Papers of John Adams, volume 20
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.
I am honoured with yours of the 5th.
instant I thank you for your kind & polite Offers of Hospitality. Experience has
convinced me of your Friendship on this Head—
I find from the Reflexions occasioned by the just Observations in
your Letter that I have expected too much & am therefore not entitled to the Right
of complaining under Dissappointment. Tho’ placed in a new Situation, we are the same
People & are playing something of the old Game tho’ we have changed our Pack—
Allons—jouez bien votre Cartes— I am only a Stander-by & will patiently wait the
Event: For, after all the grave Calculations of the gravest Politicians (among whom by
the By I do not rank myself) Success in the Eyes of most Men stamps a substantial Value
upon Measures— We were however very near losing our Liberty in the first Stages of the
War by temporary military Expedients, under a Fear that a well organized & permanent
Army might turn out dangerous to it. I wish we may not bring it again into Jeopardy by
the same Fears excited by different Objects. But the Transactions of many Years past
have made me somewhat of a Predestinarian in Politicks I therefore, judging of the
future by what has past, I rest firmly convinced that all will
end well.
I am happy to find by your Letter that you are likely to be settled
so, as I presume, to have your Family with you. This Satisfaction of mine is on your own
Account, for as a Pennsilvanian I do not desire you to be so comfortably settled where
you are as not to be convinced that you could do better where all Pennsilvanians wish
you— Wherever you are be assured of the sincere & respectful Esteem with which / I
am your obedt Servant—
P.S. The Sentiments of Montesquieu on the Subject you mention have indeed been miserably construed. He was a great & sensible Man but has in many Passages of his Works rendered his Meaning obscure by a Habit of too much condensing his Ideas so as to avoid Prolixity. He is a Kind of Bible for Politicians & it fares with his as it 28 does with the good Book—every one finds a Text to suit his own Purposes. If indeed the Text does not exactly fit, convenient Interpretations must do the Business.
RC (MHi:Adams-Hull Coll.); addressed: “His Excellency / John Adams / V President of the United States / New York”; internal address: “His Excy John Adams—”; endorsed: “Richard Peters. / June 15.”; notation by CFA: “1789.”