Papers of John Adams, volume 8
1780-02-25
Since my Letter of the twentieth, I have recieved another Letter from his Excellency the Comte de Vergennes dated the 24th. of February, to which I answered this Day; Copies of both Letters are inclosed.
I have also the Honour to inclose a Gazette, and an Application from M. Comyn of Marseilles to be a Consul for the Ports of Provence and Languedoc.1 I know nothing of this Gentleman, but what he says of himself.
By the inclosed Gazette, as well as by many others, Congress will see, of what wonderful Efficacy in pulling down Tyranny, a Committee of Correspondence is likely to be. Ireland have done great things by means of it. England is attempting great things with it, after the Example, of the Americans, who invented it, and first taught its Use: Yet all 366does not seem to produce the proper Gratitude in the Minds of the English towards their Benefactors. However the Glory of the Invention is as certainly ours, as that of Electrical Rods, Hadley's Quadrant, or Inoculation for the Small Pox.2
that were delivered him by Mr. W. Franklin.”; “Feby. 26th. 1780. This day delivered to Mr. A. Lee Triplicates of all the Letters to Congress—also a Triplicate of the Comte De Vergennes Letter of the 24th. of Feby. and the answer to it of the 25th. inclosed in the Triplicate of Number 9., and also a Number of private Letters”; and “Delivered to Mr. W. Franklin, Duplicates of all the Letters to Congress to be by him sent to Dr. Bancroft to carry to Nantes.” The Letterbook notation for 31 March was interlined between the last line of text and the notation for 26 Feb. JA wrote to Edward Bancroft on 26 Feb. (LbC, Adams Papers), requesting that, since Bancroft was reportedly leaving for Nantes on the following day, he take charge of the packet and, from there or some other port, send it by a safe conveyance to America. Lafayette reached Philadelphia on 15 May with the duplicates, and Lee on or about 16 Oct. with the triplicates. Nothing is known of the route taken by the packet containing the intended recipient's copy and its enclosures, but JA may have sent it with his letter of 25 Feb. to Joseph Gardoqui & Sons (above), who delayed forwarding it, with the result that it did not arrive until 16 Oct.
Neither Comyn's letter of
In the Letterbook this paragraph clearly was an afterthought. Written immediately below the formal closing, it was marked for insertion following the paragraph mentioning Comyn's application. JA refers, in addition to Franklin's lightning rods, to: the navigational quadrant named after its English inventor, John Hadley, but also invented, apparently independently and with some improvements, by Thomas Godfrey, a Philadelphian, in 1730; and to the pioneering work of Boston's Zabdiel Boylston, the first American physician to inoculate against smallpox, in 1721. As with Godfrey, Boylston's work followed that of English doctors by a few months, but was developed independently from African and Turkish practices. Boylston was JA's great-uncle (Raymond Phineas Stearns, Science in the British Colonies of America, Urbana, Ill., 1970, p. 514;
DAB
).