Papers of John Adams, volume 20

Mercy Otis Warren to John Adams, 17 January 1791 Warren, Mercy Otis Adams, John

From Mercy Otis Warren

Sir. Plimouth Jan 17th 1791

An unsealed letter from you came to my hand this day.1 for the letter I thank you. as it contained expressions of regard & esteem which I have been used to receive from your pen. for the manner I own myself at a loss—

Dos not an unsealed letter from you sir appear like a diminution of that Confidential intercourse that long subsisted? and Conveyed warm from the heart the strong expressions of friendship in many a close sealed packet.

Was you sir apprehensive that your own reputation might suffer by an attention to any one of a family you had been used to hear spoken off with respect and affection by all? only, the public first inspected the Correspondence. Yet perhaps you might mean to do me honour by leting the world see your polite encomium on a late publication.

Indeed I feel myself flattered by the Compliment. & yet more by its being in the stile of my old friend.—

I acknowledge I stand indebted to the vice president for one letter before his of the 26 Decmber.—2

But You must permit me to say some expressions in that letter appeared so irreconcilable with former sentiment that I was impeled much against my inclination to consider it as forbiding any further interruption.—

Delicate friendship Confines as its own disinterested attachment is easily wounded.— I might perhaps feel too sensibly some former impressions that may hereafter be explained.— but I can never tax myself with a voluntary neglect of punctuallity: or the want of attention in any other instance towards friends I thought unimpressable by the Ebullitions [. . .] party or political malice.—

A Copy of the work you informed me you had just received I forwarded immediatly in publication. I knew not what should thus long have retarded its passage.

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Nor can I inform you sir from whom you received three other Volumes. but Could I have supposed as you obligingly intimate that you Could have disposd of so many with pleasure & advantage. they should have been much at your Service from the hand of the author.—

Mr Warren returns both friendly and respectful regards.— You will present me also to Mrs Adams.

I am Respected Sir with Sincere Esteem / Your most Obedit / Humble Servant

M Warr[en]

RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “Honble / Mr Adams / Vice president of the / United States”; endorsed: “Mrs Warren”; notation by CFA: “Jany 14th 1791.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed. Filmed at 14 Jan. 1791.

Of 26 Dec. 1790, above.

JA had previously written to Warren on 29 May 1789 (vol. 19:483–484).

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 20 January 1791 Jefferson, Thomas Adams, John

From Thomas Jefferson

Sir Philadelphia Jan. 20. 1791.

I have the honor to inclose you a letter from one of our captive citizens of Algiers, if I may judge from the superscription and from the letters from the same quarter which I have received myself. as these relate to a matter before your house, and contain some information we have not before had, I take the liberty of inclosing you copies of them.1

I have the honour to be with sentiments of the most profound respect & attachment sir / Your most obedient / & most humble servt.

Th: Jefferson

RC (DLC:Jefferson Papers); internal address: “The President of the Senate.”

For the plight of the American sailors seized and held in Algiers since 1785, see the indexes to vols. 17, 18, and 19. Jefferson tackled the question of their ongoing imprisonment early in his tenure as secretary of state, passing along advice to George Washington on 12 July 1790 that a show of force was needed to deter captures by Barbary corsairs. He renewed his proposal on 28 Dec., submitting a report to the president. Jefferson focused on the state of American trade in the Mediterranean, and the second offered an analysis of the Algerian captives’ ordeal. Jefferson outlined in detail the failed missions to liberate them, undertaken by John Lamb and members of the Mathurin order. He also raised questions about the constitutional powers in play, especially how the president and Congress might cooperate in order to set ransoms, pay tributes, and declare war. Finally, Jefferson cautioned that Americans needed to raise a fleet of their own: “Should the United States propose to vindicate their Commerce by Arms, they would, perhaps, think it prudent to possess a Force equal to the Whole of that which may be opposed to them. What that equal Force would be, will belong to another Department to say.”

Jefferson then sent this letter to JA, who laid it before the Senate with multiple enclosures on 21 Jan. 1791. He included copies of three letters written by one of the captives, Capt. Richard O’Bryen, from May to July 1790, that documented Lamb’s mismanagement of 464 the negotiations with Mohammad ibn Uthman, dey of Algiers. O’Bryen supplied intelligence on the size and scope of the Algerian fleet, recommending that the U.S. government “embrace every opportunity of trying for a Peace” in order to safeguard trade and to stabilize skyrocketing insurance rates. The Senate resolved on 1 Feb. 1791 that the president should “take such measures as he may think necessary for the redemption of the citizens of the U.S. now in captivity at Algiers,” although they capped the total expenses at $40,000. The president agreed on 22 Feb., promising to move forward “so soon as the monies necessary shall be appropriated by the legislature,” but no further steps were taken toward the Algerian captives’ emancipation until March 1792 (Jefferson, Papers , 18:403, 414, 428–429, 431–433, 437, 439, 443, 444–445).