Papers of John Adams, volume 10
1780-07-18
I have just received the Court Gazette with Clintons Proclamations.1
I would give any Thing I had time to write you, a whole sheet about Carolina.
The Party of Horse, that galloped out—what did they meet with? By the Return of killed, and Prisoners, it must have been the most obstinate and desperate defence that ever was made, or a barbarous and diabolical Massacre—take which you will, and what is the symptom to the British Govt.?2
What think you of “the small Rebel Parties, that still linger at a 12distance in the Province”?3 These small Parties will very soon be great Armies.
What think you, of those “wicked and desperate Men, who still endeavour to support, the flame of Rebellion, by authority derived from the late Legislature, and attempt by fines Imprisonments and even sanguinary Punishments, to compell the faithfull, to take Arms”?4
What think you of the cruel Exhortation to the disaffected, on the backs of the two Carolinas?
What think you of 210 Addresses out of 115 or 120 thousand white Inhabitants? When the names are concealed—and where there is known to have been near that Number banished, who have probably returnd with the Army from N. York and Savanna?5 When every Art, every Terror and every Allurement is known to be used upon those occasions to get subscribers?
I have from the Beginning of this dispute had constant Reason to honour the Sincerity the Honour the Spirit and Firmness, Bravery and Patriotism of south Carolina, as much without Exception as my own state in the Confederation.
But knowing their Embarrassment with Negroes, and their small Numbers of Militia, my Idea of that people has vastly increased by the Accounts from thence. There is hardly another state that would not have disclosed a larger Proportion of unworthy Men.
Britain! thou hast cast thy last die—Thou hast now made every Corner of the United states hostile to thee. Remember this in the day when Repentance comes.
The London Gazette of 8 July contained copies of an undated handbill issued by Gen. Henry Clinton immediately after the fall of Charleston, proclamations issued by Clinton on 22 May and 3 June, and an address reportedly signed by “210 of the Principal Inhabitants,” see also notes 3, 4, and 5.
The report to which JA apparently refers has not been found; it did not appear in the Gazette of 8 July.
This is an exact quotation from the handbill mentioned in note 1.
This is a paraphrase of a passage from Clinton's proclamation of 22 May, mentioned in note 1.
As printed in the Gazette and other London newspapers at the time, the address did not include the names of the signers. Not until 29 Aug. did the London Courant print the list of names, but see also Davies, ed., Docs. of the Amer. Rev.,
1770–1783
, 18:102–104.
1780-07-19
Paris, 19 July 1780. RC in John Thaxter's hand (PCC, No. 84, II, f. 201–206). printed: Wharton, ed., Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev.
, 3:867–869.
This let-13ter, read in Congress on 26 Dec., begins with brief reports from St. Petersburg and Copenhagen concerning preparations of the Russian, Danish, and Swedish navies to protect their merchant vessels under the terms of the armed neutrality. Adams then fulfilled the promise made in his letter of 15 July (No. 93, calendared, above) by providing the complete text of Catherine II's ordinance of 19 May establishing the duties and responsibilities of her subjects in maintaining a strict Russian neutrality in the midst of the Anglo-French naval war.
printed
Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev.
, 3:867–869.)