Adams Family Correspondence, volume 11
The Doctor may have the Steers if he wishes to have them.
The People of the United States are about to be Stirred up in every quarter of the Union. The H. of R. are determined to go all Lengths. The Merchants of this City have had the most numerous Meeting that has been known for a long time and unanimously voted to Petition that The Faith The Honour and the Interest of the Nation may be preserved. They have appointed Committees to correspond with the Merchants in all the seaports.1 I expect that the Citizens will also be called together in the State House Yard and it is said that the Gentlemen will turn out: but the Event will be doubtfull.2 The State Parties will all be agitated and Party Spirit will be carried to the highest Pitch. It must be a national Determination, and if the nation solemnly determines upon War and Confusion they ought not to charge it to the Government. These critical Situations are familiar to me and I always feel calmest in the midst of them. A few Outlandish Men in the H. have taken the lead and Madison Giles and Baldwin are humble followers.
If the Voice of the Nation should be finally & decidedly in favour of the Treaty, there will be a mortified Party so bitter rancorous and 252 desperate, fomented by foreign Influence, in Opposition that the Government will be very much embarrassed, and the public service very uncomfortable.
When I take a Walk out of Town and see the young clover beautifully Starting I long to see my own— Pray how fares it?—
I have always thought it injudicious to make any Attempt against the Governor, knowing as I do the habitual Attachment to him, as well as the difficulty of uniting People in another. The Countenance he gives to a very profligate Party is very pernicious to the Public but he is stimulated to it in Part by the opposition to him, and he would not do less out of office. The Constitution of our Government is callculated to create, excite and Support perpetual Parties in the States, mixing & crossing alternately with Parties in the federal Govt.— It will be a perpetual Confusion of Parties.
I fear We do not deserve all the Blessings We have within our Reach and that our Country must be deformed with Divisions, Contests Dissentions and civil Wars as well as others.
As the People of Rome Scrambled for Power against their senate: as the People of Athens Scrambled for more Power than was reserved to them by the Laws of solon as the People of Carthage Scrambled for Power against their senate as the People of England Scrambled for Power against the K. & Lords and set up Oliver as the People of France Scrambled for Power against every Majority and set up Robespierre so the H. of R. of the U.S. will Scramble for Power against the P. & Senate. And the frequency of popular Elections will corrupt all before them. May God of his infinite Mercy grant that some Remedy may be found before it be too late in the good sense of this People.
Mr Cabot desires me “to present you his most profound Respects not daring to send by an Husband any more affectionate Regards”.—
I will venture to present you with my most affectionate Regards my earnest Wishes and longing desires to see you.
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A”; endorsed: “April 16. 1796.”
Philadelphia merchants met on 15 April and wrote a memorial to the House of Representatives “expressing their alarm at the delay of the necessary measures” for implementing the Jay Treaty. The merchants noted that “the faith, the honor and the interest of the nation, may be preserved by making the necessary provisions for carrying the treaty into fair and honorable effect.” The memorial, with more than 600 signatures, was presented in the House on 20 April (Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser, 16 April;
Annals of Congress, 4th Cong., 1st sess., p. 1114). For similar responses in other cities, especially Boston, see Descriptive List of Illustrations, No. 5, above.
On 16 April “the citizens of Philadelphia” met and agreed to circulate a petition countering the memorial written by Philadelphia merchants the previous day, for which see
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note 1, above. The citizens’ address, which garnered 1,500 signatures, stated that the treaty was “unequal in its stipulations, derogatory to our national character, injurious to our general interests,” and that it “must eventually lead to war.” The address was presented in the House on 20 April (Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 20 April;
Annals of Congress, 4th Cong., 1st sess., p. 1114).
Your favor of the 13 ult. came to hand the 31st: and that of the 24th: on the 3d: curt:
1 I have to thank you kindly for your prompt execution of my Several Commissions, all the articles of which have been received. It is certainly an erroneous idea, which some of our American friends have expressed, that I am to be charged with a Commission rather than you. I have been long convinced of the contrary, & hereby renounce all pretension to such preference.
I have not written to you since the 29 Feby, but I enclosed a letter from the F. M, under cover to Mr: Johnson on the 12 ulto;2 Four days after I was seized with a billious remittant fever, which incapacitated me for nearly as many weeks from every kind of business. This, in addition to my previous attack from the Rheumatism, brought me very near my latter end. But I have conquered my enemy, and am now upon the mending hand. It is by no means a pleasant task to fill my letters with lamentations, and until I had the power to inform you of my convalescence, I would suffer no one to acquaint you with my illness. My greatest anxiety is now, to bring up, if possible, the time which has been thus lost by my repeated calamities, but I am so far distanced that I almost despair of effecting it.
I rejoice at the account given me of yourself. More than two months elapsed without my hearing a word of, or from, you, and during the heigth of my last disorder, nothing could persuade me, that you were not dead. I date the commencement of my recovery from the moment your letter of the 13th: came to hand. As a proof that I have not been without companions in misery, the physician who attended me, visited between 80 & 100 patients pr day for three successive weeks. Such is the history of the Hague taken from the Drs
logbook.
3
But tell me a little, who among this most attractive Society has most “charms” for you? Am I, or am I not to participate? This seems to be the question here. Resolve me it, I pray you, for I am partly curious to know. Shall I order the old house upon the Fleeweel
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Burgwaal to be fitted up, or shall I take a better one upon the Voorhout? Make my best respects to the family in general, & to Miss ——— in particular.
I have letters from the Tr: Dept: as late as 17th. Feby giving notice of remittances to a very considerable amount & acknowledging the receipt of your letters to No 12. They contain nothing further.4
You have doubtless heard the fate of your dispatches, which went by the William Captn: Stoddard for Baltimore;— Only one letter for the State & one for the Tr. Dep. went by that conveyance, which is rather fortunate considering circumstances. A Bermudas Judge is governed & governs by his own laws.5
The National Assembly decreed some time since that a Medal should be struck in commemoration of the event of their Organization, and further that each of the Foreign Ministers who attended the ceremony should be presented with one of them. You know my situation in case the decree is enforced, and though I have no doubt as to my conduct upon such an occasion, I have some apprehension lest a wrong construction should be applied to it. Let me know your opinion upon this head if you please.6
Our Brother Charles sent us the Vindication accompanied with Peter Porcupine’s observations upon it. I send you the letter, which came with them.7 As I have forsaken my correspondents, they have retorted, and nobody appears to be concerned about me. I can’t help it.
One more Commission & I have done. Bring or send me a good tooth brush & two boxes of powder, whereby you will add to the numerous obligations already conferred upon your affectionate Brother
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “J. Q. Adams Esqr:.”
For JQA to TBA, 13 March, see his letter to TBA of 24 March, and note 3, above.
TBA’s letter to JQA of 29 Feb. has not been found. François Noël (1755–1841), the French minister to Repertorium, 3:126).
Possibly Dr. Isaac Heijman (Heijmans). According to TBA’s Diary, he was attended by a “Dr. Heymans” during his illness at The Hague; the doctor had previously treated JQA as well (Hindle S. Hes, Jewish Physicians in the Netherlands, 1600–1940, Assen, Netherlands, 1980, p. 195; M/TBA/2, 15 Feb., APM Reel 282; “Letters of William Vans Murray to John Quincy Adams, 1797–1803,” ed. Worthington C. Ford, Amer. Hist. Assoc., Ann. Rpt. for 1912, p. 512).
Oliver Wolcott Jr. to JQA, 10 and 17 Feb. (both Adams Papers). In the 10 Feb. letter, Wolcott thanked JQA for his previous letters and informed him that a remittance of 355,000 guilders and three cargoes of West India produce were being sent to the Amsterdam bankers. In the 17 Feb. letter, Wolcott told JQA 255 that the U.S. Treasury was making a further remittance to the Amsterdam bankers of 130,000 guilders.
The brig William of Boston, Capt. Henry Stoddard, was captured by Bermuda privateers in late 1795 or early 1796 on its way from Amsterdam to Baltimore. The vice-admiralty court in Bermuda stipulated that the Dutch property on board the William would be detained, but that the neutral property could be restored to the claimant. Timothy Pickering appealed to the British to end the actions of the Bermuda privateers, but seizures continued into 1797. TBA’s worry about the fate of the letters was well-founded, as the seal of JQA’s letter to the secretary of state was “violated” while in Bermuda (Newburyport Political Gazette, 1 March 1796; Charleston, S.C., City Gazette and Daily Advertiser, 12 April; Gerard H. Clarfield, Timothy Pickering and American Diplomacy, 1795–1800, Columbia, Mo., 1969, p. 74–76; Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertiser, 11 Feb.). JQA’s dispatches were probably to Edmund Randolph of 18 or 28 Oct. 1795 and of 20 Oct. to Wolcott (LbC’s, APM Reel 129; CtHi:Wolcott Papers, vol. 41).
The medal to which TBA is referring commemorated the opening of the National Assembly at The Hague on 1 March 1796, the dies for which were cut by Barend Christiaan van Calker. The Dutch government commissioned 25 gold and 100 silver specimens of the medal and distributed them to the representatives of the Dutch Republic and to foreign ministers who attended the first meeting of the National Assembly. It is unclear whether TBA ever actually received one of the medals (Beschrijving van Nederlandsche historie-penningen, ten vervolge op-het werk van Mr. Gerard van Loon, 10 vols., Amsterdam, 1821–1869, 10:460).
CA to JQA, 6 Jan., above.