Adams Family Correspondence, volume 12
th1798
yesterday dispatches were received from mr King up to the 9th Jan’ry in a postscrip he says,
I have just learnt that mr Adams has been received by the new King notwithstanding his
commission was to his Father. this is civil and will enable him to proceed with
business—1 I received a Letter from dr
Tufts yesterday that allarmd me. I thought I inclosed him some Bills. I might as I wrote
you the same [ti]me put them into yours, for the dr in a post scrip says that you had
written him that you had them—2 when the
dr writes to me inclose his Letters in yours, for as those are held sacred now by a promise not to open them I shall receive them, in a way I
wish— the dr and I have some buisness transaction which are between ourselves—
Nothing new transpires but what your Boston papers have; warm words in congress must be apprehended, whilst some are for going shares with France submitting intirely to her Will and quietly disposed to receive every lash she pleases to inflict— Northern Blood boils, and I do not know what will take place— I hope they will be cooler to day—but Giles has just opend his batteries.—3
Pray is Betsy going to steal a wedding upon us? she inquires the
fashions they are as various as the Changes of the moon— the young Ladies generally have
their Hair all in Curls over their heads, and then put a Ribbon Beads Bugles or a Band
of some kind through the fore part of the Hair to which they attach feathers. the Band
is put upon Ribbon sometimes on wire. frequently two are worn which cross each other
they tye behind under over the hind Hair & then
a small Bunch of Hair turns up behind in which a small comb is fixd and the ends of the
hind Hair fall Back again in curls the Gounds are made to have only one side come
forward and that is confind with a belt round the waist, the waist made plain. Some
sleaves are drawn in diamonds some Robins drawn up & down with bobbin in 5 or 6
rows. in short a drawing room frequently exhibits a specimin of Grecian Turkish French
and English fashion at the same time, with ease Beauty and Elegance equal to any
court—
what a medley are my Letters. I had yesterday to visit me after the Prisidents Levee, the Kings of 3 Indian Nation. one of them after Sitting a little while rose and addrest me. He said he had been to visit his Father, and he thought his duty but in part fulfilld, untill he had visited also his mother, and he prayd the great spirit to keep and preserve them. they all came and shook me by the Hand, and then took some cake and wine with me. there were nine of them one of them spoke english well. they then made their bow and withdrew.4 much more civil than the Beast of Vermont.
adieu my dear sister / I am most affectionatly / Your
RC (MWA:Abigail Adams Letters); addressed: “Mrs Mary Cranch / Quincy.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed.
Rufus King’s 9 Jan. letter to Timothy Pickering, which arrived on 12 March, summarized the current situation in Europe but did not include any information about JQA. The information AA notes here was mentioned in a postscript to King’s letter of 14 Jan. (DNA:RG 59, Despatches from United States Ministers to Great Britain, 1791–1906, Microfilm, Reel 5).
Cotton Tufts’ letter to AA has not been found, but see her letter to Tufts of 6 Feb., above, in which she forwarded money. In Cranch’s 26 March reply to AA, she explained that she had taken the money from AA’s letter to Tufts and had given it to him the next time she saw him (Adams Papers).
During a heated House debate over arming U.S. frigates, William
Branch Giles argued that while he supported defending the coasts, he viewed the
proposal “to afford a defence beyond the limits of the United States, as a part of
that system which had a direct tendency to involve us in war.” In a jab at the
Federalists he further claimed “that there was not only a part of this House, but a
part of Government, determined on war,” to which Harrison Gray Otis responded, calling
it a “bold, ungraceful, and … disgraceful assertion.” An indignant Giles expected that
Otis “would have been called to order” over the comments, at which point the Speaker
of the House gave a “loud call to order” and declared “in vain that he endeavored to
confine gentlemen to order Almost every member who had spoken had transgressed in this
respect” (
Annals of
Congress
, 5th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1256–1257, 1260–1262).
The Kahnawake Mohawk tribe of the upper St. Lawrence River region
of Quebec was involved in an ongoing feud with Mohawk chief Joseph Brant over the
alleged sale of Kahnawake lands to the United States. Although Brant denied having
sold the land, by 1798 the controversy had escalated into a threat of war, and the
Kahnawake tried to enlist support among other northern tribes and the United States.
The Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 24 Feb.,
reported that two Kahnawake chiefs, along with five chiefs from other First Nation
tribes, were traveling to Philadelphia, via New York, to present their claims to
JA and Congress. Additionally, the group carried information about a
proposed “confederated Council” of tribes led by Brant, which to them “appeared to be
fraught with mischief against the United States.” Ultimately the trip proved futile
because they lacked evidence of their claims (Isabel Thompson Kelsay, Joseph Brant, 1743–1807: Man of Two Worlds, Syracuse, N.Y.,
1984, p. 178, 548, 551–552; Vergennes Gazette (Vt.), 25
Oct. 1798).
AA also wrote to Cranch the previous day commenting on William Cranch’s concerns over the financial trouble of Morris, Nicholson & Greenleaf and JA’s struggle to decide what to do with the recently deciphered dispatches from the U.S. envoys to France (MWA:Abigail Adams Letters).
th1798
A private opportunity offering by way of Hamburgh to write to you, I eagerly embrace it, and hope it may reach you safely notwithstanding the various Chances it may run.
your arrival at Berlin was made known to us from your Letters to
the secretary of state of Nov’br the 10th and 17th. no private Letter has yet been received, nor the publick
Letter which you mention having written from Hamburgh of October 30th— I rejoiced to
find that from the date of your Letter to the time when it was received, was but about
the same period of time, in which they have been accustomed to come tho now so distant.
you will be surprized to learn that your Letters from Berlin, were the first received
from any of our ministers, either from France England or Holland from the month of
sep’br. the Reason was that the Nov’br packet on Board of which were dispatches both from mr King and our Envoys in
France was captured by the French.1 the
concequence was that not a single line came to Hand from them untill the last of Feb’ry when the 449 dispatches poured in
from all quarters, those from our Envoys, from october to Jan’ry 9th, and what is a little remarkable, they
arrived at Boston Baltimore N york and Philadelphia in the course of the same week
What measures will be adopted by congress in concequence of the
Hostile Disposition of France towards us, a short time will devolope. The frigates are
officerd and Congress have voted money to get them ready for Sea immediatly.2 I wish our Envoys were safely returnd, or at any
rate out of the French territory. I send you by this conveyance Newspapers and
pamphlets, by which you will learn something of the state of our affairs here. they will
become more determind and decissive. the film is falling from the Eyes of our Countrymen
and you know that they will do right in time. the Emissaries of France are Scatterd
through our Country, and they work all the Mischief in their Power. we have British
Scotch and Irish Renagadoes. they are however less subtle and less intrigueing than the
French. we are yet able to make a stand against their Principles and Practises. if many
Quixot expeditions had not already been undertaken by the French and succeeded, I should
not admit of their seriously thinking of invading England. I believe them desperate, and
I do not know Whether for the general benifit of Mankind, I we ought not to wish that the attempt might be made. they will find that they
have not Italians and Dutch Men to deal with. It is true that they will put the English
to great expence, and may distress them, but common danger will more firmly unite the
people.
Your arrival at Berlin was at an important Period. you have witnessd the funeral obsequies of one Monarck, and the assension of an other to the Throne, of whom it has been asserted, that the Great Frederic Said, “I shall Reign again in Him.”3 Frederic never saw a period of greater moment or Hazard than the Present. we have not fallen upon common times.
I find it much more difficult to write with cautious restraint, than with the freedom I have been accustomed to.
Tom Paine is again useing his weapons, but they have lost their Poison very much in this Country. he is perfectly well known and detested very generally.4
In our state of Massachusetts the people are bold and firm. the
Boston papers speak more freely than any others. I send you the Centinal of March the
7th
5 The
President has this day signd Your 450 commission to the
Court of sweeden, and you will receive other dispatches by this conveyance—6
The Theatre in Boston in which you owned a share is burnt down by accident. finding what the situation of the Theatre was last winter, and that the proprieters were at constant expence, I advised dr Welch to dispose of yours, but he felt loth to do so without your particular orders. You have now shared the fate of others—7
I heard last week from Your sister She was well. her prospects are not however more favourable than they were. the col was returnd from his excursion to the Miami Country. I do not know what his plans are.
My Love to Mrs Adams. tell her she must write me an account of her
Journey, and of Berlin. I heard from her Mamma last week she was well and is very
anxious to hear from You. I wrote her immediatly upon the arrival of your Letters to the
secretary.8 By a Letter from mr King to
the secretary of state of 9th of Jan’ry he informs that you had been received by his Present Majesty, tho accreditted
to his Predecessor— you will however receive the commission a new
I rejoice in the event of your reception, as you will not feel so dissagreably situated.
our Friends are all well at Quincy Weymouth and Boston. I hope soon to hear from you my dear son. O! When shall I again see you? I write often to you but I do not know whether my Letters reach you. Your Brother Charles was well this week I fear he is not so attentive in writing as I wish
I send you Monroes Book & scipio. I am my dear son most affectionately / Your Mother
RC (Adams
Papers); endorsed by TBA: “Mrs: A
Adams / 17 March 1798 / 18 May Recd: / 30 Do Answd.”
This was likely the British packet, Countess of Leicester, Capt. Dodd, which sailed from Falmouth, England, to New
York on 21 Nov. 1797 and was captured by the French frigate L’Insurgente and taken to L’Orient. AA probably learned this
information from Rufus King’s 6 Jan. 1798 letter to Timothy Pickering (MHi:Pickering Papers) reporting the
capture of the packet and its contents (London Lloyd’s
List, 24 Nov. 1797; Philadelphia Gazette of the United
States, 5 March, 8 Nov. 1798).
On 8 March JA submitted to the Senate twenty
nominations of naval officers for the frigates Constellation,
Constitution, and United States; all but two were
approved the following day. On 16 March the House of Representatives passed “An Act
for an Additional Appropriation to Provide and Support a Naval Armament,” allowing an
additional $115,833 to complete the three frigates and $216,679 to staff them; the
Senate concurred on 21 March (U.S. Senate,
Exec. Jour.
, 5th Cong., 2d sess., p. 264–265;
U.S. Statutes at
Large
, 1:547;
Annals of Congress
, 5th Cong., 2d sess., p. 526,
1270).
Honoré Gabriel The Secret History of the Court
of Berlin, 2 vols., London, 1789, 2:220.
Thomas Paine’s Letter to the People of
France, and the French Armies, on the Event of the 18th Fructidor, N.Y., 1798,
Evans, No. 34292, defended the 4
Sept. 1797 coup as necessary, if not constitutional, and also claimed that the present
state of affairs in England assured a French victory over the British.
The Boston Columbian Centinel, 7
March 1798, printed a letter urging the United States to take “energetic measures”
against French attacks on American sovereignty, even at the cost of war, because “it
is in defence of our injured rights and laws” and “against a nation perfidious and
unprincipled; who thirsts for power as the tiger for blood.”
JQA had received a commission to renew the
Swedish-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce along with his commission as minister to
Prussia in June 1797; however, since JA never specifically nominated
JQA in the Senate for that purpose, he feared the commission would
expire when the session of Congress concluded. He therefore formally submitted the
nomination in a message to the Senate on 12 March 1798, which approved it in a 20-to-8
vote two days later (U.S. Senate, Exec. Jour.
, 5th Cong., 2d sess., p. 265, 266). An
original and Dupl of JQA’s commission to renew the treaty
with Sweden, dated 1 June 1797, as well as the 14 March 1798 commission are in the
Adams Papers.
On 2 Feb. a fire broke out in one of the dressing rooms of the
Federal Street Theatre in Boston. Within hours, “the intire inside … was totally
destroyed—nothing being left unconsumed but the brick walls.” The cause of the fire
was accidental, possibly the result of a servant’s failure to monitor the fires in the
dressing rooms. The theater would reopen in October (Boston
Gazette, 5 Feb.; Boston Columbian Centinel, 27
Oct.). For JQA’s share in the theater, see his letter to Thomas Welsh, 24 Jan., and note 2,
above.