Papers of John Adams, volume 18

To John Adams from Charles Storer, 19 August 1786 Storer, Charles Adams, John

From Charles Storer

Dear sir, Boston. 19th. August. 1786.

Excuse me if I only enclose letters to your family—1 I have not wherewithal to gratify you in the News way, as our brightest prospects are but gloomy—and I know you have enough to vex you where you are— I mentioned to Mrs: Adams a County Convention forming here in the County of Bristol— They have called upon almost every other County to join them— Worcester however has given them a positive denial & utterly disapproves their Conduct— This I hope will have weight—2

In my last I troubled you with particulars respecting our Eastern boundaries— All here depend upon your opinion on the subject—and I hope you will not be of the opinion with our Lt: Governor, who says—“pho! pho! don’t let us make any disturbance— let us give up this disputed Country— It is not worth quarrelling about”— This tract of Country, however, is from 15. to 20. miles on the Bay of Passamaquoddy, and stretching it to the sources of the two disputed Rivers includes some hundreds of miles— You will judge if this should be given up so tamely—3

I have the pleasure to inform you of your family’s being in usual health— Your Son Thomas is to be examined at Cambridge the next week—4 John & Charles have been […] resident there—

If I can get any Newspapers will enclose them to you—and have only to add that I am with great esteem & respect, dr: sir, / Yr: much oblig’d / humle: servt:

Chas: Storer. 430

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “John Adams Esquire.”; endorsed by WSS: “August 19. 1786. / Charles Storer—” Some loss of text where the seal was removed.

These letters cannot be positively identified because there were apparently no replies, but they presumably included Storer’s letters to AA2 of 8 Aug. and to AA of 15 Aug. ( AFC , 7:311–312, 321–322).

Storer’s 15 Aug. letter to AA reported the calling of county conventions to seek redress for numerous outstanding grievances. There Storer expressed considerably more anxiety over the outcome of such assemblies than he did in his letter to JA. “The devil I am afraid,” Storer wrote, “has got in among us, and I dread his soon throwing us into a state of anarchy and confusion.” Storer’s comments are important because when his letters arrived in mid-October—possibly with the newspapers mentioned in this letter’s final paragraph—they constituted the first news received by the Adamses about the unrest that evolved into Shays’ Rebellion.

That Storer’s letters arrived in mid-October is indicated by a passage in AA’s Dft of her 15 Oct. letter to her sister Elizabeth Smith Shaw that was left out of the letter as sent (same, 7:374–375). AA wrote that “those who read our publick papers, more particularly some of the instructions to the Representitives and the county conventions will be led to think that our Liberty is become licentiousness. Publick principal and publick ends cannot be promoted by these illegal assemblies.”

Significantly, she did not refer to Storer’s reference in his letter to her that the protesters hoped to “shut up the Courts of Common Pleas.” The closing of the courts would have been even more disturbing to AA and JA than the calling of the conventions, but the first court closing occurred on 24 Aug. at Northampton, Mass., and thus would not have been mentioned in any newspapers received with Storer’s 19 Aug. letter. There are no extant replies by either JA or AA to Storer’s letters. Indeed, neither of them wrote to anyone about the disorders in Massachusetts until late November, after AA saw an account of the Hampshire convention in a London newspaper (same, 7:395), and JA received letters from Rufus King of 3 Oct., below, and John Jay of 4 Oct. (Adams Papers). For the progress of the revolt see the letters, none of which reached London until early 1787, from Storer of 16 and 26 Sept. 1786, Richard Cranch of 3 Oct., and James Warren of 22 Oct., all below.

For Storer’s interest in lands along the Passamaquoddy Bay in Maine, see his 21 July letter, above.

TBA and Rev. John Shaw, his uncle and tutor, journeyed to Cambridge on 21 August. He was examined on the morning of the 22d and admitted to Harvard that day (JQA, Diary , 2:81).

To John Adams from Thomas Jefferson, 27 August 1786 Jefferson, Thomas Adams, John

From Thomas Jefferson

Dear Sir Paris Aug. 27. 1786.

Your favour of July 31. was lately delivered me. the papers inform me you are at the Hague, and, incertain what stay you may make there, I send this by mr̃ Voss who is returning to London by the way of Amsterdam. I inclose you the last letters from mr̃ Barclay & mr̃ Carmichael,1 by which we may hope our peace with Marocco is signed, thanks to the good offices of a nation which is honest, if it is not wise. this event with the naval cruises of Portugal will I hope quiet the Atlantic for us. I am informed by authority to be depended on, that insurance is made at Lorient, on American vessels sailing under their own flag, against every event, at the price usually paid for risks of the sea alone. still however the most important of our marts, the Mediterranean, is shut. I wrote you a proposition to 431 accept mr̃ Barclay’s offer of going to Algiers. I have no hope of it’s making peace; but it may add to our information, abate the ardor of those pyrates against us, and shut the mouths of those who might impute our success at Marocco & failure at Algiers to a judicious appointment to the one place & an injudicious one at the other. let me hear from you as soon as possible on this, & if you accede to it send me all the necessary papers ready signed. I inclose you the article “Etats Unis” of one of the volumes of the Encyclopedie, lately published. the author, M. de Meusnier,2 was introduced to me by the D. de la Rochefoucault. he asked of me information on the subject of our states, & left with me a number of queries to answer. knowing the importance of setting to rights a book so universally diffused & which will go down to late ages, I answered his queries as fully as I was able, went into a great many calculations for him, and offered to give further explanations where necessary. he then put his work into my hands. I read it, and was led by that into a still greater number of details by way of correcting what he had at first written, which was indeed a mass of errors & misconceptions from beginning to end. I returned him his work & my details; but he did not communicate it to me after he had corrected it. it has therefore come out with many errors which I would have advised him to correct, & the rather as he was very well disposed. he has still left in a great deal of the Abbé Raynal, that is to say a great deal of falsehood, and he has stated other things on bad information. I am sorry I had not another correction of it. he has paid me for my trouble, in the true coin of his country, most unmerciful compliment. this, with his other errors I should surely have struck out had he sent me the work, as I expected, before it went to the press. I find in fact that he is happiest of whom the world sais least, good or bad.— I think if I had had a little more warning, my desire to see Holland, as well as to meet again mr̃s Adams & yourself, would have tempted me to take a flying trip there. I wish you may be tempted to take Paris in your return. you will find many very happy to see you here, & none more so than, Dear Sir, your friend and servant

Th: Jefferson

RC and enclosures (Adams Papers); internal address: “H. E. mr̃ Adams.”

These are Thomas Barclay’s 16 July letter to the commissioners, above, and William Carmichael’s 17 Aug. letter to Jefferson (Jefferson, Papers , 10:265–267). The copy of the Carmichael letter is at its date in the Adams Papers.

For Jefferson’s exchanges with Jean Nicolas Démeunier, author of the article on the United States in the second volume of the section entitled Economie Politique et Diplomatique of the Encyclopédie Méthodique (Paris, 1784–1788), see Jefferson, Papers , 10:3–64.