Adams Family Correspondence, volume 10
This Morning I received your favour of the 21st. of January. I am Sure your People do a great deal of Work, So dont be concern’d— I am very well Satisfied with your Agricultural Diary.
The venerable Governor made the best Speech he ever made—but the old Leaven ferments a little in it.—
I wonder you had not recd two Letters from Thomas which I inclosed to you. I now inclose you one from Mr Jay, which shews that our sons were arrived in Holland and had passed through their Ceremonies at the Hague and gone to Amsterdam, to look as I Suppose after the imprudent Van staphorst, and American Money in his Hands.1
The inclosed Postscript to Dunlap will shew you, that the Expectation of a Treaty, hourly to arrive, will not allow me to leave my Chair till the fourth of March—2 I shall be charged with deserting the President, forsaking the secretary of State, betraying my friend Jay, abandoning my Post and Sacrificing my Country to a weak Attachment to a Woman and a weaker fondness for my farm, if I quit at this moment. so be thou thankful alone, that thou hast a good Husband here, that thy Children are safe and in Honour in Europe, and that thy Daughter has given thee a fine Granddaughter; besides innumerable Blessings to thy Country. I will be thankful and joyous here all alone.—
We momently expect the Treaty: but it may not arrive this month.— When it does I expect to see wry faces as well as smiling ones.— Perhaps much Debate may take Place— Let Us know what it is first however before We oppose, or criticise or applaud or approve.
Your son John says it is better than War—that is all I know about it.—
tenderly Adieu
Keep all the Letters relating to our Sons.
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Febry 2. 1795.”
John Jay, in a letter of 24 Nov. 1794 (Adams Papers), informed JA that he had received two letters from JQA, of 14 and 21 Nov. (Windsor Castle, Royal Archives:Autographs from Correspondence of Chief Justice Jay, 1776–1794; NNC:John Jay Papers).
JA’s critical opinion of Nicolaas van Staphorst likely stemmed from the banker’s recent flight from Amsterdam to Hamburg. A member of the Dutch republican movement, Van Staphorst in Oct. 1794 publicly petitioned for revolution should either the English, retreating from Belgium, be welcomed in the city or action be taken against the encroaching French forces. He escaped prosecution by temporarily fleeing to Hamburg, thereby leaving the banking firm in the hands of remaining partner Nicolaas Hubbard. Van Staphorst would shortly return, however, to assume a prominent place in the government established after the French invasion (Winter, Amer. Finance and Dutch Investment,
1:526–527; Schama, Patriots and Liberators,
p. 176–177, 179, 190). For TBA’s account of these events, see M/TBA/2, 16 Nov., APM Reel 282. Reports of Van Staphorst’s petition first appeared in the Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser, 7 Jan. 1795.
In his letter to JQA of 11 Feb., below, JA expressed concern about the impact of Van Staphorst’s actions on American credit. In his answering
letter of 4 May, JQA assured JA that “the political sufferings of Messrs: Van Staphorst had no more effect to the detriment of our credit than their present power has in its favour. It did not indeed affect their personal credit or property. Mr: Nicholas Van Staphorst, who on my arrival here had privately withdrawn from the pursuit of the then Government, is now a member of the States-General, and employed in some of the most important executive Committees. He is one of the most respectable men, engaged in the public affairs at present” (Adams Papers).
On 2 Feb. the Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser published a two-page supplement summarizing the London newspapers through 3 Dec. 1794, which had arrived
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aboard the brig Columbia. Two of the extracts confirmed the successful conclusion to Jay’s treaty negotiations with the British, with one further noting that the messenger Jay had dispatched to deliver the news to America had sailed prior to the Columbia.
A Letter from Mr Jay of the 24. of November informs me, that he had recd two Letters from your Brother in Holland, one of the 14th. and another of the 20th. the first at the Hague the last at Amsterdam, which inform’d him that your Brother had been presented to their High Mightinesses, and recd and acknowledged by them, and that he had Afterwards had an Audience of the statholder. so that he had gone through his Ceremonies at the Hague and proceeded to Amsterdam upon Business. Inform your Brother and Sister smith of this: and I congratulate you all upon it. It is a Satisfaction to know that they had escaped all Danges of Seas and of Ennemies or Friends in their Passage, and that the Hague and Amsterdam were neither under Water, nor Obstructed in their Communication with each other.
We are in anxious Expectation of the Treaty with England. I cannot now think of leaving this Place till the Treaty is dispatched or Congress rises.
Mr Wolcott is nominated to Day in Place of Col Hamilton. Mr Jay I think will be at home in Season to be what you please to make him in New York.
Letters from your Brother are much to be desired for his Account of the state of Things will be well weighed, and very entertaining. I waited on the President to Day to communicate my little Letter, to him, to whom Mr Jay had written the Week before Dispatches which have not yet arrived at the Office.1
I am afraid I shall not find time to write you my remarks on The Lecture. It is an elegant Thing and the Course will be well worth your Attention.2 I am Dr sir / yours affectionately
RC (MHi:Seymour Coll.); internal address: “Charles Adams Esqr.”
On 19 Nov. 1794 John Jay informed the president that negotiations had concluded and the treaty was signed earlier the same day (NNC:John Jay Papers). The diplomatic dispatches containing the treaty were finally received in Philadelphia on 7 March 1795 (
Annals of Congress,
4th Cong., special sess., p. 855).
For James Kent’s Introductory Lecture, see
JA’s first letter to CA, 14 Feb., and note 1, below.