Adams Family Correspondence, volume 11
r31. 1795
Yesterday I received your kind and pleasing Letter of the 26, and am happy to hear of your and your Ladies health. I dont approve of your calling her Sally unless to herself in a Family Way. To other People especially in Writing you must call her Mrs Adams. Your Nephews and Neice I hope will have the Meazles favourably. it is a good age and a good Season: so that I think the family may be congratulated on the Event.
Alass poor Randolph! But what are We to think of the Symptoms of a Corruption which appear in various shapes in this infant Country? I hope it will not appear that any Member of either house listened to the vile proposals of the two Wretches from Detroit.1 But the Attempt itself is disgraceful to our Country.
116Your quotation from shakespear is well applied and is most admirable. There is another Passage which I wish you would look for and write me in what Play it is. to this Effect
The People, are as I believe always grateful, when they are not deceived. But they are ignorant and credulous & easily imposed on. in times of Wealth and Prosperity they are easily altered and corrupted. Juvenal in his tenth Satyr ver. 78 describes the Roman People, who in the days of the Republic granted the Consulships, & the Command of Armies, as reduced to such Indolence Effemincy and folly as to think only of Bread and the Games of the Circus.
Cakes and Sports, to a People humiliated in their own Esteem, by Corruption, are, as to Children, all they Wish and all they want.
Mr Josiah Quincy brought me your Letter and was much pleased with your situation and Civilities to him. This young Man is eloquent—his Father was eloquent: his Grand father was eloquent and his Great Grand father was eloquent. Here is eloquence in 4 successive Generations. Who can Say that Eloquence does not descend in Families.4
Write me as often as possible. I am your / Father
RC (MHi:Seymour Coll.); internal address: “Charles Adams Esqr.”
Two land speculators, Robert Randall of Philadelphia and Charles Whitney of Vermont, had developed a scheme to purchase land in the Northwest Territory amounting to what is now the lower peninsula of Michigan. To smooth the way for congressional acceptance of the purchase, Randall and Whitney attempted to bribe several members of Congress with promises of shares in the land-holding company which could be redeemed for either land or money. The congressmen refused to go along with the scheme, and beginning on 28 Dec., Congress took up debate on the matter. On 4 Jan. 1796 the two men were formally arraigned by the House of Representatives; Randall was found guilty and fined, but Whitney was acquitted based on the fact that the person he attempted to bribe, Daniel Buck of Vermont, was not yet a congressman at the time of the offense (Charles Moore, History of Michigan, 4 vols., Chicago, 1915, 1:262–263; Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the United States, in the Case of Robert Randall and Charles Whitney, Phila., 1796, Evans, No. 31364).
“O momentary grace of mortal men, / Which we more hunt for than the grace of
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God! / Who builds his hope in air of your good looks / Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast, / Ready with every nod to tumble down / Into the fatal bowels of the deep” (Shakespeare, King Richard III, Act III, scene iv, lines 95–100).
“For that sovereign people that once gave away military command, consulships, legions, and every thing, now bridles its desires, and limits its anxious longings to two things only,—bread, and the games of the circus!” (Juvenal, Satires, Satire X, lines 78–81).
That is, Josiah Quincy III (1772–1864, “the President”), son of Josiah Quincy II (1744–1775, “the Patriot”), grandson of Josiah Quincy I (1710–1784, “the Colonel”), and great grandson of Edmund Quincy (1681–1738, “the Judge”).
On 14 Jan. CA replied to this letter with a short note commenting on the changing politics in New York State and indicating that he had recently received letters from JQA and TBA. CA also supplied the remainder of the Shakespeare quotation about which JA had inquired, for which see note 2, above (Adams Papers).
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I have several letters from your mother, who, I thank God, appears to be in good health.
Mr. Josiah Quincy is now in this town, and is bound to Savannah in Georgia; whether after the example of his father as a mere traveller to acquire information, or whether with some share of the spirit of his grandfather in pursuit of speculation, I know not. This young man is a rare instance of hereditary eloquence and ingenuity in the fourth generation. He comes into life with every advantage of family, fortune, and education, and I wish him all the success which such auguries naturally present to him in prospect. I yesterday, in the presence of half a dozen Senators, laughingly advised him to go to the President and Mrs. Washington, and ask their leave to make his addresses to Nelly Custis, or her sister, at Georgetown, in the course of his journey. The young gentleman blushed, and he may have left his heart in Boston; but I think him the first match in the United States.1
I hope with you, that good sense will prevail over prejudice. But I despair of much tranquillity in this country, till France shall have established a good government. And although by the adoption of three branches they have made a great improvement on their former inanimate conceptions, yet they will find that their plural executive will be a fruitful source of division, faction, and civil war. In a few weeks the five directors will be divided into two parties, three against two. The three will be for decisive and vigorous measures, the two for wavering and feeble ones, under the names of moderation, republicanism, and liberty. The two will strengthen themselves 118 by connections with numbers in the Council of Ancients, that of 500, and in the city, and among the people at large, till the two become more powerful than the three. The latter will be the victims. The essential emulation in the human heart will never permit the five to be long unanimous. Such is the lot of humanity.
Their elective judiciary, too, will be found an instrument of party, instead of a sanctuary of justice.2
Your brother was empowered to go to England; but if not arrived by a certain day, the business was to be done by Mr. Dean. The despatches did not arrive in season, so that I suppose he will not go over.
I expected the pleasure of seeing Col. Smith at Christmas. My love to him, and to my grandchildren all. I am your / Affectionate father,
MS not found. Printed from AA2, Jour. and Corr., 2:142–144; internal address: “To Mrs. Smith.”
Josiah Quincy III likely never went to Georgia, as he was still in Philadelphia later in the month and had returned to Boston by mid-February; see
JA to AA, 26 Jan., and
AA to JA, 22 Feb., both below. His sweetheart was Eliza Susan Morton, to whom he was already secretly engaged. The couple married in June 1797 (Robert A. McCaughey, Josiah Quincy 1772–1864: The Last Federalist, Cambridge, 1974, p. 17).
The French Constitution of 1795 allowed for the election of judges for both civil and criminal matters, as well as for justices of the peace (Arts. 212, 216, 234, 235).