Papers of John Adams, volume 20
Quoique je puisse & doive être certain que Ve. Exce. a régulierement
connoissance de mes Dépeches à l’honble. Départment des Aff.
Etr., j’ai néanmoins cru devoir prendre la liberté de m’adresser directement à Elle,
pour Solliciter, Monsieur, votre Attention Spéciale à un Article dans celle du 14 au 23
de ce mois, & aux annexes, où il est question de l’honneur qui nous est fait par
l’Académie Américaine des Arts & des Sciences à Cambridge en Massachusetts, à Mr. le
Professr. Luzac & à moi; & par conséquent au
desir, bien naturel, que nous avons de Savoir à qui nous som̃es redevables d’avoir
été proposés pour cette faveur, afin de pouvoir Lui en témoigner notre juste
gratitude.1
Voilà, Dieu merci, la vraie liberté civile, la vraie Majesté, celle
du Peuple, hautement reconnue & établie par deux puissantes nations, capables de
donner le ton, l’une au nouveau monde, l’autre à l’ancien, plus que jamais dignes amies
l’une de l’autre, faisant ensemble une masse de près de 30 millions d’humains:— un Roi
citoyen plus solidement puissant que tous ses Confreres: tous les autres trônes,
Gothiques, fondés sur d’antiques opinions & préjugés, ébranlés par l’abolition de la
Noblesse héréditaire & de l’hiérarchie en France, leur politique déroutée par le
Décret de renonciation à tout Esprit de conquête; frémissants, tremblants, ne sachants
quel parti prendre pour contenir les millions assujettis à leurs Dictatures.— Novus rerum nascitur ordo.— Et moi, septuagénaire, je verrai
encore une partie de tout cela, petit Diogene, seul & rencoigné dans le vaste
tonneau de l’hôtel Américain, ne desirant rien des Alexandres, sinon de ne pas
m’intercepter le Soleil par leur ombre.
Veuillez, Monsieur, pendant le reste de cette vie, m’honorer de vos
bonnes graces, agréer l’homage de mes respects pour Made.
Adams, le tribut de mes voeux pour votre constante prospérité & pour celle de vos
chers Enfans, & être persuadé du sincere respect avec lequel je suis pour toujours
Monsieur, De Votre Excellence, les très-humble & très-obéissant serviteur,
Though I may and should be certain that your excellency is regularly informed of my dispatches to the honorable Department of Foreign Affairs, I 399 nevertheless found it necessary to take the liberty to address myself directly to you to solicit, sir, your particular attention to an article in that of the 14th to 23rd of this month, and to the enclosures which touch upon the honor done to Professor Luzac and to me, by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Massachussetts; and consequently, to the very natural desire that we have to know to whom we are obliged to have been recommended for this favor, in order that we may express our proper gratitude.1
Here, thanks be to God, is real civil liberty, true majesty, the
people’s, highly commended and established by two powerful nations, capable of setting
the bar, one for the new world, the other for the old, more than ever worthy friends one
of the other, together making up a population of almost 30 million humans. A citizen
king more firmly powerful than all of his peers: all of the other thrones, Gothic ones,
founded upon ancient opinions and prejudices, undermined by the abolition of hereditary
nobility and hierarchy in France, their politics deterred by the decree renouncing all
spirit of conquest; quaking, trembling, not knowing what decision to make in order to
contain the millions subjected to their dictatorships. A new
order of things is born. And I, a septuagenarian, shall yet see a little part of
all this: little Diogenes, alone and crouched within the vast barrel of the Hôtel des
États-Unis, undesirous of anything from the Alexanders of the world, so long as they do
not block my sun with their shadow.
Would you be pleased, sir, for the remainder of this life, to honor me with your good graces, to accept the extension of my respects for Mrs. Adams, the tribute of my wishes for your steady prosperity and for that of your children, and to be persuaded of the sincere respect with which I am now and always, sir, your excellency’s most humble and most obedient servant
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “A Son Excellence Mr. Jn. Adams, Président du Senat en Congres des Et. un.”;
notation: “Pr.”
On 26 May 1789 Dumas and Jean Luzac were elected foreign members
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Blending personal and political news,
Dumas wrote nine letters to John Jay from 19 June to 2 Dec., and from 15 Nov. to 14
July 1790, he sent six more reports on foreign affairs to Thomas Jefferson (from Dumas, 13 June 1789, above;
Portland, Maine, Cumberland Gazette, 19 June;
Dipl. Corr.,
1783–1789
, 3:605–653; Jefferson, Papers
,
16:193–194, 265–266, 415–416, 442–443; 17:208–210; Nationaal Archief: Dumas Papers, Microfilm, Reel 3,
f. 1043–1045).
By some intelligencies lately from Europe, it is said that
Great-Britain is zealously endeavoring to repossess the Floridas; and I have no doubt of
the fact, because her interest is greatly concerned in the event, and in general she has
seen it better than any other Nation.1
Her frozen possessions to the North are not calculated for Caribean 400 supplies. West-florida is very much so; and the possession of the Navigation of the
Mississippi would secure an exclusive right to the advantages of the immense
agricultures of the west; and which would encrease by that event. The posts that Nation
keeps contrary to her engagements with America, is the link which is intended to connect
her power from the North to the South; and the Bourbon scheme, which aimed at deriving
abundance from a wilderness, is now reviving with the felling axe and hoe. If care is
not taken that enterprising and Commercial Nation will generate another Revolution in
America. Independence west of the Mountains would draw one half of the Eastern
Inhabitants. The result taken from the Union, and put in the scale of Great-Britain,
would greatly compensate her late losses. I take it for certain that an arrangement so
fatal will be defeated, by alarming the Spanish Nation with the formidability of such a
neighbor. To me it appears one of the most important objects that Nation has latterly
contemplated; And success will be equally productive of Wealth, power and revenge. As I
shall be very much obliged to you for your opinion upon this subject, and of the
detention of the Posts, I have taken the liberty of addressing this scrawl, being with
the highest respect & Esteem, / Sir, / Your Most Obt.
Servt.
P.S.
Mr. John Gibbons, in point of
character and ability, is qualified to be the Accountant in this state for the United
States.2
RC (Adams Papers).
At the Nootka Sound conflict’s peak, U.S. newspapers reported
that Vincente Manuel de Zéspedes y Velasco, Spanish royal governor of Florida, was
improving the military fortifications of St. Augustine with the expectation that
“England will make a bold push to regain those valuable provinces.” Although press
reports exaggerated several scenarios of possible European aggression, there was a
kernel of truth to some of the accounts. William Pitt, for example, met secretly with
Venezuelan revolutionary Francisco de Miranda to discuss the possibility of Britain’s
gaining control over Spain’s colonial possessions, including Cuba, Florida, and
portions of the Mississippi Valley (vol. 17:301; Pennsylvania Mercury, 6
July; New-York Packet, 8 July; Connecticut Courant, 12 July;
ANB
; William Ray
Manning, The Nootka Sound Controversy, Washington, D.C.,
1905, p. 412–414).
Savannah auctioneer John Gibbons (1758–1814), who was an auditor
of Georgia’s public accounts in 1782, did not earn a federal post (“Historical News
and Notices,” Journal of Southern History, 24:137 [Feb.
1958]; Charles C. Jones Jr., The History of Georgia, 2
vols., N.Y., 1883, 2:521; Thomas Gamble Jr., A History of the
City Government of Savannah, Ga., from 1790 to 1901, Savannah, Ga., 1900, p.
494).