Adams Family Correspondence, volume 13

Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 29 May 1798 Adams, Abigail Cranch, Mary Smith

Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch

my dear sister 29th May. 1798

I just write you a line to day, to tell you we are well, and to inclose Letters from my Family. we have not any thing new since I wrote you last, except a fine rain, which is truly a blessing for the Grass and Grain were in a suffering condition, and the dust so intollerable as to render riding very dissagreable. I am to drink tea on Board the Frigate United States this afternoon if the weather permits— on saturday the Captain hopes to go out—1 I was glad to see by the papers of yesterday that Captain Beals was arrived.2 I should have been sorry if he had lost his place on Board the Frigate.

I inclose to you a paper containing a number of addresses and answers.3 I think Russel might Enlarge his paper and take some of them in, that the knowledge of the prevailing spirit & sentiments might be diffused, especially as not a Jacobin paper publishes one of them, but an Insolent impudent thing of 14 or 15 Grenadeers with, a st domingo Captain at their head, has found its way into all these papers—4 but Russels paper is pretty much like what Peter says the Nyork papers have been of late, “not worth a Curse.”5 the Mercury might like to publish some of them.6

How does the Farm look says the President? oh that I could see it, and ramble over it— does not sister Cranch say a word about it? have you heard lately from Atkinson. Poor little Caroline has got the Ague & fever. Yours affecly

A Adams—

RC (MWA:Abigail Adams Letters); addressed: “Mrs Mary Cranch / Quincy.”

In late April and early May, Capt. John Barry had been at New York’s Governors Island testing guns for the frigate United States, docked at Philadelphia. Barry, for whom see vol. 4:4 and JA, Papers , 4:117, returned to Philadelphia with the guns on 19 May. The frigate was scheduled to depart the city on 31 May but did not do so until 10 June (Philadelphia Carey’s United States’ Recorder, 1 May; New York Argus, 22 May; New-York Gazette, 1 June; New York Daily Advertiser, 11 June).

News of Capt. Richard Copeland Beale’s arrival in Boston appeared in the Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 29 May.

The enclosure has not been found, but AA likely sent the Philadelphia Gazette of the United States of either 26 or 29 May. The 26 66 May issue included addresses to JA from Fayetteville, N.C.; Chester County, Penn.; and Fredericksburg, Va., as well as JA’s reply to the citizens of Upper Freehold, N.J. On 29 May the newspaper published the addresses from and the answers to Pottstown, Penn.; Berks County, Penn.; and the young men of Reading, Penn. ( Patriotic Addresses , p. 207–209, 225–227).

The address to JA of Capt. Bernard Magnien’s corps of grenadiers, for which see Francis Dana to AA, 27 May, and note 2, above, was widely published by Philadelphia’s Democratic-Republican press, including the Aurora General Advertiser, 16 May; Carey’s United States’ Recorder, 17 May; and the Universal Gazette, 24 May. The Federalist Gazette of the United States, 16 May, identified Magnien as “a foreigner from St. Domingo,” and Porcupine’s Gazette, 17 May, labeled the address “impudent and rascally” and claimed it deserved “to be published as a mark of Democratic infamy and of French influence.” The address was also printed in the Baltimore Federal Gazette, 18 May; the New York Journal, 19 May; and the Hartford, Conn., American Mercury, 24 May.

Philadelphia Porcupine’s Gazette, 21 May.

Both the Massachusetts Mercury and, more extensively, the Boston Columbian Centinel printed a number of addresses and replies over the next month; however, both newspapers primarily printed those from Massachusetts communities. See, for example, Massachusetts Mercury, 5, 15, and 22 June, and Boston Columbian Centinel, 2, 13, 16, 20, and 23 June.

Abigail Adams to William Smith, 29 May 1798 Adams, Abigail Smith, William

Abigail Adams to William Smith

Dear sir Philadelphia May 29th 1798

yours of May 18 received on saturday.1 the President says, he will be obliged to you to chuse him a good pipe of wine, and inform dr Tufts who will take measures to get it to Quincy; you may either forward the Bill of it here, or the person of whom you purchase may wait our comeing, which I hope will be in about a month from this time, I fear not sooner— we know not what a day may bring forth—

you will see, that the Bill for the more effectual protection of commerce, past on saturday, & yesterday received the Presidents signature a packet Boat was sent off with it, to Captain Dale, who went down on saturday to Newcastle.2 the st Albans it is reported captured the French Privateer which has infested our coast for several weeks She is come in to Nyork, and I believe most of the vessels have arrived Safe which came out with her— a dreadfull fate befell the Sloop of War, the Broak, Captain Drew, on fryday last. after she had got within the Cape, and was just about to cast Anchor, a suddon flow of wind, laid her down upon her beam ends. She immediatly filld, and went down with Captain Drew—his leiuetenant and 38 officers seamen and marines—the rest 23 in Number escaped in the long Boat. the Capt and officers were at dinner in the Cabbin.—3 this unfortunate event is most Sincerely lamented here. The President is in much anxiety to find a suitable Character for Secretary of Marine. I cannot parden mr Cabbot He should have acccepted, if only for a short Period. no body but himself that I can 67 learn, doubted his abilities. a mr Stodard of Maryland, has since been appointed.4 he too refuses—a very strong proof of dangerous Patronage, when Some of the first offices go a begging—but the half starved sallery which is given to Men whose labour, is not only of the utmost importance to the publick, but unwearied and incessent will not induce men who have families to provide for, to resign them to poverty and indigence. a southern Man will not most certainly but I must lay the charge where it justly belongs with respect to the failure of an increase of sallery for the officers of Government, and that is with the Northern Members— they now see that they have done wrong—but this perhaps is not the time to do right, as least it would be so urged—5

we have had some fine rains. I hope our state has shared in the same blessing. the Grain & Grass were Sufferng exceedingly from drought here.

I hope my Friends have not sufferd any great anxiety from the reports which have been circulated with some foundation. I do not apprehend danger at present the publick mind is all alive and awake here— we shall become the most federal state in the union— You may tell me, that none North of the Deleware had so much occasion to change— this I believe was true.

My kind Love to mrs Smith & Children, and to all other Friends— From Your ever affectionate / Friend

A Adams

RC (MHi:Smith-Townsend Family Papers); addressed by Samuel Bayard Malcom: “William Smith Esquire / Merchant / Boston”; endorsed: “Philaa. 29 May 98 / Mrs. Adams”; notation by JA: “J. Adams.”

Not found.

U.S. Navy captain Richard Dale (1756–1826) served under John Paul Jones during the Revolutionary War. After a decade as a merchant, he resumed naval service in 1794 when George Washington appointed him one of six founding captains of the U.S. Navy ( DAB ).

The Saint Albans, Capt. Francis Pender was a 64-gun British ship of the line traveling in convoy to New York. The ship captured the French privateer La Vengeance, which had seized the American commercial brig Betsey, and the French vessel was libeled for salvage in Halifax. The British sloop of war De Braak, Capt. James Drew (b. 1751) was lost off the coast of Lewes, Del., on 25 May 1798. While it was 33 sailors who survived, not 23 as AA reported, the captain and 46 others perished (Philadelphia Porcupine’s Gazette, 28 May; Williams, French Assault on American Shipping , p. 81; Donald G. Shomette, Shipwrecks, Sea Raiders, and Maritime Disasters along the Delmarva Coast, 1632–2004, Baltimore, 2007, p. 109, 110, 115–116).

After George Cabot refused the post, JA nominated Benjamin Stoddert to be secretary of the navy on 18 May. The Senate confirmed the appointment on 21 May, but Stoddert delayed his acceptance, telling a friend that he was worried about neglecting his business interests and reluctant to take on the demands of the office. He assumed his duties on 18 June. Stoddert (1751–1813), a Maryland merchant who served as secretary to the Board of War during the American Revolution, was also instrumental in acquiring land on behalf of the U.S. government for the nation’s capital (Harriot Stoddert Turner, “Memoirs of Benjamin Stoddert, First 68 Secretary of the United States Navy” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, 20:150–153 [1917]; DAB ).

In the act establishing the Department of the Navy, the secretary was granted a salary of $3,000 per year, the same amount as the secretary of war, as established in 1789. In Jan. 1797 Congress considered a proposal to raise the secretary of war’s compensation by $500 to match that of the secretary of state and secretary of the treasury, but it was rejected as unnecessary in a 51 to 39 vote that included the support of eight representatives from New England. Congress increased the salary to $4,500 in March 1799 ( U.S. Statutes at Large , 1:67, 554, 730; Annals of Congress , 4th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1987–1999, 2010–2011).