Thomas Boylston Adams to William Smith Shaw, 8 September 1799
Thomas Boylston Adams to William Smith Shaw
Germantown 8th: September 1799
Dear William.
I have your favor of the 31st: ulto: with an enclosure for R. Peters Junr: which shall be delivered as soon as an opportunity of sending it, presents— I have not yet found means to forward the last enclosure you made me—which is rather the effect of misfortune than neglect, though you doubtless will think I have no excuse for being nine weeks within 3 miles of the Bishops, without having made one single visit there.1 The fact is, I have been very little from the spot of my retreat in any direction except to Frankford, where I last week attended Court & took the oath as a practitioner therein. I hope that the money which a licence to practise costs, may be placed at good interest, but the prospect is barren—
I shall have to attend another Court next this week at Frankford, where a Cred Debtor of my brother is to avail himself of the cheating insolvent law of this State passed last year, and under which the most flagrant frauds & perjuries are practised. The debtor always gets out, unless you can convict him of perjury by discovering property which he has not disclosed. The man in question, is a swindling fellow, who borrowed money of my brother at the Hague, to prevent his going to Jail in Holland. It seems he has not been able to escape it here. His name, J P. Ripley.2
This morning (the 10th: Septr) I got your favor of the 2d: with enclosures, for which accept my cordial thanks.3 The affray between Livermore & Lee, had fallen under my observation, but the pieces I had never seen, except Lee’s publication. Fisher Ames’s remark, that “a character, even unjustly aspersed, never appears so unsullied, as before,” occurs forcibly to my recollection on this occasion.4
One of my speculative letters to you of the latter end of July, remains, I think yet unacknowledged—I wont be sure however— The subject most descanted on was, my attempting to renew an acquaintance with School & College books— I notice this circumstance for no particular reason, though a doubt exists whether it reached you.—5 Several of my letters went to town by different private conveyances and some of them might have miscarried naturally enough. At present we have a regular post Office established here during the fever.
The Aurora pronounces the letters which appeared a few days since in the papers, relative to the assassination of the frenchmen at Rastadt, a bare faced forgery.6 The story is so consonant to my own suspicions & to the appearances which struck our notice in the relation on the french side, that I think them genuine, though their coming here first from St Sebastian is against them. We shall soon know the fact.
The mortality in Philadelphia increases slowly—for many days the average was about 20. and has never exceeded 31. A long spell of rainy weather has prevailed and we hope checked the disease in a degree. Several useful men have fallen within a short time.
I have nothing of moment to say further than an assurance / of the esteem & friendship / of
T. B. A.
If you can obtain for me the words of the patriotic songs, written by Mr: Paine, I shall thank you— There are two or three.7 Quincy will ask for them of the Author, if you give him a hint with my best remembrance. Paine has a claim on me for a retribution, which on occasion I shall be happy to make. I think highly of his poetic talents, and wish he might meet as much admiration & encouragement as his genius merits. A professional poet cannot live here by his trade, & unluckily he is seldom fit for any other— I think, that when the Gods make a man poetical, it is a sure mark of their vengeance not their mercy.
RC (MWA:Adams Family Letters); addressed: “W S Shaw / Quincy”; internal address: “W S Shaw.”; endorsed: “Germantown 8th Sep / T B Adams / rec 15th / Ansd 20 / Sent 24th.”; docketed: “1799 / Sept 8.”
1. These letters have not been found.
2. For the origin of the debt John Phillips Ripley owed JQA, see JQA to TBA, 2 Oct. 1798, and note 6, above. Ripley published a legal notice in the Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser, 7 Sept. 1799, stating that the Penn. Supreme Court would hear his insolvency case in Frankford on 13 September. The case was apparently not resolved, as JQA still held the note from Ripley in Nov. 1801 (D/JQA/24, 13 Nov., APM Reel 27).
3. Not found.
4. On 17 July 1799 Judge Edward St. Loe Livermore of Portsmouth, N.H., delivered an address in which he suggested that William Lee had returned from France the previous summer with French passports obtained through a “species of bribery.” Those passports offered protection from French privateers, Livermore claimed, and were offered for sale to fellow merchants after Lee’s return. Responding in Boston newspapers, Lee charged Livermore with “a malicious and scandalous falsehood,” to which Livermore answered with a 14 Aug. letter stating that he meant no slight and cited the episode only to illustrate French corruption. After it was revealed that Lee had in fact purchased passports, Livermore published a 17 Aug. letter declaring his earlier statement proven. On 22 Aug. Lee assaulted Livermore in Portsmouth, and a physical altercation ensued between the two men (Edward St. Loe Livermore, An Oration, in Commemoration of the Dissolution of the Political Union Between the United States of America and France, Portsmouth, N.H., 1799, p. 20–21, No. 35736; Boston Independent Chronicle, 8–12, 19–22 Aug.; Boston Columbian Centinel, 14, 17, 24 Aug.; Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 2 Sept.). For more on Lee’s time in France, see AA to William Smith, 9 June 1798, and note 2, above.
5. TBA to Shaw, 29 July 1799, above.
6. Details surrounding the assassination of French envoys by Austrian hussars at Rastatt, Germany, on 28 April remained unclear. In early September New York newspapers published letters allegedly written by a Prussian officer present at the assassination, which shifted blame from the Prussians to the French. The Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 7 Sept., called the letters an “impudent fabrication.” Later commentators considered the letters to be forgeries (New York Commercial Advertiser, 2 Sept.; New York Spectator, 4 Sept.; Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Essays on his Own Times, ed. Sara Coleridge, 3 vols., London, 1850, 1:279–280; Der Rastadter gesandtenmord, Vienna, 1874, p. 160–162; , 8:655–656).
7. In addition to “Adams and Liberty” and “To Arms Columbia,” in 1798 and 1799, Boston printer Thomas Paine composed “Adams and Washington,” “The Green Mountain Farmer,” and “Rise Columbia!” (O. G. Sonneck, Bibliography of Early Secular American Music, Washington, D.C., 1905, p. 2–3, 62, 126, 155).