Adams Family Correspondence, volume 10
I arrived here Yesterday from Philadelphia in my Way to Quincy. My little Flock are now all collected, except the two in Holland and all in good health excepting Johnny Smith who has the Ague severely.
The Senate after a Session of 19 or 20 Days compleated their deliberations on the Treaty. The Result is Advice to ratify it except one Article or rather to ratify it all provided a new Agreement is made to suspend one Article. To consent to limit surplues in the Export of our own Productions as Cotton for Example, in short to restrain ourselves from exporting what We please is humiliating, and a mean surrender of a part of our Independence which our senators could not Submit to, no not for an hour. No Part of the Treaty is to be copied till after the Ratification of it, and Exchange of Ratifications.1
I recd last Week your Letter No. 7. and you cannot conceive the Pleasure it gave me. I have shewn it to several Gentlemen, who all expressed their great Satisfaction in the Penetration and discretion of it as well as in the style. The President and his Ministers of state expressed to me their entire Approbation of your Conduct and Correspondence. Mr Jay is to take the Rains of Government in N. York on Wednesday and the 4th of July is to be celebrated with great solemnity. We are kindly invited but my Affairs at home require my immediate Attention.
Your Brother Charles has taken a Second Clerk a son of Mr Henry Cruger formerly Member of Parliament for Bristol.2 Charles’s Reputation is rising and his Business increasing as fast as can be reasonably expected and I hope he will succeed very well— Go on, my Dear sons in the Paths of Honour Virtue and Industry and I pray Heaven to make you all Blessings to your Friends and your Country.
It grieves me that I have not written you oftener but your Father is allmost three score years of Age and has gone through Scænes which have almost worn him out. Your Letters by Captn Boadge have been all received and have done you great honour—so have Thommys.3 We sett out this afternoon for Quincy where I shall remain till the middle of November.
I am, my Dear son, with great satisfaction and / the tenderest affection your Father
My kind Compliments to all my old Friends
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mr Adams.” Tr (Adams Papers).
At the start of the session on 8 June, the president leveled an order of secrecy on the Senate. Several motions to rescind the order were made throughout the two-week session, with an amended motion passing just before the Senate adjourned on 26 June. The adopted resolution removed the original gag order but “enjoined upon the Senators not to authorize or allow any copy of the said communication.” Sen. Stevens Thomson Mason of Virginia, however, ignored the resolution and allowed his copy of the treaty to be reprinted as a pamphlet by Benjamin Franklin Bache on 1 July (
Annals of Congress,
3d Cong., special sess., p. 855, 856, 858, 867–868; Stewart, Opposition Press,
p. 198; Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, between His Britannick Majesty, and the United States of America, Phila., 1795, Evans, No. 29743).
Henry Cruger Sr., for whom see JA, Papers
, 2:256, had returned to his native New York after a number of years in England and was elected to the state senate in 1792. John, Cruger’s youngest son by his second wife, Caroline Elizabeth Blair Cruger, clerked for CA (Edward F. De Lancey, “Original Family Records, Cruger,”
NYGBR,
6:77–78 [April 1875]; JA, D&A
, 3:234).
On 17 June 1795 Capt. John Boadge of Portsmouth, N.H., arrived in New York aboard the brig Minerva after a journey of 46 days from Amsterdam (New York Argus, 18 June; New York Daily Advertiser, 20 June). For the letters he likely carried, see
JA to AA, 20 June 1795, and note 1, above.
I last Week at Philadelphia recd your kind Letter of April by Captn Boadge, and it has been a delicious Morcell to me and to several other of your Friends.
As you are in the best Country of Europe for the study of the civil Law, I hope you will embrace the Opportunity of making yourself acquainted with all the best Writers on that divine Science, as my Master Gridley used to call it.
The French I presume begins to be familiar to you and the Dutch I hope is not wholly neglected. You have many Friends who enquire after you, and who read your Letters with Eagerness and Delight.
We begin to flatter Ourselves with hopes of a general Pacification in Europe: and are all heartily weary of the Noise of war.
Your Mamma will write you every Thing concerning the Ladies and particularly the Marriages of Miss Morris Miss Anthony &c.
You will do well to form some Connections with Gentlemen of Letters as well as Persons in Trade with whom you may correspond hereafter through Life upon subjects of Science as well as Business to your Profit as well as other Advantages.
We expect a great deal of Jacobinical Insolence in the News papers about the Treaty: but no great Impression will be made upon 468 the People. There is a great Change of sentiment in America Since you left it in favour of Peace and order. You very early took a decided aversion to disorderly Clubbs and your opinion is now general in this Country as it seems to be in Europe.
My farm begins to shine. a rainy season makes it appear to more Advantage than it has done, in Years past.
Let me know your Views and Prospects from time to time—and whether you intend to return as you proposed at the End of two years.
If you should go to England Go out to see Paines Hill and Osterly House— Stow Hagley The Lessows &c are too far off—But the Gentlemens Seats in England are the greatest Curiosities in it.—
Speculation in Lands goes on rapidly in this Country— other Speculations run now chiefly into foreign Commerce. I am my Dear / Child with a tender Affection your / Father
RC (NAlI:Presidential Autograph Coll., CP547); internal address: “Thomas Boylston Adams Esqr”; endorsed: “The Vice President of the U, S / 29 June 95 / 8 Septr. Recd / 14 Decr. Answd.”