Papers of John Adams, volume 19
r.2. 1788
A multiplicity of avocations have prevented me, from answering your friendly Letter of the 2d of July, till I am almost ashamed to answer it, at all. Your Congratulations on my Arrival and kind Reception are very agreable because I know them to be Sincere. your Compliments upon my poor Volumes are consolatory, because they give me grounds to hope that they may have done Some good. it is an opinion here that they contributed Somewhat to restore a permanent Tranquility to this Commonwealth, as well as to Suppress the pestilent County Conventions, Insurrections and Rebellion. and if I could be flattered into the belief that they contributed to the formation or Ratification of a ballanced national Government for the United States I should Sing my Nunc Dimittis1 with much Pleasure.— if any one will Shew me, a Single Example, where the Laws were respected and Liberty, Property, Life or Character Secure, without a Ballance in the Constitution, I might venture to give up the Controversy. and if any one will Shew that there ever was a Ballance, or ever can be a ballance for three days together without three Branches and no more, I might also give up the Point.
I have heard nothing of the Second and third Volumes, in the southern or middle States and know not whether they have been read, or how received. for the third Volume I was most anxious as it was the boldest and freeest and most likely to be unpopular.
Whether Your Expectation that I shall be in the new Government, proceeds from your Partiality to your old Friend, or from your Knowledge of the Sentiments of the Nation, I know not. The Choice will be in the Breasts of Freemen, and if it falls upon me it will most certainly be a free Election.
You tell me, my Labours are only beginning.— Seven and twenty years have I laboured in this rugged Vineyard, and am now arrived at an Age when Man sighs for Repose.
My dear Mrs Adams is with her only Daughter at Long Island.2 We have three Sons, two at Colledge and one with an eminent Lawyer. They are regular in their manners and studies and give me so much Satisfaction as to increase the Regret I feel at the Remembrance of how much of their Interests I have been obliged to Sacrifice to the publick service.
With much Esteem and affection I / am Dear sir, your most obedient / humble servant
RC (NHi:Gilder Lehrman Coll., on deposit). FC (Adams Papers).
That is, he could sing his own elegy, like the “mournful swan” who sings “when death is nigh,” from John Dryden’s Dido to Aeneas, lines 1–2.
From 21 Nov. through late Jan. 1789, AA visited New York, where she assisted AA2 following the birth of John Adams Smith on 9 Nov. 1788. AA wrote several letters to JA reporting on local politics, socialized with John and Sarah Livingston Jay, and provided frequent updates on John Adams Smith and his older brother, William Steuben. “Mr Jay upon seeing william cry’d out well here is Grandpappa over again,” AA wrote (
AFC
, 8:320, 463).
r:2. 1788.
I have received your friendly Letter and am much obliged to you for your kind remembrance and felicitations. I also thank you for the Trouble you have taken in sending my Books to the gentlemen of whom I gave you a List.1 But I wish to be informed whether you sent the three Volumes or only the first. I directed Mr: Dilly, Bookseller in the Poultry, London to send fifty Copies of each of the three volumes. if he has not done it, there is some great mistake for I paid him for fifty Copies of each to be sent to Amsterdam. If you have received them I wish you to send a Copy of each to Mr: Dumas at the Hague, one compleat set also to Mr Nicholas Van Staphorst, another to his brother and Copartner, & another to Mr: Hobart who writes in their Compting House.
I am not without anxiety for the future Fortune of your republic, in the dangerous Combinations, Coalitions and Tergiversations of the cabinets of Europe. My own Country too as much as she wants Repose, and as interested as she is to be impartial, will not find it easy to do Justice, and give Satisfaction to all Parties. The Prospect we have of a new Government more provident and consistent than the former, is agreeable. The elections are falling on wise Men, and if our Friends will have Patience, with us, we shall not disappoint their just expectations; nor shall we do injustice to our Enemies.
Although all publick relations have ceased between us, I wish for the Pleasure of your private Correspondence, and if there is any thing in which I can be useful to you in this Country I pray you to mention it. My dear Mrs: Adams is at New York, with Col. Smith and his Lady: but I can take upon me to assure you of her best
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Respects to your good Ladies and yourselves. With great Esteem & Affection I have the Honor to be &c—
FC in JQA’s hand (Adams Papers); internal address:“Messrs: Willinks.” Filmed at 4 November.
On 26 May, the consortium reported to JA that it distributed copies of his
Defence of the Const.
and placed enough obligations to pay the July loan interest. Writing to JA again on 8 Dec. 1789, the consortium explained that it received copies of only the first and third volumes of the Defence, and that fifty copies of the second volume, which were shipped from London to Amsterdam, had been lost (both Adams Papers).