Adams Family Correspondence, volume 11
th1796
I received by the last post Your Letters of the following Dates 21 inclosing the post Note, 24 28 & 30th for all of which accept my
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thanks;1 we have been so unfortunate I presume as to lose Letters by a Melancholy ship wreck the last week. a vessel belonging to mr Lamb on Board of which was a Brother of Mr Lambs by whom I wrote to our sons, in comeing in last week, was in one of our winter gales & snow-storms cast away near salem. the captain Macky a Dutch Gentleman & 2 others were drown’d. mr Lamb & one or two others were wash’d on shore a live, but vessel cargo intirely lost.2 our Neighbours are in great anxiety for their Eldest son Benjamin whom they heard had saild ten week ago from Hamburgh, bound to N York. a vessel which saild with him, has been in more than a Month.3
You observe in one of Your Letters that You wish to hear my observations upon Randolphs pamphlet. there does not appear to me any thing clear about it, or in it, but the Mans Duplicity weakness, Gullability and vanity. he represents the President as in leading strings, and between ourselves, I cannot but think, that he had gaind too great an assendency over the mind of the President, considering how very weak a Man he appears. You know my judgment of him in the very first Letter he wrote to Hammond after he was Secretary of State.4 You know my sintiments of his Predecessor and my Friendship for him, how loth I have been to see him a partizen of politicks I could not but abhor. Yet I think him incapable of betraying the honour interest and Dignity of the Government as this misirable Man has done. the President has been unfortunate in his States Men— I hope the office is more confidentially fill’d now with respect to mr R——s private Life I know nothing, but one general rule will hold good with respect to appointments to office, that a Man destitute of private virtue must want Principle, and the Man who wants principle cannot be actuated by pure Motives, nor can he possess so exalted an affection as a Rational and Disinterested Love of his Country. this has been so recently exemplified in the late Chief Justice, that no other instance need be quoted. the publick papers have mentiond almost every circumstance You related, and his insanity will sheild the Senate from, even Jacobinical censure. for his Friends I am sorry. it is a pitty that he was made so conspicuous in his Fall. As to the Virginians, they appear to be most of them Randolphs, and by their Numbers have too great a weight in the publick scale. I hope all culprits will be brought to punishment, and that our countrymen will know how to value and Appreciate the sterling coin, which has been Seven times tried, from the base Dross which only glitters without, but has no intrinsick value. Randell &
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Wheaton will be throughly sifted I presume.5 I wish Genett Fauchet & his successors were equally ameniable to the same tribunal.
The complexion of the Senate is highly favourable. the House—will have time to shew themselves
The constitution in France appears to be organizing. Seyes wisely declind belonging to the executive why it should be a subject of speculation to the Parissians, must be oweing to their want of penetration. the Executive will soon be crumbld into insignificance. Seyes had rather be one than five—6
I hope they will keep together untill a general Peace takes place, but I am sure they cannot be held by a Rope of sand.
I thank Mrs Washington for her kind invitation as well as for her frequent remembrance of me the high esteem and regard which I entertain for her would render such a visit peculiarly agreable to me, were all other circumstances favourable to it, but I never expect to go further than to Visit my Children;
I shall go to no expence that I can avoid. I Daily know that expences, I cannot say increase, but the value of Money diminishes— I was presented last week with a Tax Bill of a hundred & 87 Dollors 50 cents for the Small Town of Quincy. I shall however take the Liberty to pay my doctors Bill, and other necessary expences before I attend to what my Neighbours do not discharge in a Year after us.7 last week our people compleated Carting Manure upon Quincys medow 60 Loads that is cart bodys full. the Ground was so soft it would not admit of loading deeper & it is all spread copland says as well as if you had been here. he wants half a dozen more load to cover the whole which he hopes to get by & by—
Mrs Brisler and Family were well yesterday She danced as nimbly as the youngest of them, the night before new year
Yours as ever
P S I believe you have become a favorite at court—you dine so often.
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Mrs A. Jan. 10 / ansd 20. 1796.”
For JA’s two letters of 21 Dec. 1795, see JA to AA, 21 Dec., and note 2, above. JA also sent a short note to AA on 30 Dec. enclosing Jonathan Pindar’s “Salutatory Ode,” for which see AA to JA, 15 Jan. 1796, and note 6, below.
On 6 Jan. the ship Margaret wrecked off the coast of Salem. Four men—the captain, John Mackay; a Dutch passenger; a seaman; and the cabin boy—drowned. James Lamb (b. 1746), a Boston merchant and part owner of the ship, survived by jumping into the ocean and swimming to shore. The ship was also owned by James’ brother Thomas Lamb (1753–1813); they had established the mercantile firm of James & Thomas Lamb in 1781 (Boston Gazette, 11 Jan. 1796; Thwing Catalogue, MHi; Other Merchants and Sea Captains of Old Boston, Boston, 1919, p. 34–37).
AA wrote to JA on 3 Feb., below, that the ship had been carrying letters for the Adamses from the Netherlands, but these have not been identified.
That is, Benjamin Beale III (1768–1826), Harvard 1787, who was a lawyer. He eventually settled in Normandy, France, following his marriage in 1806 (Sprague, Braintree Families
).
Edmund Randolph’s letter to George Hammond of 21 Feb. 1794 concerned whether Hammond had yet received instructions from his government that would allow negotiations to resume regarding the final resolution of matters still pending from the Peace of Paris (Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 28 Feb.). But AA may be referring to later letters of Randolph that JA sent her in May 1794; see vol. 10:190, 191.
For Robert Randall, Charles Whitney, and the Detroit land speculation affair, see JA to CA, 31 Dec. 1795, and note 1, above.
Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès declined an appointment to serve in the new French Directory “on account of his want of sight, and chose to retain the character of deputy, to which he had been called by his fellow citizens.” Sieyès would again be elected in 1799 and would accept the appointment at that time (Boston Federal Orrery, 7 Jan. 1796;
Cambridge Modern Hist., 8:667–668).
AA was not alone in feeling that the Adamses might have been overtaxed. In September JA noted in his Diary that he felt his assessment was “unjust, more than my Proportion.” Two years later, when the Adamses’ farm was assessed for the 1798 tax valuation, some discussion occurred whether it was acceptable for the home of JA—as president—to be valued at less than those of some of his neighbors. AA wrote to JA, “I sat a silent hearer upon all but one Subject, which was the apprizement of this House. the Major was loth that it should appear that the President had not the best House in Town. I laught at him and told him I should have no objection to owning the best House, but if the fact was otherways did the Law say, that the owner of the House was to be taken into consideration or the House prized according to what it would in his judgment sell for.” In the end, their home was assessed for less than that of Capt. Benjamin Beale Jr., their closest neighbor (JA, D&A
, 3:246; AA to JA, 23 Dec. 1798, Adams Papers).
ry15
th1796
Thursday post did not bring me one Single Letter from you; tis true I had no reason to complain on the Score of inattention, as the week before I had four Letters but I suppose that I had Letters, and that the blundering Blockhead of a post, either left them in Town, or has carried them to Barnestable as he Did once before; We have got a new Post, one of your under bidders, who can not read the direction upon his papers: Such kind of people as want the Reigns of government. I had a Letter last week from Mrs smith informing me that her Children were sick with the Measels I hope to hear soon from her again. tis a very bad disorder—1
so poor Tom Paine is gone to See Whether there is any state besides the present. Heaven be praisd that he is gone there, instead of comeing to America.2
he was an instrument of much Mischief. the Virginians are a very mad people. they will neither believe in the experience of those States which have been obliged to Change from a single Assembly, to a Balanced goverment, nor in the Host of departed Spirits who cry alloud to them from the Golgotha of their Allies. in every state they will find some as discontented and as Mischievous as themselves. I was told last week, that the reputed Cato of plimouth openly declares his dislike to the constitution, and Wants to have a Single assembly. when such Men as he, Men of experience, Men Who have borne a part in one revolution and Who call themselves Lovers of Liberty, profess pure and disinterested Principles, come forward & hold Such Sentiments what are we to think? can we suppose that they were ever Sincere? or shall we say with the Tenth Muse Guillotina
The lines which describe the Plimouth Boys will never be forgiven. if their Malice was not impotent, they would raise a Rebellion. I feel both pity and contempt for them.5 as to Jonathan Pindars Dada Vice, I had a hearty laugh at it. The poor wretch, was at a misirable Shift, when he could find nothing to Ridicule but a poor cast Wig, which was a singularity in no other place than the Contracted Span of a few states whose climate is too Hot for the Heads of its inhabitants.6 I pray you would give Judge Cushing a Hint, for in the Minds of some of the Southern Gentry, his Wig will be a greater objection to his perferment, than all the Madness & folly, to say no worse, of a Rutledge7
we have had an other ship Wreck, in the last week. Captain Barns in the ship Industery from London was cast away upon cape Ann & every soul on Board perish’d.8 the captain chest & the Log Book was Wash’d on shore by which the loss was discoverd. the Gale of wind blew only a few hours. we have not had one severe Snow Storm, yet more losses upon our coast than usual. I believe Captains grow more ventersome & dairing. if there were any Letters from our Sons they are all gone. I know not where to write to them. I long to hear of & from them.
th
Is the Treaty arrived as report says?9
our Govenour makes his speach on twesday next so that I cannot send by this post.10 I have not got any Letters from you this week. I do not Doubt you have written, but the post office, or post has not Done its Duty. I write once a week, but have so little to entertain you with, that I feel sick of my Letter when I have written it. your Mother was here yesterday and is well for her. she sends her Love to you My Health has been better than the last winter. I Saw Mrs Brisler yesterday She went to Boston. she and Family were well. poor Arnold has been sick of a Plurisy fever & his Life despaired of for near a week. Polly watchd with him last night. he is rather better. We have not had any meeting for two sabbeths. Baxter Who is one of the Comittee says we have no occasion for preaching in the Winter. I hope he Does not imbibe the sentiment from his Minister.11 Remember to all inquiring Friends your affectionate
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Mrs A. Jan. 15. Ansd 29 / 1796.”
Not found.
A report that Thomas Paine had died “at the house of the American minister in Paris, of an abscess in his right side” was widely reprinted in newspapers throughout the United States, including in the Boston Federal Orrery, 11 January. By 4 Feb. the Orrery had retracted the information, noting, “The English account of his death … must therefore be premature.” Paine lived until 1809.
“If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav’n’s design, / Why then a Borgia or a Catiline?” (Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, Epistle I, lines 155–156).
“Guillotina; or, The Annual Song of the Tenth Muse,” Connecticut Courant, 4 Jan. 1796, lines 229–232. The author was likely Lemuel Hopkins.
“At Plymouth too, a string of boys, / About the Treaty made a noise, / Headed by master Henry Warren, / Like crows around some new-found carrion” (“Guillotina,” lines 197–200). For the debate over the Jay Treaty in Plymouth, see
AA to JA, 3 Jan., and note 7, above.
Jonathan Pindar, a pseudonym for St. George Tucker, published a “Salutatory Ode” in the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 30 Dec. 1795, that included a comment on JA’s wig: “Or, cou’d my love so far be turn’d to hate, / As to attack our Daddy-vice, so big, / His brain my shafts could never penetrate, / Lost in the bushy bulwark of his wig.” The piece also noted, “Whether the venerable figure here alluded to is so well convinced of the strength of his pericranium, as to dispense with that bulwark at present; or whether he is at length so far convinced of the absurdity of singularity, as to relinquish that favourite ornament, it is certain he has lately laid aside his wig.” JA sent the piece to AA in his letter of 30 Dec. (Adams Papers).
Southerners might have been expected to object to William Cushing’s nomination to become chief justice of the Supreme Court on account of his staunch Federalist views, but the Senate unanimously confirmed his appointment on 27 Jan. 1796. He declined the position on account of poor health.
Some years before, when first nominated to the Supreme Court, Cushing’s choice of wig apparently caused a stir on the streets of New York City. Cushing arrived wearing the great wig customary to royal judges in pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts, which sparked a procession of young boys to follow him, wondering who this great personage might
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be. It was not until a sailor commented, “My eyes, what a wig!” that Cushing understood the problem. He thereafter wore a smaller peruke, though he insisted on retaining a tricornered hat (
Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, 13:33–34, 35–36).
The ship Industry, Capt. Miles Barnes, owned by Thomas Lewis of Boston, wrecked on 11 Jan. off of Cape Ann, having sailed from Portsmouth, England, on 4 Nov. 1795. The eleven crew members, including the captain, were all lost (Massachusetts Mercury, 15 Jan. 1796; Newburyport, Mass., Political Gazette, 19 Jan.).
The Boston Columbian Centinel, 13 Jan., reported that a packet believed to be carrying the ratified Jay Treaty had arrived in New York. In fact, the treaty was carried on the ship General Pinckney, which reached Charleston, S.C., in late January. The formal proclamation of the treaty by George Washington was published on 1 March, the same day the treaty was laid before the House of Representatives (Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 17 Feb., 2 March).
See AA to JA, 21 Jan., and note 3, below.
Old Braintree, p. 223–224; Sprague, Braintree Families
).