Adams Family Correspondence, volume 9
bry5
th1792
I received your kind Letter of decbr and sincerely congratulate you and my Neice upon the Birth of a son, tho I could have wishd it had been a daughter.1 I have had the pleasure of having mrs smith and William on a visit to me for 5 weeks. the col has been part of the time here & Charles spent a fortnight with me. they expect to leave me in a week or ten days. this would be but a small matter to me as I should hope to see them again when I past through N york, but of that I have no prospect. the col has made a very advantageus contract with Some Gentlemen which will carry him abroad and keep him [there?] two years and accordingly he takes his Family with him and [plans?] to sail in the March Packet. this you may be sure is a heavy stroke to me, but I cannot wish them to decline it, as he goes upon a certain sure footing, and a probable great advantage mrs smiths is in circumstances which will make me more anxious for her, but my Family are destined to be scatterd I think.2 I begin to long for the Time when I shall set out for Braintree. I fear it will not be earlier than the last year. my Health for six weeks has not been good. I still Labour under an Intermitting which I apprehend will increase with the warm weather. I am not confind, but am frequently obliged to decline going into company, of which this city is the General Resort during winter, and one continued Scene of 261Parties upon Parties, Balls & entertainments equal to any European city. the Publick amusements tis True are few, no Theatre here this winter an assembly once a fortnight, to which I have not been this season but the more general method for those who have Houses calculated for it, is to give Balls at their own Houses. The Indian War has been a distressing subject. who & who have been in fault is not for me to say. where a commander is to be found fit for the Buisness I believe will puzzel more wise Heads than one. the war is an upopular one. if it is a necessary War as I presume it is, it is to be hoped that measures will be persued to render it more Successfull than it has yet been, but I believe those whose judgments are good, have little expectations that it will be so.
what is become of Betty & her Husband? Cealia is very anxious about her child & very unhappy at the part her Mother has taken. I was glad to lea[rn] that Polly was well & pleasd with her place. we have had [. . .] weather here. the judge & mrs Lowell have been a month here and by them I shall forward this to you.3 mrs Brisler is much better than she was, her disorder proved to be an intermitting fever
Let me hear from you and my Friends as often as you can it will give great pleasure to your / affectionate Sister
RC (MWA:Abigail Adams Letters); addressed by TBA: “Mrs. Mary Cranch / Braintree”; endorsed by Richard Cranch: “Letter from Mrs. / Adams (Pha:) / Feb 5th. 1792.” Some loss of text due to a torn manuscript.
Not found.
AA2 miscarried this pregnancy, apparently sometime en route to England; see AA2 to JA, 7 May; TBA to AA, 17 July; and Elizabeth Smith Shaw to AA, 26 Aug., all below.
Rebecca Russell Tyng Lowell (1746–1816), who had become Judge John Lowell's third wife in 1778 (Vital Records of Charlestown Massachusetts to the Year 1850, 3 vols., Boston, 1984, 1:379, 430; Ferris Greenslet, The Lowells and Their Seven Worlds, Boston, 1946, geneal. table).
Your Letter of the 9th, gave me great Pleasure as it discovers a curiosity that is laudable and contains a very handsome Relation of political Events and Movements in New York of great Importance to that State and very interesting to the United States.1
The Writings which have excited your inquisitive disposition, were of Some importance in their day as they had Some Influence on the public Opinion; but are now forgotten and will probably 262never be again recollected except by you and your Brothers & sister. It is a great Consolation to me that no Party Virulence or personal Reflections ever escaped me, in all the sharp Contests in which I have been engaged.
My first Appearance as a Writer was in the Boston Gazette in 1763 or 1764 under the signature of U in opposition to a Writer in Fleets Paper whose Signature was, J.2 My next Essays were the Essay on the Cannon and Feudal Law in 1765—3 in the Same Year I wrote a few Pieces called Letters from the Earl of Clarendon to William Pym other Letters from Governor Winthrop to Governor Bradford.4 in 1772 I wrote eight Letters to General Brattle on the subject of the Independence of the Judges. This is a Work of some Importance and deserves your Reading.5 in 1774 and 1775 I wrote a long Series of Papers under the Signature of Novanglus, an extract of which was reprinted in England under the Title of History of the Rise and progress of the Dispute with the Colonies.6 in 1776 I wrote at Philadelphia Thoughts on Government in a Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend.7 in Holland in 1780 I wrote the Letters to Calkoen.8 in England in 1777 I wrote the Defence of the Constitutions.9 I had forgot, in Paris in 1780 I wrote a series of Letters which were printed in 1782 in England under the follish absurd Title given it by the Printer of Letters from a distinguished American.10 in Holland in 1782 I wrote a Memorial to the Sovereigns of Europe on the Topick of American Independence11 in 1790 & 1791 I wrote Discourses on Davila.12 in Boston I always wrote in the Boston Gazette. that my Confession may be compleat I must tell you that I wrote a very foolish unmeaning thing in fleets Paper in 1762 or 1763 under the signature of Humphrey Ploughjogger. in this there was neither good nor Evil, yet it excited more merriment than all my other Writings together.13
Thus my son I have told you the whole Secret. You will find no offence against Religion Morals Decency or Delicacy and if your affection for your Father should ever induce you to look them up you will find in the most of them something to gratify your Curiosity tho there are not many of them of very great Importance. The Family are tolerably well. continue to write me the “Clashings of your Grandees.”14 I am with / much affection your Father
RC (MHi:Seymour Coll.); internal address: “Mr Charles Adams.”
On 9 Feb., CA wrote to JA requesting “a list of the various publications of which you have been the author during your political life, The years in which they appeared, and 263the papers in which they were printed. Such a present could you find leisure to make it would be greatly pleasing to me.” The rest of the letter outlined some of the rivalries and in-fighting among New York State politicians (Adams Papers).
JA's letters signed “U” were printed in the Boston Gazette on 18 July, 1, 29 Aug., and 5 Sept. 1763, in part as a response to Jonathan Sewall's letters signed “J” in the Boston Evening Post. For the text of the letters and analysis of JA's reasons for writing them, see JA, Papers
, 1:59, 61, 66–81, 84–90.
For
JA's “Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law,” first published in the Boston Gazette on 12, 19 Aug., 30 Sept., and 21 Oct. 1765, see same, 1:103–128.
The “Earl of Clarendon to William Pym” letters appeared on 13, 20, and 27 Jan. 1766 in the Boston Gazette; see same, 1:155–170. JA's “Governor Winthrop to Governor Bradford” pieces were printed in the Boston Gazette on 26 Jan. and 9, 16 Feb. 1767. For the purpose and history of the pieces—intended as a response to Jonathan Sewall's defense of Gov. Francis Bernard—as well as two unpublished works of the same title, see same, 1:174–176, 191–211.
In Jan. and Feb. 1773, JA published under his own name seven letters to the Boston Gazette opposing the payment of judicial salaries by the Crown rather than the Mass. provincial government. He was countering the arguments of Maj. Gen. William Brattle, who, as moderator of the Cambridge town meeting, had opposed debating judicial salaries on both technical and theoretical grounds. For a thorough discussion of the controversy and the text of JA's essays as well as Brattle's response, see same, 1:252–309.
For JA's Novanglus essays, which argued that the American colonies were not subject to parliamentary authority and appeared in the Boston Gazette between Jan. and April 1775, see same, 2:216–387. Portions of these essays were also published in England under the title “History of the Dispute with America; from Its Origins in 1754, to the Present Time” in John Almon's Remembrancer, or Impartial Repository of Public Events, 2d edn., London, 1775, p. 24–32, 45–54.
JA wrote the pamphlet
Thoughts on Government, Applicable to the Present State of the American Colonies. In a Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend
, Philadelphia, 1776, Evans, No. 14639, while in Philadelphia attending the Continental Congress. For the text of this work, including its earlier incarnation as private letters, and analysis of its influence on American political institutions, see JA, Papers
, 4:65–93.
For JA's 26 letters to the Dutch lawyer Hendrik Calkoen, written in Amsterdam in Oct. 1780 in response to a series of questions from Calkoen, see same, 10:196–252.
An inadvertence on JA's part. He published his
Defence of the Const. in London in 1787 and 1788; see vol. 7:365–366, note 14.
Responding to Joseph Galloway's Cool Thoughts, JA drafted his “Letters from a Distinguished American” in July 1780. JA sent them to his friend Edmund Jenings for publication, but Jenings failed to have them printed until the fall of 1782 when they appeared in the London Parker's General Advertiser and Morning Intelligencer. For a full discussion of the significance of the letters and for their texts in both draft and printed form, see JA, Papers
, 9:531–588.
JA's “Memorial to the Sovereigns of Europe,” originally drafted in letter format but then converted to an essay for publication on the subject of a general peace for Europe and the United States, appeared in a variety of European newspapers in Aug. 1782 as well as in the Boston Evening Post in November; see same, 13:160–164.
This is the first direct reference in the family correspondence to JA's Discourses on Davila: A Series of Papers on Political History. Beginning in fall 1789, JA began to study Enrico Caterino Davila's Historia delle guerre civili di Francia, Venice, 1630, using a French translation, Histoire des guerres civiles de France, Amsterdam [Paris], 1757. Davila (1576–1631), an Italian historian, spent over thirty years preparing the Historia, an account of the French civil war from 1560 to 1598. JA hoped that a close review of the earlier revolutions in France would shed light on the current one. His research once again affirmed for him—as had his previous studies of the Italian republics for the
Defence of the Const.
—the dangers of unicameral governments, especially as embodied in the French National Assembly. He was also offended by the French proposal to abolish all forms of rank and nobility, an attempt at leveling he found absurd. Typical for JA, the Discourses were a compilation of direct translations from the French of Davila's own work and summaries of the same 264intermixed with JA's commentary. JA likewise borrowed heavily from the ideas of Adam Smith in Theory of Moral Sentiments, especially Smith's thoughts on distinction and rank.
Although published anonymously, JA was widely known as the author. These essays did little to ease growing tensions between Federalists and Republicans—who saw them as a defense of hereditary monarchy and in opposition to the popular French Revolution—or to improve JA's reputation outside of Federalist New England. Most notably, Thomas Jefferson took offense, indirectly attacking JA's “political heresies” in a letter of support contained in an American edition of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man. JA later claimed that he cut off the series abruptly because “the rage and fury of the Jacobinical journals . . . intimidated the printer, John Fenno, and convinced me that to proceed would do more hurt than good.”
The Discourses were published as a series of unsigned essays in 32 numbers of the New York (later Philadelphia) Gazette of the United States between 28 April 1790 and 27 April 1791. All but the final number were subsequently reprinted, again anonymously, in a single volume in 1805 by Russell and Cutler of Boston. The 32d essay was not reprinted again until the twentieth century, when it appeared as an appendix in Alfred Iacuzzi, John Adams: Scholar, N.Y., 1952, p. 266–267. JA himself used the 1805 edition to revisit his work in 1813–1814, producing extensive marginalia in the copy in his library at MB. CFA reproduced some of that marginalia in his reprinting of the Discourses in Works, 6:221–403; even more extensive excerpts were published by Zoltán Haraszti in John Adams & The Prophets of Progress, Cambridge, 1952, p. 165–179. Finally, a manuscript draft of 17 of the numbers, as well as an unpublished 33d essay, exist in the Adams Papers, dated and filmed at [April 1790] (
Catalogue of JA's Library
; Haraszti, Prophets
, p. 38–39, 165–179; Iacuzzi, John Adams: Scholar, p. 135–156).
JA first published as Humphrey Ploughjogger—his favorite pseudonym—in Thomas and John Fleet's Boston Evening Post, 3 March 1763. Subsequent pieces appeared on 20 June and 5 Sept., as well as in the Boston Gazette in 1765 and 1767. For all of these items, see JA, Papers
, 1:58–62, 63–66, 90–94, 146–148, 178–182.
For an earlier summary and evaluation by JA of his own writings in which he gives somewhat more detail, see JA to the Abbé de Mably, 17 Jan. 1783, same, 14:181–184.
CA concluded his 9 Feb. 1792 letter to JA by noting that New York “has as many clashing Grandees as Florence or any of the Republics whose histories you have sketched” (Adams Papers).