Adams Family Correspondence, volume 10
The Travelling I Suppose has retarded the Post of this Week, till to Day, when I received your two Letters of the 4th. and 8th.
I am happy to Day in the Company of our Charles, who arrived at my Invitation from New York as fat as a Squab or Duck. Mr Burr Says he is a Steady Man of Business. He is gone to the Drawing Room and Play.
A Debate in Senate disappointed me of the female Commencement.— Fenno has sent Mr Cranch his Paper from the 1st. of Jan.
Mr Bowdoins Morality is the same with that of the Livingston Family at New York, and of all other Men who have more Ambition than Principle. I have gone through a Life of almost three Score Years, and how few have I found whose Principles could hold against their Passions, whose honour could contend with their Interests, or even whose Pride could Struggle with their Vanity.!
May I never have to reproach myself with faults which I have seen so often with Grief shame & Indignation in others— I know not that ever in my Life I gave a Vote against my Judgment— May I never deprive myself of the Power of saying this to my Wife and to my God in my last hour! I wonder that many of my Votes have not sent me home but here I am after a series of trying Years.—
four and thirty Years, the most of my Thoughts and Anxieties have been for the Public. Twenty Years have been wholly devoted to public Employments— My forces of Mind and Body are nearly Spent— Few Years remain for me, if any, in public Life probably fewer still. If I could leave my Country in greater Security, I should retire with 351 Pleasure. But a great Cloud hangs over it yet. I mean a Cloud of Ignorance, Knavery & Folly.— Whether a torrent can be Stemm’d or not is yet uncertain. My Hopes however are stronger than my fears, and I am determined to be as happy as I can.
My head is not turn’d I hope, though my Paper is.1
Nabby is not yet abed— she is well however— Mrs Otis & her sister are well—and the little Girls too.
Dont say a Word of my coming home: but I hope to keep Thanksgiving with you. it is however uncertain— Perhaps Congress may rise perhaps not.
I must put Brisler & his Wife into our House next Winter, Louisa to board at Mr Cranches I will pay with Pleasure for her—and take you along with me— What say You to this Project?
The greatest difficulty will be to find Lodgings.
May every Blessing and you and yours
Adieu.
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Janry 16. 1795.”
After completing the first page of this letter, JA inadvertently flipped over his paper when opening it to write on the inside. Consequently, the paragraphs beginning “May I never …” and “four and thirty Years …” appear upside down on page 3. JA then concluded the letter, beginning with this sentence, also upside down, but at the top of page 2.
I received yesterday your kind letter of the 9th of the month. The letters to Vergennes were sent to him, not presented. He acknowledged the receipt of them; and Congress acknowledged the receipt of the copies of them, and several others written before those two, upon the same subject, in a vote they passed about Sir John Temple. They say, that although Mr. Adams had thought fit to write a letter to Congress in favour of Sir John Temple, yet he had not confided to his care other despatches of infinitely more importance, which he transmitted to Congress by the same vessel, or words to that effect.1 These despatches were copies of all my correspondence with Vergennes on the subject of the imperial mediation, including the two letters which Mrs. Smith now has.
Delicacy towards Mr. Jay will restrain me from publishing in print, at present, any part of these letters. The reason why I did not go to Paris sooner in 1782, was, that the British court had not sent 352 any one with a commission acknowledging our independence. The peace being of more importance than my treaty of commerce with Holland, I should have gone to Paris and left that treaty unfinished: but as neither Mr. Grenville, Mr. Fitzherbert, nor Mr. Oswald, had yet received a commission to treat with the United States of America by name, and I was determined not to treat without it, as well as Mr. Jay, I had time to finish off my business at the Hague on the 8th of October, 1782, before I set off on my journey to Paris.2
You may show these letters in confidence to Mr. Webster, and to Mr. McCormic, if you think it worth the pains.
By this time, or very soon, I hope to have to congratulate you and Mrs. Smith on the birth of a daughter. My love to her and my young gentlemen.
I am, with great regard, dear sir, / Yours,
Enclosed is a Grub-street production, fit to amuse you for half an hour, when you can find no better employment.3
MS not found. Printed from AA2, Jour. and Corr.,
2:136–138.
Congress acknowledged the receipt of JA’s diplomatic dispatch on 27 Feb. 1782 (
JCC,
22:102). For the discussion surrounding John Temple, see JA, Papers
, 10:418; 11:xiv, 452.
Britain effectively recognized the United States on 21 Sept. 1782 when, at the behest of the American peace commissioners, it issued a commission to Richard Oswald that authorized him to negotiate with the “Thirteen United States of America.” Formal peace negotiations began shortly thereafter with John Jay serving as the principal negotiator owing to the ill health of Benjamin Franklin and JA’s absence in the Netherlands. JA’s negotiations with the Dutch concluded with the signing of the Dutch-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce on 8 Oct., and he departed for Paris nine days later, arriving on 26 Oct. (JA, Papers
, 13:xviii, xxii, 412–413, 483–485; 14:xvi).
Possibly William Cobbett, writing under the pseudonym Peter Porcupine, A Bone to Gnaw, for the Democrats; or, Observations on a Pamphlet, Entitled, “The Political Progress of Britain,” Part I, Phila., 1795, Evans, No. 28431. Offering a satirical condemnation of the Democrats, especially the recent pamphlet by James