Adams Family Correspondence, volume 14
d:Sept
r:1800
I inclose you the Aurora of this morning which is pretty
rich in contents. For some time past it has been too flat & insipid to
compensate the trouble of sending it to you. I observe that the pieces under
the signature of Decius are ascribed to H. G Otis— I have 402 read but a few of the numbers, but I
have no doubt the Author is clearly & rightly designated. The story he
tells in his No 15 of the Caucus, is not quite correct— Mr: O—— should have dared to avow, that all except one agreed, “as far as their advice
& influence would go,” to run Mr: Adams
& Mr: Pinckney, both
“fairly” as President, and that the one who differed from the rest discovered, that this fair
proposition was both artful & insidious, because all the Gentlemen upon
their return to their Constituents, “as far as their advice & influence
would go,” might endeavor to undermine Mr: Adams
for the purpose of promoting the choice of Mr:
Pinckney. This he must have foreseen & although the gentlemen professed
an intention of “supporting Mr. A—— fairly as
President,” he well knew that very few of them had any intention of doing
so; and the fact has since been amply verified— Mr: Dexter differed from all the rest of the federalists. Mr: D—— understood the party he was dealing
with.1
The Jacobins here, & in Virginia are very sanguine in
their expectations of success— They are very quiet & still about it, but
their activity & zeal is unabating. Corresponding Committees exist in
every State and information is regularly circulated from the extremities to
the center. The grand Committee is at New York. This is no visionary thing I
can assure you— They count upon Connecticutt or Rhode Island to give them
votes by withholding them from Mr. Adams.2 I rather think it is
Connecticutt. New Jersey & Maryland are yet doubtful, and some talk
revives of convening the new Legislature of this State for the purpose of
prescribing a mode of chusing Electors. If the complection of the
Legislature should be more democratic than the present, it will be
convened—otherwise I think not.
Why dont you find out who writes Chatham, Cato, Junius
Americanus &ca:
3 I should know if I were acquainted
with the Printer. There were three papers under the signature of Matius Scavola, giving an history of the Aurora
lately published in Wayne’s paper
Gazette—4 Did you read
them?
I am dear William / Your friend
PS. I sent your letter to Peters—6
RC (MWA:Adams Family Letters); addressed: “W. S.
Shaw Esqr: / Quincy”; endorsed: “Phila 23
Sept / T B. Adams Esqr / rec 29th / Ans
30.”; docketed: “1800 / Sept 23.”
The Philadelphia Aurora
General Advertiser, 23 Sept., included the third of ten
installments of a series by “A Constitutionalist,” identified by
TBA as Dr. Thomas Cooper. Published between 19 Sept.
and 13 Oct., the essays alleged that JA favored monarchies.
TBA also quoted from the 15th installment of Decius’
“Jeffersoniad,” which was published 403 in
the Boston Columbian Centinel, 13 Sept.
(
TBA
to AA, 5 Oct., below).
Aaron Burr visited New England in August and
September to mobilize support for the Democratic-Republican presidential
ticket. He met in Rhode Island with Gov. Arthur Fenner, who told Burr
that he expected some of the state’s electoral votes to go to Thomas
Jefferson (Isenberg,
Fallen Founder
, p. 204; Hamilton, Papers
, 25:59). For Burr’s
influence in the selection of electors in New York, see
TBA to
JQA, 11 May, and note 5, above.
The Boston Russell’s
Gazette published two six-part essay series that defended
JA’s presidency and criticized both the
Democratic-Republican Party and Hamiltonian Federalists. The Chatham
essays ran from 17 July to 6 Oct., and those by Cato appeared from 24
July to 15 September.
TBA authored three essays under the
pseudonym Mutius Scævola in the Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 1, 3, and 6 Sept., in which he
criticized the Philadelphia Aurora General
Advertiser as “the official governmental paper of the French
Republic.” The newspaper’s stance, TBA argued, traced back
to founder Benjamin Franklin Bache, who spent his youth in France with
his grandfather Benjamin Franklin and “saw his old—fond and amorous
Grand Sire, in the habit of caressing, and being caressed by the
seducing females of France.” TBA noted William Duane’s
foreign birth and denounced the “diabolical zeal” with which he edited
the Aurora. “I shall still cherish the
hope,” TBA concluded, “that there is yet left among us,
enough of virtue, honor, discernment and patriotism, to counteract the
evils disseminated by it; enough attachment to the federal government
and to those who administer it, to secure federal majorities at the
approaching election.” The essays were a response to an article in the
Aurora on 8 July entitled “British
Insolence and Tyranny,” in which the changes in JA’s
cabinet were criticized as an empty gesture having no effect on policy,
John Marshall was labeled a Hamiltonian Federalist, and Samuel Dexter
was said to have little regard for the U.S. Constitution. Caleb P. Wayne
(1776—1849) was the publisher of the Gazette of
the United States from 28 May 1800 to Nov. 1801 (
TBA to
AA, 3 Oct. 1800, below; Jefferson, Papers
, 38:406).
TBA also wrote to Shaw on 13 and 29 Sept. (MWA:Adams Family Letters), discussing essays by Junius Americanus, reporting rumors regarding Franco-American negotiations, and commenting on the forthcoming local elections. He also wrote on 15 Sept. (MHi:Misc. Bound Coll.), introducing Philadelphia lawyer Horace Binney, for whom see AA to TBA, 10 Oct., and note 14, below.
Not found.
d.3
d[
23] 1800.
Miss Palmer has given me hopes of your coming, & Mrs Smith to our Exhibition, & says, you say, you will be so good as to carry me home with her— We have a Ball the next night after Exhibition & I suppose my Boarders will not leave me till Friday— We have a charming harmonious family, & are as still, as could be supposed where there are so many Young ones— But if at this time You should see some confusion, I hope you would excuse it—
Your being present, may keep off many that might
otherways intrude, & I hope you will come whether I return with you,
or not— I fear as the Exhibition will not be till a month from tomorrow,
I shall not have the pleasure of seeing the
President, (I use no adjective because here, I am sure it would
lessen the Idea) before he leaves Quincy,
but he will have my fervent petitions to heaven, 404 that he may have “wisdom, as an
Angel of God,”2 to
conduct this [“]gainsaying generation”— My
dear Son I hope shall see— If he was in any other family, where moral &
religious Precepts, had not a double weight given them by Example, I
should feel more anxious to see him; knowing that these alone can make
us happy in prosperity, & avail in the day of sickness, &
adversity. I pray heaven to preserve him, & make him useful in
life—
When William & John came home I was very lame, it hurt me to go up Stairs exceedingly, & I did not look over their things at first— I have since found that William has some new half hankerchiefs—three new shirts— He had four half hankerchiefs when he went away, I should think by the marks you had made four new ones— I wish you would look & see, if he has not left some at home—pecies of check, & yellow striped I find, but none of nankeen, or of the silk coats— I find three new pocket han. a peice for them, which Lydia brought me, & I put them by, because they had poorer ones, & it is not best to have many about at once, they would lose, & stain them at this season—
Two young Gentleman by the name of Peabody, left us
yesterday to enter Colledge at Dartmouth—3 By their attentions, &
amiable manners they have endeared themselves to us, & we feel quite
sober now they are gone— Mr Peabody’s Nephew was a beautiful player upon
the flute—perhaps you will say this is incompatible with study, but
Alfred the Great, was extremely fond of the harp, & the lute— Yet
those instruments I acknowledge—are dangerous in the hands of youth— I
should have been very glad to have visted Quincy before Exhibition upon
some accounts, but as my boarders will leave me then, I can go easier
afterwords—for I have a young Lady that is a proper Mothers Girl, she calls me Mamma, &
cannot bear to think of my going, scarcely out, in an afternoon, &
if you can believe it, I have not been to Haverhill since last November—
I am sorry Miss Betsy did not take a line from you, I should have known
then better what arrangements were necessary— Mr N—— Peabody is our
assistant till Exhibition— I have not time now to write to my Sister—
believe me ever / your affectionate
Excuse the scrawl as Mr Peabody is going
immediately to Haverhill— I intended to have requested you to have seen,
if My William had not a pair of old black silk Stockings, that would do
for to make me a pair of mittens, & sent them by Miss Betsy— If he
has, I shall be much obliged if Mrs Smith would make them for me, &
bring 405 them when she comes—long ones if
you please—thats the ton I suppose—
Please to look if & see, if your Grandson William did not leave one of his cravats at Quincy—
RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “Mrs A Adams”; endorsed: “Mrs Peabody’s / Rect.”
Peabody first wrote “4” as the second numeral, then
rubbed off the ink and wrote “3d.”
2 Samuel, 14:20.
Augustus Peabody (1779–1850), of Andover, Mass., and
Samuel Peabody (1775–1859), of Boxford, Mass., were Rev. Stephen
Peabody’s nephew and cousin, respectively. Both graduated from Dartmouth
College in 1803, and both went on to practice law (Selim Hobart Peabody,
comp., and Charles Henry Pope, ed., Peabody
Genealogy, Boston, 1909, p. 20, 24, 25, 34, 37, 38, 59–60,
71).