Adams Family Correspondence, volume 10

Charles Adams to John Adams, 13 February 1795 Adams, Charles Adams, John

Charles Adams to John Adams

My Dear Sir New York Feb 13th 1795

I received your favor of the eleventh yesterday. Mrs Smith has quite recovered from her illness and is doing very well

Our electioneering campaign was opened in due form last monday that is to say that The Freeholders of this City were called together to hear who were the men whom Ricd Harrison Robt Troup and Josiah Ogden Hoffman would chuse to have made Govr and Lt Govr of the State.1 The next evening there was another meeting where The Livingstons proposed their officers. The result is that on one side Mr Jay and Mr Van Rensalaer are started and on the other Messrs Yates and Floyd;2 nothing now remains to be done but for 389 each party to endeavour to out lie out villify and out detract the other To crop laurels e’en from the brows of friends to adorn the heads of their respective candidates Mr Yates though Chief Justice of this State is a man of no respectability of character He will sit tipling from morning to night in the dirtiest bar room of a tavern playing backgammon or checkers with the lowest of its inhabitants yet he is a great favorite with many people and will have more votes perhaps than Clinton had at the last election. Mr Floyd I need say nothing of you know him much better than I do. But where is Mr Bur[r?] I am inclined to believe he has some deep […] scheme to outwit them all or that he does not intend to stand his election. The Livingstons hate Burr and he hates them so that there will be no cordiallity between those Champions.

We shall send you as Representative from Washington and Saratoga District one Genl Williams who a few years since was turned out of our State Senate for perjury and peculation but who has been since constantly returned as a Senator and is now elected by a very large majority.3 what a glorious specimen of the virtue of the State of New York!!!

The contemplation upon such elections affords nothing but melancholy reflections. I do not suppose the people will grow more virtuous or have less knaves to deceive them hereafter than they have at present.

With real affection I am your son

Chas Adams

RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “The Vice President of the United States / Philadelphia”; endorsed: “C. Adams. Feb. 13. / 1795.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed.

Richard Harison, Josiah Ogden Hoffman, and Robert Troup were likely members of the Federalist caucus that chose John Jay and Stephen Van Rensselaer as candidates in the New York gubernatorial election of 1795 (Young, Democratic Republicans, p. 433–434).

For Robert Troup, see vol. 9:276. Richard Harison (1747–1829), King’s College 1764, was a lawyer appointed U.S. district attorney in New York in 1789. Josiah Ogden Hoffman (1766–1837), also a lawyer, served in the state legislature from 1791 to 1795 before becoming the state attorney general in Nov. 1795 ( Colonial Collegians ; DAB ; Doc. Hist. Supreme Court , 5:557, 8:193, 194).

Stephen Van Rensselaer (1764–1839), Harvard 1782, was one of New York’s landed elite. A staunch Federalist, he had served in the state assembly in 1789 and 1790 and then the state senate from 1791 to 1795. His opponent, William Floyd (1734–1821), had a long record of political service. A signer of the Declaration of Independence and member of the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776 and again from 1779 until 1783, Floyd had also been a member of the New York senate in 1777, 1778, and from 1784 to 1788. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives between 1789 and 1791. Floyd lost his bid for lieutenant governor in 1795. Van Rensselaer would hold the office until 1801 ( Biog. Dir. Cong. ; DAB ).

The English-born John Williams settled 390 in New York in 1773 and fought with the Americans during the Revolutionary War, rising to the rank of brigadier general. Elected to New York’s first state senate in 1777, he was expelled for embezzling from the militia. He was nonetheless reelected in 1784 and continued to serve in the state senate until 1795 (Young, Democratic Republicans, p. 50, 422).

John Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 13 February 1795 Adams, John Smith, Abigail Adams

John Adams to Abigail Adams Smith

My Dear Daughter: Philadelphia, February 13, 1795.

I heartily congratulate you on your fortunate escape from a dangerous accident. I was so very solicitous for your safety for two or three days, that I had a great mind to go to New-York, to see you: but the next post brought me from your brother the delightful news of your recovery.1

I have great reason to be thankful to a kind Providence, for the preservation of my children, and for many blessings on my family. The arrival of your brothers at the Hague, and Amsterdam, in these dangerous times, is a great comfort to me, and I hope they will avail themselves of the great advantages they have to become valuable men.

Enclosed is another letter to Mr. Jay of the 10th of August, 1782, which I desire you to file with the others.2 They will all together sufficiently decide the question, whether Mr. Jay joined Mr. A. or, Mr. A. Mr. Jay, in the project of refusing to treat till we were acknowledged to be Ministers of a Sovereign Power.

A question of some little importance to personal and family feelings, though of very little to the public. If Mr. Jay, did not receive the first suggestion from me, which I have no doubt was the case, he certainly only conceived by his own reflections the same opinion, and resolution which I had urged and insisted on to the Count de Vergennes above a year before.

My love to Mr. Smith, and my little boys, and little girl, whom I long to see—what is her name?

I am, my dear daughter, / With a tender affection, / Yours,

John Adams.

MS not found. Printed from AA2, Jour. and Corr., 2:139–140; internal address: “To Mrs. Smith.”

CA’s letter to JA of 7 Feb. has not been found.

In this letter, JA declined John Jay’s request, made to JA in a 2 Aug. 1782 letter, that JA come to Paris from the Netherlands. JA’s decision stemmed in part from his desire to complete treaty negotiations with the Dutch before entering into peace negotiations with the British; however, he also believed the United States should be expressly recognized 391 by the British government before negotiations proceeded (JA, Papers , 13:214–216, 227–228).

This was the final letter JA forwarded to AA2 addressing his role in the peace negotiations. For the others, see JA to AA2, 2, 19 Jan. 1795; WSS to JA, 9 Jan.; and JA to WSS, 17 Jan., all above.