Papers of John Adams, volume 19
tr20
th1787
Your favor of July 14th with the pamphlet of letters addressed to Dr. Calkoen came to hand a few days since. Many thanks to you for that production. Your predictions of the consequences of the British successes in the Southern States have been so exactly realised as to fill me with admiration of that political sagacity which could so accurately foresee the connexions between causes & effects. It has been your lot to predict what was to happen & mine to relate the same events after they had happened.1
I have also to thank you for your defence of the American constitutions which has also been recieved. This work is universally admired in Carolina & I flatter myself it will be instrumental in diffusing right notions of government. I devoutly wish that the sentiments of it were engraven on the heart of every legislator in the United States. The letter to Mably at the end of it has suggested to me many useful hints on the subject of writing the history of the American revolution.
The high opinion I entertain of your abilities & information induces me to ask the favor of your sentiments on three or four periods of our history. 1. The rise & progress of the guerre de plume (as you call it) between 1761 & 1775.—2 What were the points in dispute? How were the arguments handled on both sides? Who the principal writers & what were their arguments & the influence of the whole on the public mind?
2 the Preedisposing causes & preeparatory steps to Independence. I beg leave to mention an anecdote I have heard of your self which is—that from the peace of Paris 1763 you both expected & wished for that event as unavoidable in the course of things & as highly beneficial to America. I wish to be enabled to trace the progress of Independence from its first conception in The mind of the enlightened few to its final ratification & to mark the causes which opened the
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public mind of America & preedisposed it to this great event. I also wish to know how the states stood affected towards it in July 1776. Who were for it—Who against it & the views & arguments on both sides. No man is more capable than yourself for this disquisition as being Pars magna
3 of the whole.
3 On the subject of our foreign affairs I wish to be informd of the particular reasons which Induced Congress to send ambassadors to the different courts of Europe & the history of their respective negotiations— I am particularly anxious to know every thing relative to the embassy to Holland but most of all of the negotiations which ended in a general peace, and of the gradual reconcilement of the public mind of Great-Britain to the acknowledgment of American Indepence.
As Dr Gordons work will be out before mine you will greatly oblige me by some general remarks on his performance.4 If you will be so good as to point out any omissions errors or mistatements in his history I will be enabled to avoid them. On these or on any subject connected with the history of the American revolution I shall recieve your communications with the greatest gratitude. I have finished my work to the close of 1781. The first Volume is transcribed & has been for some months in the hands of some of our best informed citizens for their remarks.5 I wish not to be in a hurry but to collect information from all quarters. I assure you there is no one person from whom I would expect more than yourself nor one to whom I would more willingly subject my manuscript for perusal if circumstances permitted. Your information & remarks by way of letter will be ever esteemed as one of the greatest of favors. With the most exalted sentiments of respect & esteem I am your most obedient & very / humble servant
P. S in your letters to Dr. Calkoen page 7. you say “I could describe all the sources all the grounds springs principles & motives to Toryism through the continent”6 On this subject I have often reflected & mean to treat it at some length. Your observations on it would confer on me a favor for which no words are sufficient to express my gratitude.
It will obviously occur that I do not wish to request your taking any trouble in communicating any information 1 can readily get elsewhere. What I particularly wish for is general observations which are not obvious & not to be found [. . .] accessible books or manuscripts.
RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “Hon: John Ada[. . .] / Minister Plenipoten[. . .] / United States to [. . . .] / Lon[. . .]”; notation by CFA: “D. Ramsay. / Septr 20. 1787.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed and due to a mutilated manuscript.
JA’s letter has not been found, but he enclosed a copy of his Twenty-six Letters, Upon Interesting Subjects, Respecting the Revolution of America, London, 1786. Ramsay referred to JA’s tenth letter, in which JA outlined Britain’s unsuccessful southern strategy during the Revolutionary War (vol. 10:196–252, 228–229).
For JA’s allusion to the “Controversy upon Paper” that dominated colonial politics, see vol. 14:172–180.
A large part.
William Gordon, History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America, London, 1788.
Seeking to refine his two-volume work, which would be published in 1789 as The History of the American Revolution, Ramsay sent a draft of the manuscript to Charles Thomson for distribution (vol. 18:157; Robert L. Brunhouse, ed., “David Ramsay, 1749–1815: Selections from His Writings,” Amer. Philos. Soc., Trans.
, new ser., 55:105–108 [1965]).
Vol. 10:204.
This is the last known letter between JA and Ramsay.
Monsieur trumbull ma fait remettre monsieur, la lettre dont la charge votre excellence.1 jai été bien faché de n’etre pas chez moi lors qu’il sest donné la peine d’ÿ passer, mais jvai certainement le chercher, et lui rendre tous les soins que je dois a votre recommendation monsieur, aus vertus de son respectable pere et a ses propres talens. je vous prie d’etre persuade quil ne tiendra pas a moi quil ne reanime dans les vues qui l’ont amméné en france.
Jespere etre en angleterre Vers le douze du mois prochain, et je me fais d’avance un vrai plaisir de renouveller votre connoissance, et de vous rappeller les momens que nous avons passés ensemble sur le meme vaisseau. je seroi tres heureus si le sejour de londres, me procure de nouvelles occassions de vous confirmere du tres sincere at. tachement et de la tres hautte consideration avec la quelle jai l’honneur detre monsieur votre tres humble et tres obeissant serviteur,
Mr. Trumbull has delivered to me, sir, the letter given to him by your excellency.1 I was quite dismayed to not have been home when he made the effort to stop by, but I will certainly seek him out and give him all of the attentions owed to your recommendation, sir, to the virtues of his esteemed father and to his talents. I beg you be persuaded that, should he 159 not rekindle his views which led him to France, it shall not be for my lack of trying.
I hope to be in England around the twelfth of next month, and I am already delighting in the prospect of renewing our acquaintance and in reminding you of the moments we spent together on the same ship. I will be very happy if my stay in London procures me new opportunities to confirm to you the very sincere attachment and the very high esteem with which I have the honor to be, sir, your most humble and most obedient servant
RC (Adams Papers).
JA’s letter of introduction for the soldier and artist John Trumbull, who was staying with Thomas Jefferson in Paris, has not been found. This letter is JA’s last known correspondence with La Luzerne, who met JA and JQA in 1779 when they sailed from Lorient to Boston aboard La Sensible.
AA2 wrote to JQA in early Feb. 1788 of La Luzerne’s arrival in London and his secret marriage to Angran d’Alleray; the French minister died in 1791 (vol. 18:378–379;
AFC
, 6:129; 8:230, 231).