Adams Family Correspondence, volume 10
a.Dec
r.2. 1794
I have recd your favour of Nov. 23.— Mr Cooper The Friend of our Diplomatic at the Hague, I hear was very active in the Election of Mr Ames.—1 I wish that both Parties and all Parties may be convinced that Some Qualification of Voters is necessary; but if Negroes & Sailors and Tapsters all unqualified by Law as Oliver Cromwell used to call them are to vote for one why not for another.?
You have by this time the lively Address of the senate and the lively Reply to it— You will soon have the dull Address of the House and the cold Reply to it.
If Fame Says true Clinton cares little for Popularity: for The Miser has made himself immensely rich, and all his Friends and Tools besides.
Mr Cranch is again here— he has Spent one Evening with me and taken one Breakfast.— He is busy with Mr Greenleaf, but in very good health.
The Mania of Magnificence, is as bad as that of Avarice. King Hooper and Coll Lee, were all their Lives in Such a Rivalry as Mrs Morris & Mr Bingham.2 Heaven preserve me from Such a Judgment. Industry, Frugality, Moderation, and Resignation are the only Qualities which can render human Life happy.
To be first is the Charm as you say. But no more than one can be first—are all the rest to be miserable?
Your Annals of Husbandry continue to delight me. Pray have the yards and Styes all filled with Seaweed. There are 2 or 3 Loads of Manure at the sheep barn which ought to be carted up the Hill.— Joys Manure must be sledded in Winter over the Meadows to our Corn field in the old Plain. The Manure made in the Stable and Barn at home, must be carted or sledded up the Hill before Spring.— If Seaweed can be obtained, it is my design to cover the Mowing Ground opposite Eb. Pennimans as well as the Meadow by Cleverlys. I dont wish to lay out more Work than our People can do but I only mention these Things to you that they may be kept in mind.
Brisler will send you Flour as soon as any Vessell Sails for Boston.
Mr Ceracchi has sent here a Present for you—a Medallion in
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Marble of my Head—as grave, as Sad, as anxious as Severe, as the marble is hard, and the work fine. I inclose you his Card3
Adieu
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Decbr 2 1794.”
Samuel Cooper (1759–1809), a Boston lawyer and clerk of the Senate from 1785 to 1795. He later became a special justice of the Suffolk Co. Court of Common Pleas (Frederick Tuckerman, “Thomas Cooper, of Boston, and His Descendants,”
NEHGR,
44:58 [Jan. 1890]).
Robert “King” Hooper and Col. Jeremiah Lee (1721–1775) were prominent and wealthy Marblehead, Mass., merchants as well as brothers-in-law. Both men built spectacular mansions in Marblehead prior to the Revolution. Similarly, the Morrises and Binghams competed to provide lavish entertainments and be the social leaders in 1790s Philadelphia (JA, Legal Papers,
1:193; JA, Papers
, 4:476; Samuel Roads Jr., A Guide to Marblehead, Marblehead, 1887, p. 37–39; John Russell Young, ed., Memorial History of the City of Philadelphia, 2 vols., N.Y., 1898, 2:69).
Giuseppe Ceracchi, an Italian sculptor, arrived in the United States in the early 1790s with hopes of receiving a congressional commission for a major sculpture. To promote his work and flatter authorities, he created terra-cotta busts of numerous American revolutionary leaders. He then converted some of these into either marble busts or medallions, including one of JA. On 25 Nov. 1794 Ceracchi wrote to JA to present him and AA with the medallion (Adams Papers). For a fuller account of Ceracchi and this medallion, which has not been located, see Oliver, Portraits of JA and AA,
p. 211–213.
r2. 1794
Holland, according to our latest Accounts from Europe, may so very possibly have been overrun by the French that it is uncertain where this Letter will find you. As you have a French Tongue in your head, and received a Part of your Education in France, I Should be under no Apprehensions, of your receiving any uncivil Treatment if you were to be wholly among the French, especially as you are a Citizen a Republican and an American. If indeed that Country should be conquered, or if it should become an Ally like Geneva and a new form of Government instituted, all you can do will be to write home and wait for further Orders from The President. I am not however of Opinion that either of these Cases will be reallized.
Your rising Reputation at the Bar, your admired Writings, upon occasional Subjects of great Importance, and your political Influence among the younger Gentlemen of Boston sometimes make me regret your Promotion, and the Loss of your Society to me and to 285 your Mother, are additional Circumstances of a disagreable Nature. On the other side, your Appointment is respectable and you see Europe again at the most interesting Period of its History.
Our Army under Wayne has beat the Indians, and The Militia under Governor Lee,1 have Subdued the Insurgents, a miserable though numerous rabble of Irish & Scotch Emigrants and Redemptioners, chiefly imported Since 1783. The good Members of Congress are generally reelected, and some who were not so good have been left out.
Your Mother and all your Friends are as well as when you left Us. Your Uncle, who was also to you for sometime a Preceptor and instead of a Father, went off Suddenly and left a Widow and Children in Distress. I must assist them as much as I can. They have deserved it by their Kindness to me and mine upon all Occasions.
Charles has passed his Examination with honour and is now a Barrister—or Councillor, and if a premature Marriage should not injure him, in a good Way.
The Duke de Liancourt is arrived here in the Pigou, and as it is reported in a very destitute Condition.2
It is difficult to find opportunities to send you the News papers: but I will seek as many as I can.
Mr Greenleaf is soon to embark and will be able to give you all Information3
With a tender Affection as well as great / Esteem I am, my Dear son / your
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “John Quincy Adams / Minister American at the / Hague”; endorsed by TBA: “The Vice President / 2 December 1795 / 15 May Recd:— / 22 Answd—” Tr (Adams Papers).
That is, Gov. Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee of Virginia.
François Alexandre Frédéric, Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt (1747–1827), was an early supporter of the French Revolution, a member of the States General and Constituent Assembly, and a commander in the French Army. He was dismissed from the army after attempting to prevent the death of Louis XVI and went to England in 1792. He came to the United States in 1794 on the ship Pigou, which arrived in Philadelphia in late November. He journeyed throughout America for several years, eventually publishing in London in 1799 a report of his adventures entitled Travels through the United States of North America, the Country of the Iroquois, and Upper Canada, in the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797 (William Harper Bennett, Catholic Footsteps in Old New York: A Chronicle of Catholicity in the City of New York from 1524 to 1808, N.Y., 1909, p. 415–416; Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 27 Nov. 1794).
James Greenleaf planned to return to Amsterdam to resume his position as U.S. consul there but never actually sailed (Clark, Greenleaf and Law,
p. 90).