John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 17 January 1804
John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams
17. January 1804.
I inclose you together with the last sheet of the Journals of the House of Representatives, a Report from the Secretary of the Treasury, shewing the receipts and expenditures, upon the Seamen’s fund— You will see from this how much is collected in New-England, and how much expended elsewhere— Look particularly at the port of Norfolk.1
The Louisiana Government bill goes on prospering and to prosper—2 The project is first to tax them, then make a government for them, and at last admit them as a State or States, by Acts of Congress, without consulting at all the People of the United States, or the State Legislatures— And when I attempt to nip this project in the bud, the federalists charge me with wanting to admit the people of Louisiana, immediately to the participation of all our rights.— As to the Constitution, it has become ridiculous to appeal to it in these cases, for the majority have voted it out of doors.
I have at length succeeded in obtaining a final settlement of my accounts while abroad as Minister— But it has taken me three months continual harrassing at the public Offices before I could get through— After all the sifting they could make, they found the balance due to me amounted to about sixty dollars more than my own statement demanded, and they have paid me accordingly.3
Your’s.
RC (Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York); addressed: “Thomas B. Adams Esqr / Quincy / Massachusetts.”; internal address: “T. B. Adams Esqr.”; endorsed: “J Q Adams Esqr: / 17th: Jany 1804 / 5th: Do: Recd: / Do: answd:”; notation by JQA: “Free / John Quincy Adams. / S. U. S.”
1. Enclosures not found. Albert Gallatin issued an 11 Jan. report on U.S. revenue collected through customs duties and a tax on sailors’ pay to fund care for sick and disabled seamen. The report noted the collection of $64,887 in 31 New England ports from Sept. 1798 through June 1802, approximately 38 percent of the $172,190 collected nationwide. Spending in the port of Norfolk, Va., was $25,613, or about 23 percent of the $113,137 spent nationwide during the same period, an outlay attributed in part to the purchase of a building for use as a hospital (, 7:538–541).
2. For the Louisiana government bill, see JQA to TBA, 18 Feb. 1804, and note 1, below.
3. For JQA’s accounts with the United States, see his letter to AA of 1 Nov. 1801, and note 1, above.