Adams Family Correspondence, volume 11
stQuincy 1796
I yesterday received Yours of March 19 & 23d inclosing the Letter from our son, compareing Such events as have taken place in Europe, with the Spirit, and Temper of the Parties in America, and the evident disposition of foreign Powers towards the united States.1 I believe our Son will prove to be possesst of the Spirit, calld Prophesy which it has been said, was the property of his Father. in other Words, I believe from the observation which have occurd to me, that he Will be found to have made a just estimate of men and measures. I observe his prudent caution in not nameing those of his Countrymen who differ from him in opinion, but from Your reflection I presume it must be M. if not P. as to Sieyes I have long had my eye upon him as the Cromwell of France.2 How little do our Countrymen understand humane Nature, & what Superlative Ignorance Do they discover of History, and of the politicks of Nations, when they talk of a Republicks having no Secreets. it is really a pitty Such Ignoramuses should be Sent into a Legislative assembly. as
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there are always two sides to a question, I hope light will brake out in full Day upon the combattants, and that Right, and justice will be established.
We May Soon expect to hear from abroad. Scott was to Sail in Feb’ry. I Suppose I must not ask how the 12 article is like to be Modified?3 or whether Success is probable?
I so frequently want advise, respecting our Home affairs that I wish you was here to Make Some of the arrangements, or that I had been more particular in attending to your plans. some of them must vary, oweing to the Letting the Farms. there are three Yoke of Young steers. two of them are quiet to the yoke, but one pr & the likelyest are wild never even been handled Dr Tufts wants a Yoke would you part with them? two more Yoke are comeing on to be made use of an other Year. is your plan to fat two Yoke this Year? I hope I shall be able to go on with some buisness which I would undertake, if I was sure I should have it Done right. I mean the Wall talkd of upon the Hill. I am weak very weak now. as soon as you enable me to be vallient I shall go on with spirit. I should live a short life upon credit.
Copland Says his time is out to Day for which he engaged to you; I say not till the 25th. Whether I shall hire him again is uncertain as I hear from your Brother that he talks of very high wages. I saw Billings to Day. he was engaged to Make a peice of Stone wall for capt Beal which he thinks will take him three weeks. he then says he will come if we can agree, but I could not find out what he intended to have. Your Brother Says our lands must lye without cultivation for Laboures are for having all the value of produe and money beside; I must keep Copeland for the present Month if he will stay. I shall have some talk with him in the course of the Week & see what his expectations are, but here are so few Labourers that we are obliged to give the highest price and not always for the first hands. shaw bears all the blame of Spoiling the Hay put into the Barns, by getting it in not Sufficiently Made—
our Tennants are moving. the Day is Spring like and the Birds Sing. our Worthy Brother Cranch is laid up for this fortnight with his old Lung complaint, which will some Day prove too hard for him I hope he is getting better. Mother has got through the Month of March without being confined, and is comfortable.
Yours in Love and affection
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Mrs A / 1. April. ansd 13. 1795.”
In his letter of 23 March to AA, JA deferred to her decisions regarding their tenants and mentioned JQA’s situation in Europe and the weather. He also enclosed a 239 17 Nov. 1795 letter from JQA (both Adams Papers), for which see JQA to JA, 21 Nov., note 1, above.
That is, JQA’s fellow diplomats, James Monroe and Thomas Pinckney, who, according to JQA, believed “the final and unqualified triumph of the french Republic over all her enemies must be at hand.” JQA observed “with pain” that “Their accounts to their friends in America must differ essentially from mine, and time alone will discover whether their statements will be justified by the course of Events.” JQA considered the Abbé Sieyès to be “the main spring of the french external policy. I believe further that his policy as respects the United States, is of a tendency as pernicious to them, as if it had been invented in the councils of the Prince of Darkness” ( JQA to JA, 17 Nov., Adams Papers).
For the Senate’s earlier debate and refusal to accept Art. 12 of the Jay Treaty, see vol. 10:451, 462, 466, 471. JQA informed Timothy Pickering on 14 Nov. that “The additional Article suspending the clause in the twelfth Article according to the ratification of the Senate was agreed to without difficulty” (LbC, APM Reel 130).
The Newspapers will inform you of our interminable Delays. The House have asked for Papers and the President has refused them, with Reasons and the House are about to record in their Journals their Reasons— meanwhile the Business is in suspence: and I have no clear Prospect when I shall go home.
It is the general opinion of those I converse with that after they have passed the Resolutions which they think will justify them to their Constituents, seven or Eight of the Majority will vote for the appropriations necessary to carry the Treaties into Execution.1
Next Wednesday is assigned for the House to take the P.’s Message into Consideration— two Massachusetts Members Leonard & Freeman are gone home and three are among the most inveterate of the Opposition Dearborne Varnum & Lyman. Our People are almost as inconsistent in returning Such Men as the Pensilvanians are in Returning Adventurers from Geneva, Britain & Ireland2 if the Constitution is to give Way under these contending Parties We shall see it before long. If the House persevere in refusing to vote the appropriations We shall sit here till next March for what I know and wait for the People, to determine the Question for Us. One good Effect of a persevering Opposition in the House would be that We should preserve the President for another four Years: for I presume He will have sufficient Spiriti to hold the Helm till he has steered the ship through this storm, unless the People should remove him which most certainly they will not.
I will Not sit here in summer in all Events— I would sooner resign my Office. I will leave Philadelphia by the Sixth or seventh of June 240 at farthest. Other Gentlemen of the senate and House are frequently asking Leave of Absence: but my Attendance is perpetual and will if continued much longer disorder my Health, which hitherto has been very good. But I want my Horse my farm my long Wallks and more than all the Bosom of my friend—
Poor Lear has lost his second Wife.—3
I want to talk Politicks with my Brother and to know how his Patriotic Pulse beat in these times.
Next Monday is your Election when I suppose there will be a Stir. Many Letters express a clear opinion that there will be a Change. This would be the strongest Proof of Fœderalism which Mass has ever given; because I suppose it will be from fœderal Principles & Motives.4 But I expect no such Thing. I could fill a sheet with my Reasons but they would not be new to you.
The Weather is very pleasant but rather dry— I suppose you have Scarcely got rid of your snow.
I am anxious to hear whether the Throat Distemper has abated in Quincy— I thought the Physicians had become Masters of that Complaint. Duty to my Mother and / Love & Compts where due from your / ever Affectionate
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A”; endorsed: “April 1 1796.”
The political posturing over House appropriations for the Jay Treaty continued through April. With their speeches, Democratic-Republican legislators tried to undermine both the Jay Treaty and Federalist foreign policy and only secondarily used the issue to solidify party support in Congress. Federalists countered by inciting citizens to send petitions to Congress demanding the execution of the treaty. This public pressure helped sway the 30 April decision, at which time the House voted 51 to 48 to fund the treaty (Combs, Jay Treaty, p. 171–172, 178;
Annals of Congress, 4th Cong., 1st sess., p. 1291).
Pennsylvania elected two foreign-born members to the 4th Congress: William Findley from Ireland and Albert Gallatin from Geneva, Switzerland. In the 3rd Congress, along with Findley, four other foreign-born members represented the state: Robert Morris from Liverpool, England, and Thomas Fitzsimons, William Irvine, and John Smilie, all from Ireland (
Biog. Dir. Cong.
).
Tobias Lear’s second wife, Frances (Fanny) Bassett Washington Lear (b. 1767), whom he had married on 22 Aug. 1795, died in late March 1796. She was the daughter of Martha Washington’s sister and brother-in-law, Anna Marie Dandridge Bassett and Col. Burwell Bassett of Eltham in New Kent County, Va. Frances was the widow of George Augustine Washington, George Washington’s nephew, whom she had married in 1785 (Washington, Papers, Presidential Series, 1:93;
ANB
; Washington, Diaries, 6:252).
The Massachusetts election for governor and state senators was held on 4 April 1796. Although the incumbent governor, Samuel Adams, defeated the Federalist candidate, Increase Sumner, 15,195 votes to 10,184 votes, the Federalists gained seats in the senate. This new Federalist majority was reflected in the legislature’s decision to replace the Democratic-Republican Boston Independent Chronicle with the Federalist Massachusetts Mercury as the new state printer (Anson Ely Morse, The Federalist Party in Massachusetts to the Year 1800, Princeton, N.J., 1909, p. 160–161, 164; Massachusetts Mercury, 5 April, 3 June; Boston Independent Chronicle, 6 June).