Adams Family Correspondence, volume 2
1777-11-21
Sometime in September last I wrote to You,1 and am not a little anxious to know whether you receivd my Letter, as it was sent about 369the Time You were removing from Philadelphia; In Your next to me or to Your Bosom Friend dont forget to inform me.
I congratulate You on Our Success to the Northward.—When I saw Burgoines Proclamation I read the Man, when I saw his Orders to Col. Baum I was confident that the Imagination of the Poet would work the Destruction of the Soldier. True it is that Vanity worketh a Lye.
You may be anxious no Doubt to hear of the Event of the Rhode Island Expedition. I wish it were in my Power to give You a satisfactory Accountt of it (that indeed is more than can be expected from those Conductors of it as some are pleased to say). It is said an Enquiry is making or hath already been made, why it prov'd abortive.
From what I can collect, The Failure principally arose from a Want of previous Preparations. When the Troops arrivd, Boats were wanting &c. &c. The Inlistment was but for a Month and by the Time every Thing was in readiness, the Enemy was reinforced and such Works erected by them as might require a regular Siege, which could not be entered upon without an Assurance of the Mens continuing untill the Conquest could be effected in that Way.—A fine set of Men composed the Soldiery, who were Zealous in the Cause and urgent for attempting, untill worried out by Expectations disappointed and by Measures ill conducted.
On 18 Sept.; this letter is printed above.
1777-12-13
Yesterday was as fine for Travell as ever occurred at this season of the Year.—I reached Ipswich, and lodged, at the House where I used to put up, old Mrs. Treadwells.1
This Morning I satt off, in a horrid cold Rain, and after getting wett through all my Coverings, I putt up at our Friend Mr. Tufts's, having no Courage to proceed farther.
Tomorrow Morning, I must proceed. Coll. Doane who was in a stage Coach and his son who was in a close sulky proceeded on, today.2
The fashionable Conversation all along the Journey is that Goods 370are fallen and falling in Consequence of calling in the Money.3—I am—&c.
For a lively sketch of her and her husband, Capt. Nathaniel Treadwell, see JA, Diary and Autobiography
, 2:38.
JA had been engaged by Col. Elisha Doane, a wealthy Cape Cod shipowner, and his son-in-law, Shearjashub Bourne, to defend them in a case about to come before a maritime court sitting in Portsmouth. The case was that of Penhallow and Treadwell v. Brig Lusanna and Cargo. Doane was the owner and Bourne had been supercargo of Lusanna, which had been captured by a New Hampshire privateer under circumstances strongly indicating that she had been trading with the enemy. The case was in the courts for many years because the question of the authority of the Continental Congress, as opposed to that of individual states, was at issue; it was not in fact settled until the United States Supreme Court rendered a final decision in 1795, which was in favor of JA's clients. But JA's connection with it was brief, his argument for the Doanes in Portsmouth in Dec. 1777 being probably his last appearance as a practicing lawyer. See his recollections of the trial as given in his
Diary and Autobiography
, 4:2–3, and the editorial note there. His MS
minutes of the case are in M/JA/6, Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 185, and will presumably be printed in JA, Legal Papers
.
On 13 Oct. the General Court repealed the “regulatory” (or price-fixing) acts that had proved so objectionable and unworkable, and passed an act to draw in the state's badly depreciated bills of credit (Mass., Province Laws
, 5:733–737).