Papers of John Adams, volume 20
Le tems peut sans doute avoir detruit le souvenir dont vous m’honoriez, lorsque les interêts del’Amérique vous appellerent dans differentes cours del’Europe, en quittant ces Provinces:1 mais quand la renomée ne m’auroit pas Sans cessé rappellé votre merite, et votre personne, il m’auroit suffit de penser à l’acceuil flateur dont vous m’avez honoré ici, et aux conversations intéressantes dont vous me faisiez part, pour Savoir apprécier tout l’avantage dont je jouissois.
Reçevez je vous prie, Monsieur, mon compliment Sincere Sur la 25 justice que vos compatriotes viennent de vous
rendre en vous nommant leur Vice-President; il etoit
naturel que le citoyen respectable qui avoit redigé leurs loix, veilla à leur exécution,
et cette nommination fait votre éloge & le leur en même tems.
Je profite du départ de Monsieur Théophile Cazenove de cette ville pour vous addresser la présente.2 Il va voyager en Amérique pour mieux la connaître, et certainement, s’il à l’honneur de vous connaître, il ne peut que gagner infiniment pour augmenter les lumieres qu’il a dejà acquises.
Je fais des voeux, Monsieur, très Sincere pour votre bonheur & votre conservation, ainsi que pour votre chere et respectable famille, qui doit être bien heureuse de vous posseder au Sein de la gloire et de la paix
J’ai l’honneur d être avec le plus parfait respect Monsieur le Vice-Président / Votre très humble & très obéissant / Serviteur
h.mandrillon
Des Académies de Philadelphie, de Haarlem &c—
TRANSLATION
Time may well have abolished the memory with which you used to honor me, once American interests called you to quit these provinces and travel to other European courts.1 However, even if your reputation had not constantly recalled to mind your merits and your person, it would have been sufficient to remember the gracious welcome that you honored me with here, and the interesting conversations you involved me in, to acknowledge all the benefits I enjoyed.
I pray you accept, sir, my sincere congratulations for the justice
your compatriots have lately rendered you in naming you their vice president; it was natural that the respectable citizen who drafted their
laws saw to their execution, and this election honors you and them at the same time.
I take advantage of the departure of Mr. Theophile Cazenove from this city to send you this letter.2 He travels to America in order to know it better, and certainly, if he has the honor to know you, he can only add endlessly increasing enlightenment to that which he has already acquired.
I express my heartfelt wishes, sir, for your happiness and your preservation, and for your dear and respectable family, who must be quite happy to hold you in the bosom of glory and peace.
I have the honor to be, with most perfect respect, Mr. Vice President, your most humble and most obedient servant
h.mandrillon
Of the Academy of Philadelphia, of Haarlem &c—
RC (Adams Papers).
Amsterdam bookseller Joseph Mandrillon (b. 1743), a Dutch
Patriot, was guillotined in Paris on 7 Jan. 1794 (Hoefer, Nouv. biog.
générale
).
Dutch land agent Théophile Cazenove (1740–1811) managed the
American financial operations of four prominent Dutch banking firms and dined with
JA on 30 June 1790 (
AFC
, 11:451; from
Alexander Hamilton, 23 June 1790, below).
President Willard having resigned the office of corresponding secretary to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, your goodness will pardon his successor, in diverting your attention, for a moment, from more important objects, while I request a favor, with which the honor of the society may be connected.1
At our last meeting, & upon the recommendation of Mr. Gardoqui, through General Knox, the Duke de Almodavar,
& the Marquis de Santa Cruz, two Spanish noblemen, were elected fellows.2 Not knowing the place of their Lordships’
residence, & being totally unacquainted with the forms of addressing Spanish
nobility, I have taken the liberty of troubling your Excellency with the certificates of
their election, accompanied with official letters undirected. Permit me, therefore, to
request the favor of your adding, or of your asking the Spanish minister to add, the
proper superscriptions; directing each of the letters to the nobleman, named in the
certificate inclosed under the same cover. The certificates, & letters thus
directed, Mr. Gardoqui, I trust, will be so obliging, as to
address under cover, & forward to the respective noblemen.
Be pleased, sir, to accept my thanks for Mr. Croft’s letter to Mr. Pitt, which you were so
good, as to send me some time since;3
and, praying that your health, happiness, and extensive usefulness, may be long
continued, indulge me the honor of subscribing myself, with sentiments of profound
respect & sincerest esteem, / Sir, / Your Excellency’s / much obliged & very
humble servant
RC (Adams Papers).
Joseph Willard acted as corresponding secretary of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences from 1780 to 1789. He was succeeded by Pearson, who held
the post until 1802 (Mark G. Spencer, ed., The Bloomsbury
Encyclopedia of the American Enlightenment, 2 vols., London, 2015, 2:1103;
Sibley’s
Harvard Graduates
, 18:292).
The academy elected Spanish chargé d’affaires Don Diego de
Gardoqui; Pedro de Luxan y Silva, the Marquis de Almodóvar, former Spanish minister to
Great Britain; and José Joaquin de Bazán Silva y Sarmiento, Marqués de Santa Cruz
(1734–1802), director of the Spanish Royal Academy since 1776. The 62 founding members
of the academy were all Americans, but between 1785 and 1804, they selected 48
Europeans to join the ranks 27 (vols. 6:232, 17:19; Elogio del Excelentísimo Señor Marques de Santa Cruz, Madrid, 1802, p. 4; Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1:v,
xx–xxii [1783]; 2:165–166 [1804]).
Sir Herbert Croft, An Unfinished Letter
to the Right Honourable William Pitt Concerning the New Dictionary of English,
London, 1788.