalling Franklin’s ingenuity, Adams tried a creative experiment of his own, dashing off his whimsical “Dialogues of the Dead” essay on [ca. 22 April] (both below).
Adams’ recollection of the Boston-born scientist and diplomat resonates with this oil painting by the British artist Benjamin West (1738–1820). Franklin is shown conducting his 1752 kite and key experiment, aided by cherubim who harness the electricity and collect the particles in a glass Leyden jar. West’s white-haired Franklin resembles the same figure in his unfinished work “The Signing of the Anglo-American Preliminary Peace Treaty, 30 November 1782,” though Franklin performed the experiment decades earlier, for which see vol. 14:x, 104 (Franklin, Papers , 4:360; I. Bernard Cohen, Science and the Founding Fathers, N.Y., 1995, p. 143; Helmut von Erffa and Allen Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West, New Haven, 1986, p. 506).
Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
5. “A NEW INVENTED MACHINE, FOR SPINNING OF WOOL OR COTTON,” BY CHRISTOPHER TULLY, 1775	349[unavailable]
Inventors assailed John Adams with queries for patents in the months before and after Congress’ passage of the Patent Act on 10 April 1790. The vice president found the task beyond his prescribed powers under the Constitution, writing to Gen. Benjamin Lincoln on 19 May: “One is harrassed through life with an hundred of these dreamers who will never take no! for an answer.” Among the array of inventors was manufacturer Joseph Hague, of Derbyshire, England, who relocated to Philadelphia in 1774 and received £15 from the Pennsylvania legislature for building a spinning jenny. Hague split the prize with Christopher Tully, another inventor who put forth an identical design. Hague modeled his machine after an English version; he wrote to Adams on 13 May 1790 that he was entitled to hold the American patent (both below).
This engraving of Tully’s machine appeared in the April 1775 issue of The Pennsylvania Magazine with a guide to how it worked. The operator fed cotton or wool through the wooden spindles in the xiv lower frame, and then through the slide and across to the steel spindles of the upper frame. Bands connected the steel spindles to a cylinder and then to a rotating wheel, in order to spin the thread. Tully’s machine was six feet long and three feet high, with 24 spindles (The Pennsylvania Magazine; or, American Monthly Museum, 1:157–158 [April 1775]; David J. Jeremy, “British Textile Technology Transmission to the United States: The Philadelphia Region Experience, 1770–1820,” Business History Review, 47:28, 32 [Spring 1973]).
Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
6. “A CHART OF THE INTERIOR PART OF NORTH AMERICA,” DETAIL, 1790	373[unavailable]
Tensions flared between Great Britain and Spain from April to November 1790 as they clashed over the Spanish seizure of British ships in Canada’s Nootka Sound, a lucrative spot for the fur trade as well as a link to the fabled Northwest Passage. The Nootka Sound conflict became the first major test of the U.S. foreign policy of neutrality. At the center of the Anglo-Spanish dispute over trade rights was former British naval officer and entrepreneur John Meares. Operating variously under a British or a Portuguese flag, he established a trading post at Nootka Sound in 1788, disregarding a 1493 papal bull that recognized Spain’s discovery and awarded the land to Spain. In the spring of 1789 Spanish Navy commodore Don Esteban José Martinez seized four of Meares’ ships and arrested the crews, thereby reasserting the Spanish claim. Intent on compensation, Meares appealed to the British foreign ministry, triggering a series of tense negotiations that ended with both nations gaining access to the region.
Meares also wrote and circulated an account of his career in the burgeoning China trade, Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789, from China to the North West Coast of America, London, 1790. This map appeared in the book, with a preface documenting his search for the Northwest Passage. Meares instructed traders to sail from Hudson Bay to the Pacific Ocean. Nootka Sound is located in the lower right-hand quadrant of the map detail shown here (from John Brown Cutting, 3 June, and note 1; DNB ; John Meares, Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789, London, 1790, p. xli).
Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
7. GEORGE WASHINGTON, BY JOHN TRUMBULL, 1790	397[unavailable]
New York mayor Richard Varick notified John Adams on 21 July 1790 that the city council “applied to the President of the United States to permit Col. John Trumbull take his Portrait” for display in Federal Hall. Adams and the Senate readily agreed to the plan the next day (both below). George Washington sat for his former aide de camp for this portrait, which pays tribute to his wartime leadership. The New-York Journal & Patriotic Register, 21 September, announced Trumbull’s completion of the painting and set a value of one hundred guineas.
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Measuring seven feet high, this presidential portrait graced the room where the first Congress met, which Trumbull called “the most elegant Room in America & in a very perfect light.” As Washington reposes in victory, New York streets lie in ruins and British military forces evacuate the city by land and by sea (Washington, Papers, Presidential Series , 6:102–103).
Courtesy of Collection of the Public Design Commission of the City of New York. Photograph by Glenn Castellano.
8. “ROBERT MORRIS MOVING THE CAPITOL,” CA. 1790	415[unavailable]
In July 1790 all New York congressmen voted against the residence bill, which relocated the federal capital to Philadelphia while a permanent seat of government was built on the Potomac. While John Adams anticipated relocating to a familiar city, many New Yorkers did not welcome the move, as it would damage their business profits and political influence. During the debates, New Yorkers identified Pennsylvania senator Robert Morris as their main adversary. He stood to benefit personally and professionally if the capital moved to Philadelphia. Morris was willing to settle for a short-term placement—likely hoping that after a few years, Congress might find it difficult to move again. Ultimately, Morris led the delegation that bargained with Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison to pass the Residence Act on 16 July.
During the debates, however, Morris suffered badly in the press, writing to his wife, Mary White Morris, on 2 July: “The Yorkers . . . lay all the blame of this measure on me, and abuse me most unmercifully, both in the Public Prints, private conversations, and even in the streets.” This hand-colored cartoon, drawn by an unknown artist and measuring roughly eight by ten inches, was printed in New York. It depicts a giant Morris following the devil to Congress’ new home. Morris carries Federal Hall on his shoulder and says: “Never fear I and my Black Friend will carry you safe to Philada.” Gesturing at a prostitute, the devil replies: “Come along Bobby here’s the Girls.” Showing the spectrum of public attitudes toward the move, another man stands on a rooftop shouting “Huzza for Philad:” while a disapproving onlooker laments the “D——d dirty Work” (First Congress, Second Session, 4 Jan. – 12 Aug. 1790, Editorial Note; to Samuel Adams, 12 Sept., both below; AFC , 9:xi–xii; Elizabeth M. Nuxoll, “The Financier as Senator: Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, 1789–1795,” in Kenneth R. Bowling and Donald R. Kennon, eds., Neither Separate Nor Equal: Congress in the 1790s, Athens, Ohio, 2000, p. 105; Annals of Congress , 1st Cong., 2d sess., p. 1040, 1737; Jefferson, Papers , 17:xxxiv–xxxv).
Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.
9. HANNAH ADAMS, BY CHESTER HARDING, CA. 1827	479[unavailable]
Amid the many requests for political and cultural patronage that John Adams received, a short note from a distant cousin stood out. “I request your acceptance of the inclosed dedication to my View of Religions,” historian and scholar Hannah Adams wrote on 21 xvi February 1791. “Your permission to adorn my book by prefixing your name will do me the greatest honour” (below). He replied on 10 March, ordering three copies. He requested, however, that she omit “all Titles literary or political . . . and that the Address may be only to John Adams Vice-President of the United States of America” (JA, Works , 9:574).
Hannah’s father, Thomas (1725–1812), of Medfield, Mass., sold books and hosted boarders studying for entrance to Harvard College. Drawing on her access to literature and armed with Latin and Greek, Hannah became a noted historian of religion. She researched and wrote several works on Christianity, Judaism, and the history of New England. A copy of the 1801 Boston edition of her View of Religions, in Two Parts, is in John Adams’ library at MB.
Boston artist Chester Harding (1792–1866), known for his oil portraits of prominent political leaders, painted the only known image of Hannah Adams. Toiling in her study, the muslin-capped author is shown seated within easy reach of her Bible, looking up from her deep reading to reflect. The Boston Athenæum exhibited this portrait in its first gallery show shortly after Harding completed it in 1827 ( AFC , 9:240, 13:119; Catalogue of JA’s Library; CFA, Diary , 3:411; Katherine Wolff, Culture Club: The Curious History of the Boston Athenaeum, Amherst, Mass., 2009, p. 63, 66, 68, 176).
Courtesy of the Boston Athenæum.