Papers of John Adams, volume 18
I hear of a conveyance which allows me but a moment to write to you. I inclose a copy of a letter from mr̃ Lamb.1 I have written both to him & mr̃ Randall agreeable to what we had jointly thought best.2 the Courier de l’Europe gives us strange news of armies marching from the U.S. to take the posts from the English.3 I have received no public letters & not above one or two private ones from America since I had the pleasure of seeing you, so I am in the dark as to all these matters. I have only time left to address heaven with my good wishes for mr̃s Adams & miss Adams, & to assure you of the sincere esteem with which I have the honour to be Dear Sir / Your most obedt. / & most humble sert
RC and enclosure (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mr. Adams.”; endorsed: “Mr Jefferson 23. June / ansd. 3. July. 1786”; docketed by JQA: “T. Jefferson 23. June 1786.” For the enclosure, dated 6 June and filmed at that date, see note 1.
The enclosed copy, in William Short’s hand, is of John Lamb’s letter to Jefferson dated 6 June at Aranjuez, Spain. The enclosure’s date is presumably an inadvertence, for the letter is dated 5 June in Jefferson, Papers
, 9:610. For a second copy of this letter, not found, that Jefferson may have sent to JA, see Jefferson’s 9 July letter, below. In his letter, Lamb indicated that he was going to Alicante to await further instructions but that Paul R. Randall had left Madrid for Paris on 3 June.
The letters to Lamb and Randall are both dated 20 June (same, 9:667–668). Jefferson directed Lamb to immediately sail for New York and there report to Congress on the Algerian negotiations. Randall was instructed to set out for Paris and London to report to the commissioners. The instructions to Randall are confusing because Lamb indicated in his letter to Jefferson that Randall left Madrid for Paris on 3 June. Jefferson likely assumed that since Randall had not reached Paris by 20 June, he was still at Madrid, but see the commissioners’ letters to Randall and Lamb at [7 July], below.
The article in the Courier de l’Europe has not been found, but the inaccurate account also appeared in other London newspapers, including the London Chronicle of 10–13 June, which reported that “the Americans, being discontented, and stating as a ground of complaint, that some of the stipulations of the late treaty of peace, in regard to the cession of certain lands adjoining the lakes, had not been faithfully made by us, had taken up arms, and marched a body of troops, amounting to upwards of 7000 men, against the British out-posts of Canada.” The expedition reportedly was not the work of Congress, but rather of the state governments.
last night I received yours of the 16.— Mr Lamb has not written to me. Mr Randal I have expected every day, for a long time. but have nothing from him, but what you transmitted me.1 my opinion of what is best to be done, which you desire to know is, that Mr Lamb be desired to embark immediately for New York, and make his Report to Congress and render his Account, and that Mr Randal be desired to come to You first and then to me, unless you think it better for him to embark with Lamb. It would be imprudent in Us, as it appears to me to incurr any further Expence, by sending to Constantinople, or to Algiers, Tunis or Tripoli. it will be only So much Cash thrown away, and worse, because it will only increase our Embarrassments make Us and our Country ridiculous, and irritate the Appetite of those Barbarians already too greedy.— I have no News of the Clementine Captain Palmer.
The Sweedish Minister here, has never asked me any Question concerning the Island of St Bartholomew.— I Suspect there are not many confidential Communications made to him, from his Court; he has been here 20 or 30 Years and has married an English Lady, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.2 From these Circumstances he
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may be thought to be too well with the English. This is merely conjecture. Your Advice was the best that could be given.
The Kings Visit to Cherbourg will have a great Effect, upon a Nation whose Ruling Passion is a Love of their Sovereign, and the Harbour may and will be of Importance.— But the Expectation of an Invasion will do more than a Real one.
Mrs Adams and M rs Smith, have taken a Tour to Portsmouth We took Paines Hill in our Way out, and Windsor, in our Return: but the Country in general disappointed Us.—3 from Guilford to Portsmouth is an immense Heath. We wished for your Company, which would have added greatly to the Pleasure of the Journey. Pray have you visited the Gardens in France? how do you find them? equal to the English?
with great Regard I am, dear sir your / Friend & humble sert
RC (DLC:Jefferson Papers); internal address: “Mr Jefferson.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 112.
JA presumably means that John Lamb had not written him any substantive account of his mission. The only extant letters from Lamb to date were those of 25 Oct. and 5 Nov. 1785; 24 Jan., 16 Feb., 7 March, and 8 March 1786 (all Adams Papers); and they concerned his expenditures at Paris, Madrid, or Barcelona. JA did not receive Lamb’s 20 May letter to the commissioners, above, until it arrived as an enclosure with Jefferson’s 9 July letter, below.
Baron Gustav Adam von Nolcken (1733–1812) served as Swedish envoy to Great Britain from 1764 to 1793, and in 1779 married an Englishwoman, Mary Roche (
Repertorium
, 3:409; Herman Hofberg, ed., Svenskt Biografiskt Handlexikon, 2 vols., Stockholm, 1906). In a 6 April 1786 letter to Mary Smith Cranch, AA described in some detail a party that she had attended the previous evening at the home of Baroness von Nolcken (
AFC
, 7:133).
JA provided a brief description of the tour in his diary entry for 26 June. He was particularly impressed with the landscape part at “Painshill” near Cobham, Surrey, calling it “the most striking Piece of Art, that I have yet seen” (JA, D&A
, 3:191). AA provided a more-detailed account of the trip in her 20 July letter to Lucy Cranch, particularly of Windsor Castle and its surroundings (
AFC
, 7:267–269). Like JA, she was “dissappointed in the appearence of the Country” between London and Portsmouth.