Adams Papers
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Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 5 January 1803

Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams

Philadelphia 5th: January 1803.

Dear Brother

I received, yesterday, your favor of the 27th: ult. and thank you, for the wholesome admonitions, it contains.1 Your advice will always receive due attention, both from myself and our friend. When you shall have received and perused, the concluding numbers of the Port Folio, & taken with you the consideration of the extreme rapidity with which they were published, I think you will discover something like fresh industry added to the Capital of the establishment, if no other improvement. The Editor has laboured with unceasing industry and perseverance, and in the subordinate branches, a proportionate increase of vigor & enterprise, have, together, contributed to bring up lost time, and enabled us to anticipate public expectation. It may be useful to explain the reason of publishing the first number of the present, before the last number of the past year. The PF—of the last year did not commence till the 16th: of January, but as the present year came in on Saturday, and the No 52 of vol. 2d: could not be published before the year expired, it was thought best to come out with No 1. of vol 3, on new-year’s day.2 In due time you will receive the concluding Number of vol. 2.

St Jean Crevecoeur, if you will send us the book, marked as you propose, shall be translated, by myself and proper use made of the extracts. I do not wish to trouble you with any drudgery, and if the volumes of letters are sent round by water, at the same time, selections shall be made, with care and judgment; a proper classification under distinct heads and an appropriate introduction, will make them interesting.3 Our friend Shaw, has, with the best intentions, the worst way of executing them, so far as fair copying goes, of any man I know. Thank him for his last copy, and let it be the last.4 As the Rivers continue open, there would be little if any danger in sending these books by the earliest conveyance, addressed for me, to the care of Joseph Anthony & Co:5 I shall send you the volume of Encycloa: when the Chemical Apparatus is ready.

The department of original matter, to which we solicit your attention, so far as your necessary avocations will permit, is the political. A kind of Summary of foreign politics, such as you once executed when abroad, exhibited in the same way, from time to time, would be a valuable acquisition. Occasional animadversions upon our domestic affairs will also be acceptable. The squibs & crackers, we can let off here, but the heavy artillery of politics, to carry on the siege against the administration, must come from afar. Our engineers are lazy, incapable or worse. If some well digested hints of a new & improved plan of attack could be brought out with éclat, some credit might be arrogated for the invention. But where is the rallying point? Are we not in danger of losing every thing, by a victory? Suppose we take the fortress of Government by storm, who is the leader to restrain all sorts of disorder and confusion, from the violence of reaction? In short cui bono, is all this ink-shed and this furious combat of feathered javelins. Is it not, that we newspaper-makers may live? Since the war must be carried on, whatever be its object, our duty is to annoy the enemy, as much as possible, and for this purpose we must enlist all the energy that can be recruited, throughout the Country. “Come over to Macedonia & help us.”6

Your note to the, pastorals was duly appreciated by us7 Whatever you write, whether intended for the press or not, if it fall in Old-schools way—he will print. I thought the Editorial note, at the conclusion of your Ode, was not intended to be printed, but he would have it in.8 But, for your caution, he says, he should have printed this last.

“The feast of shells—” The Oration, in commemoration of primordia rerum Americanarum. Orator! All excellent topic’s! Please to send me two or more copies of your fire oration and as many of the water and land Oration, as you can spare.9 The elements are good and wholesome, but I hope you will never write upon air, lest your style should be inflated and bombastic. “Vir bonus est Quiz![”]10

With best love and seasonable compliments, I am, dear brother / Your’s

T. B. Adams—

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “J Q Adams. Esqr:.”

1Not found.

2Issues 1, 2, and 3 of volume 3 of the Port Folio were published on 1, 8, and 15 Jan., respectively; issue 52 of volume 2 was published on 15 January.

3JQA waited until 22 May to reply to TBA’s request for Michel Guillaume (Hector) St. John de Crèvecoeur, Voyage dans la haute Pensylvanie et dans l’état de New-York, 3 vols., Paris, 1801, a copy of which is at MQA and bears CFA’s bookplate. In his letter (Adams Papers), JQA explained that he had not yet sent the work “because I have had a sort of inclination to furnish an Article or two from them myself— I believe the Work has never been translated, and with due attention and Industry, might be an abundant Stock material for many months” (Catalog of the Stone Library).

4For TBA’s request that William Smith Shaw copy letters, see his letter to JQA, 16 May 1802, and note 3, above. The “last copy” may have been a transcription of one of three letters published in the Port Folio, 3:214–215 (2 July 1803): from Benjamin Franklin, 22 March 1776, or from Silas Deane, 26 July or 18 Aug., all to C. W. F. Dumas.

5Possibly Joseph Anthony Jr. (ca. 1761–1814), a Philadelphia jeweler who was based at 94 High Street (vol. 10:218; Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser, 10 Aug. 1814; Philadelphia Directory, 1803, p. 18, Shaw-Shoemaker description begins Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker, American Bibliography: A Preliminary Checklist for 1801–1819, New York, 1958–1966; 22 vols.; supplemental edn., Early American Imprints, www.readex.com. description ends , No. 4858).

6Acts, 16:9.

7JQA’s translation of the German song “To Hebe” was published in the Port Folio, 3:32 (22 Jan. 1803). The song comprised a rumination on an agricultural landscape: “Lo! in solemn, soft repose / Nature, now, to silence yields; / And from clouds fast-flitting flows, / Soft refreshment to the fields” (Kerber and Morris, “The Adams Family and the Port Folio,” description begins Linda K. Kerber and Walter John Morris, “Politics and Literature: The Adams Family and the Port Folio,” WMQ, 3d ser., 23:450–476 [July 1966]. description ends p. 470).

8For the editor’s note to JQA’s ode, see JQA to TBA, 5 Oct. 1802, note 2, above.

9On 22 Dec., JQA delivered an oration at Plymouth, Mass., on the anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower, in which he celebrated the colonists’ “courage and perseverance” and noted that when “they formed themselves into a body-politic, the day after their arrival,” it was “perhaps the only instance, in human history, of that positive, original social compact, which speculative philosophers have imagined as the only legitimate source of government.” JQA also praised the accomplishments of their descendants, observing that “the revolutions of time furnish no previous example of a nation, shooting up to maturity and expanding into greatness with the rapidity which has characterized the growth of the American people.” At a dinner following the address, JQA offered a toast to Plymouth’s “Perpetual prosperity,” and after he departed he was toasted: “May the political career, he so gloriously commenced, be long continued, with encreasing splendor.

The oration was published as a pamphlet on 3 Jan. 1803 and reviewed in the Port Folio, 3:157–158 (14 May). William White wrote to William Smith Shaw on 23 Feb. (PPIn), thanking him for sending JQA’s oration and noting, “It must be a great Satisfaction to our late worthy President, to behold a Son so worthy of him supporting the Reputation of his Name.” TBA began the paragraph by referring to the Plymouth celebration as “the feast of shells,” a quotation from James Macpherson, Fingal, Book III, para. 17; Book VI, para. 11, and a term that since 1798 had been widely applied to Forefathers’ Day (Boston Columbian Centinel, 29 Dec. 1802; Boston Commercial Gazette, 3 Jan. 1803; JQA, An Oration, Delivered at Plymouth … at the Anniversary Commemoration of the First Landing of Our Ancestors, at that Place, Boston, 1802, p. 7, 13, 17, Shaw-Shoemaker description begins Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker, American Bibliography: A Preliminary Checklist for 1801–1819, New York, 1958–1966; 22 vols.; supplemental edn., Early American Imprints, www.readex.com. description ends , No. 1717; Albert Matthews, “The Term Pilgrim Fathers and Early Celebrations of Forefathers’ Day,” Col. Soc. Mass., Pubns. description begins Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications. description ends , 17:323, 327–329, 333–334, 335 [Dec. 1914]). For JQA’s address to the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society, see AA to TBA, 13 March 1802, and note 5, above.

10TBA used a satirical version of the phrase “Who is the good man?” from Horace’s Epistles that appeared as an epigram in Microcosm, 1:329 [4 June 1787], in which “quis” was replaced with “quiz,” meaning an odd or eccentric person, and accompanied by a translation: “The good man is a Quiz.” His play on words may also have been in reference to the nickname Mr. Quiz the Johnson family gave to JQA in London in 1795 or 1796 (vol. 11:306; Horace, Epistles, transl. John Davie and Robert Cowan, 2011, Oxford, Book I, Epistle xvi, line 40; OED description begins The Oxford English Dictionary, 2d edn., Oxford, 1989; 20 vols.; rev. edn., www.oed.com. description ends ).

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