Papers of John Adams, volume 16

Jonathan Jackson to John Adams, 25 February 1785 Jackson, Jonathan Adams, John

From Jonathan Jackson

Dear Sir London 25th Feby 1785—

When I parted with you at Paris I flattered myself to have had the pleasure before this of seeing you here with Mrs Adams & your Family, but the hope of that is at an end while I remain in England, & I almost despair of any Good arising to our Country from the Gentn in our Commission coming here at all— such is the strange Blindness & Perversion of all ranks of People in this Country whom I meet or can hear the Sentiments of, & in an instance or two I feel 536 a Confidence of having obtained a knowledge of some of those who are high up in the Cabinet, that I begin to think the sooner we determine to treat them with perfect Slight if not with prohibition of Intercourse & absolute Exclusion from our Country, the sooner we shall convince them that we are not entirely useless to them, or what perhaps will answer as valuable a purpose convince ourselves we can do without them— Few expedients short of this, it appears to me will bring the People of this Kingdom to their Senses, & as the Experiment probably will deprive them of the peculiar advantages they might have derived from an early & liberal plan of Commerce & Intercourse with us, when brought to their Senses they will once more wonder how they could lose their Commerce with us, as before how they lost their Dominion over us—

“Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat”1 often occurs to my mind when I hear how stupidly even some sensible Men here talk upon the Subject of a Connection between them & America & the Inutility of any Convention for the purpose—

As I was upon the Spot here I have been wishing that such a Convention might have taken place while I remained, & that if any Regulations had been come into particularly affecting the Commerce of our part of America, by early Advice to my friends there & Arrangements there or here I might have provided against any ill Effects, or profited of any Advantages resulting from such Regulations— Should a Treaty with this Country soon take place or whenever it does, such early Communications as you could give me of any Regulations talked of or concluded upon that would or would probably affect the Commerce of N Engld particularly would be very obliging as they would be very usefull to me— in requesting this I mean to ask nothing beyond what you shall think consistent with the strictest propriety & delicacy on your part— but after any thing of this kind is communicable Advice of it by the packet or any other early Oppy if it reaches one a month or only a week earlier than to others the advantage sometimes may be considerable—

Your packets were all delivered to Capt Young’s bag— he has but lately gone— there is an Arrival this day from Boston Capt Deblois in the Medfd. 2 I have not learnt any thing new— in a week or two more Mr Tracy & I shall quit this place to make a few Excursions about the Country & cross to Ireland to embark from Cork for America which we hope to do by the middle of Aprl Any Commands of your’s meeting me there by that time, & they may be first directed here to the Care of Messrs Lane Son & Fraser, I shall with great pleasure 537 attend to— not hearing from your Son since our Departure from France I presume that he has given over thoughts of going to America this Spring at least by way of Ireland

You will please to present my most respectfull Compliments & Mr Tracy desires his may be added to Mrs. & Miss Adams & to your Son—

I remain with very great respect & esteem / Dear Sir / your freind & most obed Servt

Jona Jackson

PS— I have mentioned to Mr Storer the Oppy by Mr West3 that if he has received any Letters for you from Boston by the last Vessel he may forward them safely & without Expence— please to mention to Mr Adams that I have a late Letter from Miss A Quincy in which she enquires of Mrs Adams’ Health & her Family—

please to present my Compliments to Mr Jefferson & Colo Humphreys & you will oblige me to thank the latter Gentleman for his Poem I received by Dr Bancroft—4

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Honble Mr Adams / Paris”; endorsed: “Mr Jackson / 25. Feb. Ansd. 18. March / 1785.”

Those whom God wishes to destroy he first deprives of their senses.

Capt. John Young of the Hero reached Massachusetts in mid-April, but only JA’s 15 Dec. 1784 letter to Cotton Tufts, above, can be positively identified as having been carried by Young. It seems likely, however, that his letters of 12 Dec. to Elbridge Gerry and James Lovell, and of 13 Dec. to Samuel Osgood, Isaac Smith Sr., and Mercy Otis Warren, all above, also went by the Hero. Capt. William Deblois of the brigantine Medford left Boston in early Jan. 1785 ( AFC , 6:86; Boston Independent Chronicle, 6 Jan.).

Benjamin West, the artist, reached Paris on or about 18 March and delivered this letter from Jackson to JA, for which see JA’s reply of 18 March, and note 1, below.

Probably David Humphreys’ “A Poem, Addressed to the Armies of the United States of America,” New Haven, 1780; repr. Paris and London, 1785. Humphreys had presented a copy to JA on 27 Jan. (JQA, Diary , 1:217–218).

Abbé Gabriel Bonnot de Mably to John Adams, 25 February 1785 Mably, Abbé Gabriel Bonnot de Adams, John

From the Abbé de Mably

paris ce 25 fevrier 1785

je réponds bien tard, Monsieur, à la lettre que vous m’avez fait l’honneur de m’ecrire le 14 de ce mois; c’est que j’esperois de vous porter moi même ma réponse.1 je me suis flatté de cette douce esperance, mais de jour en jour la fortune à rompu nos projets. Tantot le temps a été trop détestable pour oser se mettre en route, et tantot Mrs les Abbes de Chalut, arnoux et moi nous avons été condamnes par quelque indisposition à garder la chambre. j’espere qu’à l’avenir nous serons moins contraries, mais je ne veux plus me confier à des esperances qui pourroient encore me tromper. rien n’est plus 538 glorieux pour Moi, Monsieur que l’invitation que vous avez la bonté de me faire. je ne balancerois point à entreprendre la Catéchisme moral et politique dont j’ai eu l’honneur de vous parler dans les lettres qui vous sont adressées; si je croyois que ce nouvel ouvrage fût de quelque utilité à votre pays, si le premier ne produit aucun fruit, le second auroit le même sort; et ce n’est pas la peine de travailler de chercher, d’arranger et de disposer des vérites qu’on ne voudra pas entendre. quand j’ai invité le Congrès cet ouvrage, je n’ai point prétendu que tous les membres de cet illustre Corps y travaillassent à la fois; c’est une chose tres impossible. mais j’aurois voulu qu’après avoir chargé un de ses membres de cette besoigne, il en eût fait l’examen, et après l’avoir approuvé l’eut fait paroitre sous son nom. c’est ainsi qu’en usent nos parlamens et les autres cours souveraines quand elles ordonnent des remontrances. vous conviendrez qu’une catéchisme fait et presenté de cette maniere au public, ouvroit un beaucoup plus grand poids, et produiroit sans doute un grand bien.2 je suis occupé actuellement à corriger un ancien ouvrage que je veux faire imprimer. je ne vous fatiguerai pas par un plus long griffonnage, et je me reserve le plaisir de vous parler de tout cela la première fois que j’aurai l’honneur de vous voir. j’attends ce moment avec impatience, et je vous prie d’agréer d’avance les assurances du tendre et respectueux attachement avec lequel j’ai l’honneur d’être, / Monsieur, / votre tres humble et tres / obeissant serviteur

Mably

TRANSLATION

Paris, 25 February 1785

I am responding quite late, sir, to the letter that you did me the honor of writing to me on the 14th of this month; it is because I was hoping to deliver my response to you myself.1 I deluded myself with this sweet hope, but day-by-day fate shattered our plans. Sometimes the weather was too wretched to venture setting out, and sometimes the Abbés Chalut, Arnoux, and I were compelled by some indisposition to keep to our rooms. I hope that in the future we will be less vexed, but I do not want to rely on hopes that could again betray me. Nothing is more glorious to me, sir, than the invitation that you were so good as to extend to me. I would not hesitate at all to undertake the moral and political catechism that I had the honor of telling you about in the letters that I addressed to you, if I believed that this new work would be of some use to your country. But if the first bears no fruit, the second would share the same fate, and it is not worth the trouble to find, arrange, and set out truths that people do not want to hear. 539 When I urged this project on Congress, I did not pretend that all the members of that illustrious body would take it up together; that is a completely impossible thing. But I would have liked it to charge one of its members with this task, to examine and approve the work, and to publish it under its own name. That is how our parliaments and other sovereign courts operate when they draft remonstrances. You would agree that a catechism drawn and presented to the public in this manner would have much greater weight and would no doubt produce great good.2 I am currently busy correcting an old work that I want to have printed. I will not fatigue you with more scribbling, and I am saving for myself the pleasure of speaking to you about all this the next time that I have the honor of seeing you. I await that moment impatiently, and I pray you to accept in advance my assurances of the tender and respectful attachment with which I have the honor of being, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant

Mably

RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “A Monsieur / Monsieur Adams, ministre plenipotentiaire / des Etats Unis d’Amerique. a Auteuil près / le Bois de Boulogne. / a Auteuil.”

Not found.

The absence of JA’s letter of 14 Feb. makes it impossible to know precisely what he proposed to Mably. But from Mably’s comments it appears that JA requested the French author to draft the moral and political catechism that Mably proposed in the third of the four letters addressed to JA that made up his Observations sur le gouvernement et les loix des États-Unis d’Amérique, p. 107–120. There he proposed that Congress issue such a guide to instruct the people on principles upon which their government was founded. It was necessary in order to counter the influence of the diverse religions and overly free press permitted in America, and was all the more necessary because of “how very inconsiderable is the number of individuals who are capable of thinking by themselves, and of discussing an opinion. The remainder forms a mass of children, without a single idea of their own, unaffected by any absurdity whatsoever” (Mably, Remarks Concerning the Government and the Laws of the United States of America, London, 1784, p. 147).

Even if Mably had agreed to draft the catechism, it is unlikely that he would have completed the task, for he died in April at the age of 76. Writing to John Trumbull on 28 April, JA noted that “my sage and amiable Friend the Abby de Mably, who has been sometime declining I am now told is no more” (LbC, APM Reel 107). In his Diary entry for 25 April, JQA wrote that “the Abbé de Mably is dead. He was very old; not less I think, than 78. Yet although it is probable, that had he lived many years longer, I should not have seen him, above once more, still I was much affected at the news, because he was not only a man of great genius, and learning, but was one of the best men in the world” (JQA, Diary , 1:255).