Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 6 December 1800
Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams
Philadelphia 6th: December 1800.
Dear Brother
Since the date of my last I have received several numbers in continuation of the series, which you have been kind enough to address me, giving so ample & instructive details of your excursion to Silesia. The last number which came to hand was No 1. and I had a few days before received No 14, which is the highest; but three intermediate numbers, viz: Nos 7. 11 & 12 are yet wanting to complete the list & supply the chasm in the narrative.1 These, or some of them, I am fearful have been lost, as we have heard of the capture & recapture, first by the french, then by the british of the Ship Sally bound from Hamburg to this port, on board of whom it is highly probable they were.2 I have likewise to acknowledge the receipt of the pamphlet in the German language, which you sent me by quadruplicate, together with the translation, preface &ca: It came to hand in the morning of the day on which I sat out to accompany my mother, from this place, to the City of Washington, and I had time, sufficient only, to put it into the hands of a printer, with directions & proposals for him to publish it, as soon as he conveniently could. He promised, and would have been true to his word, to make it appear in ten days, but for the negligence & sloth of the person who undertook to correct the press for him. I hope by the first direct opportunity to send you the number of copies you ask; mean time I enclose the annunciation made of the work, written by Joseph Dennie Esqr:.3
I have promised to furnish Dennie with copious extracts from your Silesian tour for his “port folio,” a literary Magazine, which he is about to publish here. There is much valuable & much interesting matter in those letters, which is related in a style, that would grace the first journals in our language, and I feel proud, that you have furnished me the means of bestowing them upon our Countrymen. The translation of Juvenal’s 13th: Satire is a choice morsel, which will find a place in the same vehicle.4
You cannot hear by this opportunity, the result of the great election, which took place on the 3d: instt: The returns from NewJersey & this State are already known. Adams & Pinckney have all the votes of the former, and seven votes each here, as you may see by the enclosed list. Calculations give 73 federal votes & 65 Anti-federal, but the prevailing politics & complection of the Legislature of South Carolina, is not known with precision. If the Electors there vote for both the federal Candidates unanimously, that ticket will prevail; if they vote for Pinckney & Jefferson, Pinckney will stand first, supposing all New England to vote “fairly & honorably”; as it is called; the apprehension is however, that mutual distrust between the North & the South will induce some gentlemen to with hold their votes from each of the federal Candidates, whereby the choice of both may be endangered; perhaps lost.5
The foregoing is all the information I can give you now, we shall soon be possessed of authentic documents on this subject; when you shall be informed of the result.
I passed a week at the City of Washington when I went down with my Mother. The President occupies the palace built for the accommodation of the chief magistrate, though it is not yet finished. The City has increased rapidly since I was there, and begins to assume somewhat the appearance of an inhabited region; much wood, stubble & stumps, however, still standing. The members of Congress are a good deal discomfited by the removal & good accommodations are scarce—they will weather a short Session, not without groanings & execration.
Your Louisa’s family were all in health except Caroline, who was seized with a fever a few days before my arrival, which confined her to the bed all the time I stayed, and to her chamber ever since. I heard yesterday from Mr: Rogers who left the City three or four days since, that Caroline’s disorder had taken a favorable turn, and that she is now quite out of danger; and I rejoice that I have it in my power to send such comfortable tidings to your wife. I have to thank her for a few lines, which she wrote me on the 5th: of July, and I intend to do it soon by direct means—6 The little package she recommended to my care, came safe & was delivered by the Secy of State.
I have a sorrowful event to announce to you in concluding my letter. We have lost our Brother at New York. He expired after a lingering illness, on Sunday last, the 1st: instt: at the house of our Sister Smith.7 May you be prepared to meet this mournful intelligence with resignation & composure. We have long been looking for the catastrophe, which it was not in human power to avert. Let silence reign forever over his tomb.
I am, with tenderest affection / Your Brother
T. B ADAMS:
RC and enclosure (Adams Papers); internal address: “J Q Adams. Esqr:”; endorsed: “22. T. B. Adams. 6. Decr: 1800. / 4. Feby: 1801. recd: / 7. Do: Ansd:.”
1. JQA’s letters to TBA from Silesia numbered 1, 7, 11, 12, and 14 were dated 20 July and 6, 16, 20, 27 Aug., respectively. For all of those letters, see A Tour of Silesia, 20 July 1800 – 17 March 1801, No. I; No. III, note 7; No. VI; and No. VII, and note 10, all above.
2. The ship Sally, Capt. Daniel McPherson, sailed from Hamburg for Philadelphia on 21 Aug. 1800. On 13 Sept. it was seized by the French frigate La Franchise, Capt. P. Jurien de La Gravière. The two vessels were dispatched to Bordeaux, but en route the Sally was separated from La Franchise and captured by the British privateer Phoenix, Capt. Daniel Hammon, who subsequently libeled the vessel for salvage at Jersey (, p. 316–317).
3. On 15 June Friedrich von Gentz sent JQA four copies of his comparative study of the American and French Revolutions as printed in the Berlin Historisches Journal, 2:1–96, 98–140 (May, June 1800). Gentz’s work characterized the American Revolution as a natural and systematic transition and the French Revolution as a violent and disordered one. Already familiar with the study, JQA praised Gentz for the “honorable manner in which you have born testimony to the purity of principle upon which the revolution of my country was founded” and reported that he would take “much satisfaction in transmitting & making known the treatise to persons in the United States.” JQA translated the work by 28 June, though none of the four German-language copies or JQA’s translation and preface have been found. TBA delivered the translation to Asbury Dickins (1780–1861), a bookseller and stationer at 25 North Second Street in Philadelphia, who published it without reference to JQA as the translator on 23 Dec. as Gentz, Origin and Principles of the American Revolution. The “annunciation” referred to by TBA described the work as “no ordinary pamphlet, but that it will demand and deserve the attention of the American politician and philosopher.” It appeared first in the Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 19 Nov., but TBA enclosed with this letter a column of the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 6 Dec., which reprinted it (Gentz to JQA, 15 June, Adams Papers; JQA to Gentz, 16 June, LbC, APM Reel 134; D/JQA/24, APM Reel 27; , p. 456; William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., 1979–1996; , 1800, p. 41, No. 38549; Philadelphia Gazette, 23 Dec.). See also TBA to JQA, 15 Jan. 1801, and note 2, below.
4. In a five-page Prospectus of a New Weekly Paper, [Phila., 1800], No. 49059, Joseph Dennie Jr. outlined his goal for the Port Folio: “to combine literature with politics” for “men of affluence, men of liberality, and men of letters.” The weekly journal was available by subscription only at a cost of $5 annually. It was first published in 1801 by Dennie and Dickins in partnership and continued successfully under Dennie’s editorial direction until his death in 1812 and thereafter in various forms until the mid-1820s. The inaugural issue on 3 Jan. 1801 included the first of JQA’s letters on Silesia and also his translation of Juvenal’s thirteenth satire (; , p. 140).
5. On 3 Dec. 1800 presidential electors throughout the United States met in their respective states to cast their ballots. Months of electioneering meant the results were largely anticipated prior to being read in the Senate on 11 Feb. 1801, and unofficial results began circulating almost immediately after the election. The enclosure that TBA included from the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 6 Dec. 1800, carried an article that reported the Pennsylvania vote split, with 7 votes for JA and 8 for Thomas Jefferson. The previous day’s Philadelphia Gazette reported the votes for both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where JA and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney each received 7 votes. Ultimately, JA and Pinckney earned near unanimous support from the five New England states, New Jersey, and Delaware, while Jefferson and Aaron Burr claimed Georgia, Kentucky, New York, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The votes in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina split between the four candidates. While the outcomes for most states were predicted, South Carolina was the exception; the state’s 8 votes each for Jefferson and Burr proved decisive. The final electoral tally yielded JA 65 votes, Pinckney 64, John Jay 1, and Jefferson and Burr 73 votes each (, 32:2, 265–266, 318; , 1:434, 469–470, 471; , p. 741). For the breaking of the electoral deadlock, see AA to JA, 13 Feb. 1801, and note 2, below.
6. Not found. Abner Rogers was returning to Massachusetts after visiting Virginia (Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody to William Smith Shaw, 27 Dec. 1800, DLC:Shaw Family Papers).
7. CA died of “a dropsy of the breast” stemming from alcoholism on 30 Nov. under AA2’s care. The New-York Gazette, 1 Dec., reported that his funeral would take place at the house owned by WSS at 89 Broad Street in New York City at 4 p.m.: “On this occasion, regimental orders have been issued for the performance of military funeral honors.” The city’s fusiliers were ordered to assemble at Lovett’s Hotel at 2 p.m. to prepare to perform at the cemetery. Interment was in the burying ground of New York’s First Presbyterian Church (AA to Cotton Tufts, 15 Dec., below; Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 3 Dec.).