Adams Family Correspondence, volume 11
Since my last I have received your No. 11. dated 27. July with the Pamphlets which accompanied it.1 The Entertainment and Enjoyment I derive from these Communications as well as from all your Letters, is beyond all your Conception as well as my Expression. My greatest Satisfaction arises from the Proofs they carry with them that your Judgment and Constancy and Fortitude are not to be warped by any Seductions, Temptations or Illusions.
I cannot Say with you, however that most Heresies are eternal Truths: for Heresies as well as orthodoxies have been often Nonsence, Villany and Blasphemy: but I fully agree with you, it is not yet time to expect in Europe a Government which will be “at the Same time Strong to enforce the Law, and weak for any Abuse of its Power.[”]2
If Elections of Executives and Legislatives, are found by Experience to produce better Magistrates and Lawgivers, than hereditary Education, I should join in the Warfare against all Hereditaments (to use an Expression of our Law) as heartily as any Man— But as past Experience has not proved it, I must wait for future Experience to decide: and further to prove that Legislatives and Executives wholly elective can either make or execute any Laws at all.
In Europe most Writers at the present Day confound all Ideas of popular Esteem Affection Gratitude and Respect for particular Families with The Feudal Aristocracy. But these are different Things. Popular Families exist among African Negroes and American Indians as well as in any of the Feudal Kingdoms. Nor would the Cessation of all the Civilization in the World and the Restoration of the Savage Life over the whole Globe, prevent the hereditary descent of Popularity. if all public Men are elective, Birth will procure more Votes and have more Influence than ever. A few Families will more decidedly govern. This appears to me—time will show. The natural 64 Descent of Popularity in Governments perfectly elective will be found to be So certain and so general, that it will produce an Aristocratical Government every where, an exclusive Aristocratical Government, untill Laws and Regulations are introduced to prevent it, against the popular Inclination.
A Government of Sans Culottes cannot long endure— The poor People find themselves Starved with Cold and Hunger, in a very short time in Consequence of their own Rule, and soon cry “This will not do.” We must have somebody to give Us Bread and Cloaths as well as Circeuses. Hereditary Popularity, which no political Institutions can prevent, and which being unlimited & unconfined will always be mad or extravagant3 will be found more dangerous, pernicious & destructive than hereditary Prerogatives and Priviledges ascertained by Law and directed to the national Good
There is Heresy for You! enough to expose me to Persecution in any Country at this day: but
I cannot believe what I please: much less what is dictated by every Fool who pleases to think himself popular.
on the 30th. of this Month I shall set out for Philadelphia, and reach it in 9 days, where I fear I must reside till next June. A Stormy session We may have: but I presume We shall weather it.
If report says the Truth you will have as nice a Task as any of Us: but be of good Cheer. preserve your good humour as well as your Independence: and especially guard yourself against all Approaches of Presumption and Vanity.
I am with the kindest Affection / your Father
Love to Thomas— I will write him soon.
and I too will write by capt Scott who is to sail soon. to both my dear Sons adieu5
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “John Quincy Adams Esqr”; endorsed: “My Father. / 17. November. 1795. Quincy. / 1. February 1796. recd: London. / 10. do: Ansd:.” Tr (Adams Papers).
For JQA’s letter of 27 July, see
JQA to AA, 30 July, note 3, above. JQA concluded his letter, “By the present opportunity I send several new publications lately received from Paris: they discover in some degree the state of the public mind, and furnish materials for the History of a philosophical Revolution. The man that can read them and retain an ardor for Revolutions, must indeed possess more philosophy than humanity” (Adams Papers). The pamphlets cannot be definitively identified but were possibly François Antoine, Comte de Boissy d’Anglas, Discours préliminaire au projet de constitution pour la République Française, [Paris?], 1795; Calendrier républicain, Paris, 1795; and Konrad
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Engelbert Oelsner, Notice sur la vie de Sieyes, Switzerland, 1795. All three are in JA’s library at MB (
Catalogue of JA’s Library
).
In discussing popular support for the Jacobins and royalists in France, JQA commented to JA in his letter of 27 July, “In short there is no Revolution whatever but may be expected in that Country except one that shall give them Peace and a regulated Liberty. If in the most favourable circumstances the perfection of human legislation is scarcely adequate to the construction of a Government which may be at the same time strong to enforce the law, and weak for any abuse of its power, it may without hesitation be pronounced impossible in France. I suppose this opinion is yet a political heresy, and like most other heresies it is an eternal truth” (Adams Papers).
The previous twelve words were interlined by JA.
“I am not bound over to swear as any master dictates” (Horace, Epistles, Book I, epistle i, line 14).
This paragraph is in AA’s hand. She sent a letter to JQA of 29 Nov. and to
TBA of 30 Nov., both below, with Capt. James Scott, who sailed from Boston on the Minerva on 11 Dec. (Boston Courier, 12 Dec.). JA wrote a joint letter, which presumably traveled by the same conveyance, to the brothers on 29 Nov., confirming his travel plans for Philadelphia and commenting on the public and congressional response to the Jay Treaty (Adams Papers).
You were doubtless informed by our friends who favoured me with a visit at Helvoet of my sailing from thence at last. I landed the next day at Margate, and the morning after reached the place from whence I now write you.1
I found nothing to do; or rather all done. But I still find my self detained here to wait for further orders which I expect daily to arrive2
Mr: Pinckney is expected back in the course of this month or the next.3 His arrival will release me, and if my tour here should prove only useless, it will be less unpleasant to myself than I had reason to suppose.
You will not fail however to write me by every opportunity until further notice, enclosing to Mr Johnson, except when you have opportunities of a private hand. You have heard of Mr: Randolph’s resignation. Its occasion did not arise from the affair of the Treaty, nor was it report be true, very honourable to himself. Mr Bradford the late Attorney General died about the same time.
A severe fever has prevailed in New-York, but at the date of the latest Letters (October 11.) had subsided. I have a Letter from Charles of Septr 27.4 The family were then all out of the City, and well. Peggy Smith I am told is married to a french Gentleman by the name of Darville.
Mr: Bayard assures me he has no documents relative to the case of the Ship Penn. If you see Mr: Van Son perhaps he can supply you with some, or at least he can inform you of the facts. The owners employed him as their counsel, in their former application to the States General. As I may probably soon return, I do not think it will be necessary for you to present a memorial as yet.5
You may if you please write me the current news by private opportunities. The public here know nothing of what is going forward in your quarter.
Mrs: Turing’s answer to the note I wrote her, with the letter from Mlle: Lorenzi, is enclosed.6 If I should receive any further information from her, I shall be happy to forward it
The Government here is very busy against Sedition; and Sedition no less busy against the Government. Some prospect of a famine, but none of Peace.7
I miss your company as much at least as I expected, and that is saying a great deal. Those of our friends whom I have seen all enquire kindly after you.
Remember me respectfully at ——— I dare not write the word, so grating to tender ears, that Genet you know made its use an heinous crime in one of our former diplomatic characters. My best regards to all friends, and tell the Baron that I find nothing to compensate for the loss of our academic walks.8
Your affectionate brother
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “T. B. Adams Esqr”; endorsed: “J, Q Adams Esqr: / 18 November 1795 / 4 Decr Recd: / 12 Answd:.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 130.
On 8 Nov. Nathan Frazier Jr., John Gardner, and James White visited JQA at Hellevoetsluis. The next day, he finally sailed for England, arriving on the 10th and reaching London on the 11th (D/JQA/24, APM Reel 27).
JQA was destined to be disappointed in his wait for new orders. On 15 Jan. 1796 Timothy Pickering finally wrote to JQA to explain that the instructions originally drawn up in Aug. 1795, which planned for additional negotiations with Britain, had been made obsolete by the speedy ratification and exchange of the Jay Treaty. Creation of a new set of instructions was hindered by the lack of a permanent secretary of state, though Pickering promised “they will be immediately attended to” (Adams Papers). This letter, received in March 1796, confirmed that JQA’s mission to London had been largely unnecessary.
The previous spring Thomas Pinckney, U.S. minister to Great Britain, had been named special commissioner and envoy extraordinary to negotiate a treaty with Spain. After successfully completing his mission with the signing of Pinckney’s Treaty on 27 Oct. 1795, he began his return trip to England, arriving in mid-Jan. 1796 (
DAB
; D/JQA/24, 15 Jan., APM Reel 27).
CA’s letter has not been found nor the source of JQA’s information, but the London Courier and Evening Gazette, 14 Nov. 1795, reported that “a bilious fever, highly malignant, and very near resembling the yellow fever of the West Indies,” had been prevalent
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in New York City since July. But there was hope that “a considerable frost will undoubtedly put an end to it.” An item in the London Lloyd’s Evening Post, 18–20 Nov., informed readers, “A vessel arrived yesterday from New-York, by which we learn that the dreadful fever which has prevailed there so long, is very fast abating, and is now principally confined to the lower part of the city, near the docks.”
TBA had written to JQA on 7 Nov. regarding the case of the capture of the Penn as a French vessel by a Dutch privateer near the Cape of Good Hope. The captain of the vessel in London was protesting its capture, claiming it was an American vessel, and hoped to receive assistance from Samuel Bayard (1767–1840), an agent for the United States in London overseeing claims at British admiralty courts. Van Son was likely one of the partners in the Dutch mercantile firm of Coenraad & Hendrick van Son (Adams Papers; Washington, Papers, Retirement Series, 2:33; Joost Jonker and Keetie Sluyterman, At Home on the World Markets: Dutch International Trading Companies from the 16th Century until the Present, The Hague, 2000, p. 394, note 54).
Not found.
In early November William Pitt and Lord Grenville introduced into Parliament bills that would become the Treasonable and Seditious Practices Act and the Seditious Meetings Act, both in response to the attack on George III’s coach on 29 Oct., for which see
TBA to AA, 1 Dec., and note 3, below, and to mass meetings held to demand political reform in increasingly radical terms. The first act was designed to clarify the definition of treason, adding any direct or indirect attempt to intimidate the king, all of which was punishable by death, and to restrict the right of radicals to petition the government. The second forbade meetings of more than fifty people without a license and gave magistrates broader scope to declare gatherings to be riots (Jennifer Mori, William Pitt and the French Revolution 1785–1795, Edinburgh, 1997, p. 252–256).