Papers of John Adams, volume 20
de Lamoignon de Malesherbes
Mr. Ducher, a French gentleman, whom you did me the Honor to introduce to me formerly by letter, and who is well esteemed in this country, will have the honour to deliver you this.1
The news of the death of my worthy friend Count Sarsefield has afflicted me the more as I have never been able to learn the circumstances of it or of his last sickness, or in what situation he has left his affairs, and especially his Manuscripts. He once told me it was his intention to request the Earl of Harcourt, his friend in England, to publish some of his writings after his death.2
I should esteem it a favour if you would inform Mr. Ducher of any particulars, or indicate to him any person who can give him information which he will be so good as to convey to me. Knowing as we do by experience the distresses and dangers of a revolution, we are very anxious for our friends in France, to whom we wish all success and happiness.
With great and sincere consideration, I have to be, &c.
MS not found. Printed from Alfred Morrison, comp.,
The Collection of Autograph Letters and Historical
Documents, 2 vols., 2d ser., London, 1893–1896, 1:10.
The famed jurist Malesherbes, now acting as the French minister
of state, wrote to JA on 29 Aug. 1782 (Adams Papers) to introduce lawyer Gaspard Joseph
Amand Ducher (1744–1804), of Châteldon. Ducher served as the French vice consul at
Portsmouth, N.H., from 1786 to 1787, and at Wilmington, N.C., from 1787 to 1789. A
copy of Ducher’s Coutumes Generale et Locales de
Bourbonnois, Paris, 1781, is in JA’s library at MB (vol. 9:229; Societe d’Emulation &
des Beaux Arts du Bourbonnais, Bulletin Revue, Moulins,
France, 1899, p. 219, 220; Frederick L. Nussbaum, Commercial
Policy in the French Revolution: A Study of the Career of G. J. A. Ducher,
Washington, D.C., 1923, p. 14, 17, 34–35).
Guy Claude, Comte de Sarsfield, died in Paris on 26 May 1789.
George Simon, 2d Earl of Harcourt (1736–1809), did not proceed with plans to publish
Sarsfield’s papers (vol. 17:411; London Diary, 5 June; London Oracle, 2 June).