Adams Family Correspondence, volume 10
The Sun is so bright and augurs Such heat that I am doubtful whether I shall go out to Landsdowne to dinner.
I dined Yesterday at Mr Wolcotts the Secretary of The Treasury with King Elsworth Cabot and a few others.1 The Conversation turn’d upon old times. One of the Company expressed such Inveteracy against my old Friend Gerry that I could not help taking up his Vindication. The future Election of a Governor, in Case of an empty Chair, excites a Jealousy which I have long perceived. These Things will always be so. Gerrys Merit is inferiour to that of no Man in the Massachusetts, except the present Governor, according to my Ideas and Judgment of Merit. I wish he was more enlarged however and more correct in his Views. He never was one of the threads tyed into the Essex knot, and was never popular with that Sett.
I Sent you Yesterday four Letters from our sons, which have been approved by all who have read them. Mr Wolcott thinks that the
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Report of Merlin upon Clubbs as quoted in Tommys Letter ought to be published— Charles may get it inserted in a Paper without Names or any Circumstances which can indicate the source from whence it comes. If you know Mr Webster you may let him read those Letters in Confidence.2
My hopes are to be at N. York by Saturday night— But my fears are Stronger that I shall not get away from Philadelphia before Monday. if senate should finish on Wednesday I shall sett out on Thursday. But this will depend on the Will of others.
I am with unfeigned Affection
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A”; endorsed: “June 21 1795.”
Oliver Ellsworth (1745–1807), Princeton 1766, was a lawyer, a member of the Continental Congress from 1778 to 1783, and a U.S. senator for Connecticut from 1789 until 1796, at which time he became the third chief justice of the Supreme Court, serving until 1800 (
Biog. Dir. Cong.
).
TBA’s letter has not been found, but he was undoubtedly writing about the declaration presented to France’s National Convention on 12 April, for which see
AA to JA, 19 June, and note 2, above. It does not appear that CA had TBA’s letter published by Noah Webster, who instead printed a translation of Merlin’s declaration, which had appeared in the Paris press (New York American Minerva, 22 June).
I was fearfull before I left Home of Such a Seige as has taken place. whatever else may be objected to the Treaty, that of a hasty decision cannot and ought not to be of the Number— as people are all alive upon the Subject, there are no doubt many Speaches put into the mouths of particular senators according to their former sentiments & opinions— one day we here of very warm Debates. an other, that there will be no decision, but the Treaty will be deferd to the next meeting of Congress— but What I fancy is more founded on Truth, is what a Gentleman wrote his Friend from Philadelphia “We know no more about the Treaty here, than if the Senate were sitting in Siberia”
I can have nothing to detain me here after you come. I am anxious to return & dread the Heat, both for you & myself—
Col smith has received Letters from his Agent at Halifax. after unlaiding the vessel clear to the bottom in serch of Some brass cannon which they were informd she had, & finding none nor any Naval stores, they reloaded her & sufferd her to sail after detaining her a Month in the buisness
461I was happy in the receipt of the Letters you sent me, and rejoiced that any of mine had at last got Safe to Hand
Boston Chronical goes on in its accustomed stile of abuse— G Knox has got his share—Lord of Maine &c &c1
We are all Well. I have not any intelligence from home I wrote last week that I was in hopes of sitting out on the wedensday of this
adieu yours affectionatly
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Mrs A. June 22 / ansd 25 1795.”
On 16 June a feast honoring Gen. Henry Knox was held in Boston as the former secretary of war paused on his way to his home in Maine. Attended by local merchants, diplomats, and Federalist politicians, the event drew criticism from the Republican press. One satirical “Soliloquy” mocked, “Feast of Gratitude!—I must again inquire, where are the men who claim this exclusive notice? Are they those who revel in affluence, and whose luxury and dissipation have become proverbial? Whose fortune has been encreased a thousand fold. Who have retired from office, in all the splendor of Nabobs—not like Cincinnatus, to ‘till their acres,’ but like Lords of an immense territory” (Boston Independent Chronicle, 18 June).