Adams Family Correspondence, volume 6
1785-06-06
The publick Advertiser—
Yesterday Lord Gerge Gordon had the Honour of a long conference with his Excellency John Adams, (honest John Adams) the Ambassador of America, at the hotel of Mons. de Lynden Envoye extraodinaire de Leurs Hautes Puissances.1
This is true, and I suppose inserted by his Lordship who is as wild and as enthusiastic as when he headed the Mob. His Lordship came here but not finding Mr. Adams at home was determind to see him, and accordingly follow'd him to the Dutch Ministers. The conversation was curious, and pretty much in the Stile of Mrs. Wright2 with whom his Lordship has frequent conferences.
An other paragraph from the same paper—“Amongst the various personages who drew the attention of the drawing-room on Saturday last, Mr. Adams, minister plenipotentiary from the States of America was not the least noticed. From this Gentleman the Eye of Majesty and the Court glanced on Lord—; to whose united Labours this Country stands indebted for the loss of a large territory and a divided and interrupted Commerce.”3
Sanois/Nightingale/journal55/Pilatre/Houserent/Wealth of Lond./Squib.” This was a list of topics that Jefferson discussed in his reply of 21 June, below (Jefferson, Papers
, 8:181). Dft (Adams Papers). Material in the Dft that does not appear in the RC will be noted below.
An almost identical paragraph appears in The Daily Universal Register of 9 June, dating the conference at 8 June. Lord George Gordon first came to prominence when, as a member of Parliament and president of the Protestant Association, he had petitioned the Commons to reimpose certain disabilities recently lifted from Roman Catholics. This led quickly to London's massive “Gordon Riots” of June 1780, which were only quelled by twenty thousand troops. Gordon was imprisoned in the Tower for several months, and tried for high treason in Feb. 1781, but was acquitted. He remained a Protestant hero for several years, and by 1784 was at the center of national and international controversy involving the Dutch and Emperor Joseph II. By 1786 Gordon's polemical targets included the French court. About 1787 he converted to Ju-174daism. In 1788 he was convicted of two counts of libel, one against Marie Antoinette, and was sent to Newgate Prison, where he died in 1793.
DNB
. Dirk Wolter Lynden van Blitterswyck was the Netherland's minister to Great Britain. JA, Diary and Autobiography
, 3:180, note 1.
See AA to Mary Cranch, 6 July 1784, above, under 25 July, and note 46.
Lord North is probably intended here.