RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A”; endorsed: “March 11th / 1797.”

On 13 Feb. John James Maund wrote to JA to offer the oats and at the same time presented his respects to AA and to his “friend” TBA (Adams Papers). It is unclear if the oats were received, although AA informed JA on 31 March, below, that William Smith was making inquiries. Maund (d. 1802) was a Virginia attorney who had spent time in Philadelphia in 1794, where he apparently made the acquaintance of the Adamses (Washington, Papers, Presidential Series , 15:668).

Tobias Lear, George Washington’s former secretary, lived in Washington, D.C., at this time but had come to Philadelphia in Feb. 1797 to help the Washingtons close their household. Bartholomew Dandridge Jr. also stayed behind to help settle the Washingtons’ affairs, remaining in Washington’s employ until his departure for The Hague as secretary to William Vans Murray (vol. 11:528; Washington, Papers, Retirement Series , 1:23–25).

For the letters JA forwarded to AA, see AA to JA, 12 March, and note 1, below.

Public celebrations for JA never reached the level accorded to Washington. Celebrations of JA’s 30 Oct. birthday, which throughout his public life generally fell during the congressional recess, were held only in central New England, most prevalently during the Quasi-War (Simon P. Newman, Parades and the Politics of the Street: Festive Culture in the Early American Republic, Phila., 1997, p. 74). In 1798 JA and AA declined an invitation to celebrate Washington’s birthday in Philadelphia; for AA’s comments on the subject, see her letter to Mary Smith Cranch, 15 Feb., and note 4, below.

During the Revolution the British attempted to undermine Washington’s command of American forces by publishing a series of forged letters, allegedly captured after the fall of Fort Lee in Nov. 1776, that exposed Washington’s pro-British sympathies and low opinion of American troops. Largely discredited at the time of their publication in London in 1777 and in the United States in 1778, a pamphlet of the letters was reprinted in Philadelphia in 1795 in the midst of political furor over the Jay Treaty. Washington waited until the end of his public career to denounce the letters, describing them as “base forgery” in a 3 March 1797 letter to Timothy Pickering. Believing their original intent was “to strike at the integrity of the motives of the American Commander in Chief” and more recently that “another crisis in the affairs of America having occurred, the same weapon has been resorted to, to wound my character and deceive the people.” Pickering submitted Washington’s letter to the Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, which printed it on 10 March. It was then widely reprinted; see, for example, the New York Daily Advertiser, 20 13 March, Massachusetts Mercury, 21 March, and the Charleston, S.C., City Gazette and Daily Advertiser, 29 March (Worthington Chauncey Ford, The Spurious Letters Attributed to Washington, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1889, p. 9–11, 20–21; Stewart, Opposition Press , p. 531–532; Letters from General Washington to Several of His Friends, in June and July, 1776, Phila., 1795, Evans, No. 28969; Pickering, To the Editor of the United States Gazette, no imprint, 1797, MWA, Evans, No. 33072).

RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Mrs A. March 12 / ansd 22d. 1797.”

With his letter to AA of 24 Feb., for which see vol. 11:575–576, JA likely forwarded TBA to JA, 26 Nov. 1796, for which see same, 11:413–417, and JQA to JA, 17 Dec. (Adams Papers), for a summary of which see same, 11:433.

On 22 Feb. 1797 the Senate submitted its reply to JA’s 15 Feb. address, thanking him for his long and continued service and expressing its belief that his “conduct will be measured by the Constitution, and directed to the public good” and that he could therefore expect “a confident reliance, that you will be supported, as well by the people at large, as by their constituted authorities.” JA responded the following day acknowledging its approbation with thanks. Both the Senate’s reply and JA’s response were printed by the Boston Price-Current and Boston Independent Chronicle, 6 March ( Annals of Congress , 4th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1555–1556, 1557–1558).

In a letter to JA of 28 Feb., Thomas Welsh similarly described Dr. Charles Jarvis’ comments on JA’s 15 Feb. address and on his election: “It was a great Task for any Man to follow successfully in the same Office and maintain the same Respect & Confidence which the late President has enjoyed, replied that no Man ever had a better Oppertunity to do well than Mr Adams whose Abilities and Integrity were universally acknowledged who would act for himself and not be led by any one & that he had it in his power to do more for this Country than any Man ever had done and that it was impossible he could do worse than Washington” (Adams Papers).

The Boston Columbian Centinel, 11 March, reported news from Philadelphia of the 4th, including the following notice: “The Senate of the U.S have received a notification from the President, convening them on Saturday next.” There is no record that JA issued the notice, and it most likely referred to a message submitted by George Washington on 1 March convening the Senate for the Saturday, 4 March, inauguration (Annals 22 of Congress, 5th Cong., special sess. no. 1, p. 1580).

Credible reports of France’s refusal to receive Charles Cotesworth Pinckney as U.S. minister and his subsequent expulsion from the country had surfaced in Philadelphia by this time, although the government had yet to receive official confirmation from its diplomats in Europe. Similar reports had surfaced in Massachusetts but were discounted by the press as “unfounded” (Philadelphia Gazette, 9 March; Timothy Pickering to JQA, 15 March, Adams Papers; Boston Columbian Centinel, 8 March; Newburyport Impartial Herald, 10 March). For more on Pinckney’s reception in France, see vol. 11:457–458.

For William Vans Murray’s appointment as JQA’s replacement at The Hague, see same, 11:457. News of Murray’s appointment was reported in the Boston Columbian Centinel, 11 March.

The masthead of the Boston Columbian Centinel identifies its printer, Benjamin Russell, as “Printer to the United States, for the Northern States.” JA’s address to the Senate was printed in the newspaper on 1 March but contained two substantial omissions, which are represented in brackets in the following sentences: “I ought not to declare, for the last time, your adjournment, before I have presented to every senator present, and to every [citizen who has ever been a] senator of the United States, my thanks, for the candor and favor invariably received from them all” and “In all the abstruse questions, difficult conjunctures, dangerous emergencies, and animated debates upon the great interests of our country, which have so often, [and] so deeply impressed all our minds, [and interested the strongest feelings of the heart,] I have experienced a uniform politeness and respect from every quarter of the house.” JA’s answer to the Senate’s reply, printed on 11 March, contained only one error, the insertion of “found” instead of “known” in the following phrase: “wherever it shall be known, both at home and abroad” (U.S. Senate, Jour. , 4th Cong., 2d sess., p. 325; Annals of Congress , 4th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1557).