William Smith Shaw to Thomas Boylston Adams, 8 January 1801
William Smith Shaw to Thomas Boylston Adams
City of Washington Jan 8th 1801
Your several favors are before me. The letter for ——— I sent by the first mail, after receiving it. I delayed sending your brothers letter, expecting that you would comply with your promise, and send me the whole series—then I should have returned them altogether.1 For the pamphlet of Gentz, please to receive my best thanks. I have been highly delighted and instructed by the perusal, and doubt whether there a hundred men in our own Country! who understand the principles of our revolution equally well I gave to Gen Marshal his copy agreeable to your request, who desired me to present to you with his compliments “his particular thanks.” I shall endeavor, as much as in my power, to diffuse its fame not only on account of its intrinsic merit, but from my respect for the translator and friendship for the book seller, who appears to me to be as highly deserving of patronage. You might send three or four dozen of them to this city under cover to the President & I would give them to Claxton or S. H. Smith, who I think could easily dispose of them.2 At any rate I wish you would send me one or two more copies, for which I will pay you.— I am very happy to hear that there any prospects of the Port folio appearing. I would wish to be considered as a subscriber and have them regularly forwarded under cover to the President. I hope you gave the names of Newman & Rogers to Dickins to be considered as subscribers.3 Had I any subscription paper I might have obtained a number. Gentlemen do not like to subscribe without knowing the proposals & the price. I have obtained thirteen subscribers for the lay preacher and sixteen for the farrago since I have been in this city and might have obtained many more, had they supposed the works would have been published4
Congress as yet have done no business worthy of mention. They have passed but one bill law, allowing salary and the privilege of
franking letters to the member from the N. W Territory.5 The Senate are still employed on the convention between France and the U.S. which I do not beleive they will ratify without considerable modification.6 The house have before them three bills of some considerable importance. “A bill to provide for the more convenient organization of the courts of the U.S.” A bill concerning the district of Columbia and a bill authorizing a mausoleum to be erected in honor of Gen Washington. The first is similar to the one reported to the house last session, for upon the same subject. It is said to be a system of judicature of great merit, possessing many advantages not embraced in the present judiciary system increasing the number of judges and making their duty much less laborious and oppressive and which would increase the extention greatly promote and accelerate the execution of justice in our Country—objects most devoutly to be wished.7 If the bill comprehends advantages so great as I believe it does, the interests of our Country loudly demand its adoption and the judges ought to be immediately appointed, before there is any change in the administration It is absolutely requisite to peace, good order and happiness that our judges be wise decided and impartial men, of incorruptible integrity and whose decisions should be founded in law and equity alone. If in the future administration of our Country, men of visionary schemes and fluctuating theories, men deficient in moral character and influenced by the low grovelling spirit of faction should obtain, seats on our bench—then farewell all social order & domestic happiness. We could no longer sit under our own vine and fig trees with any confidence in the support of our own rights or with any security from the invasion of others.
The 2d. bill as reported to the house excites much clamor among the inhabitants of this district. Congress will find a government for this territory a most difficult subject upon which to legislate, and I suspect will do very little respecting it this session.8 If God Almighty were to condescend to leave his throne in Heaven and to descend upon this earth, accompanied by all his angels & to propose a system of laws for this district the most perfect of which even immortals are capable, it would receive the most unqualified opposition, unless the interests of every individual were in every respect, equally promoted. You know very well the, low selfish passions, the clashing of different interests prevalent here, and that there are scarcely two men in this city that will speak to one another, and who will not tell you that the other is an unprincipled and infernal scoundrel. There are three different interests here, powerful and mighty, and all warring against each other. In short they appear to be in a state something like that which Hobbs calls the state of nature, “the war of every man against every man.”9
The last bill has passed the house and two hundred thousand dollars are appropriated for its execution.— I do not like the idea of a mausoleum Such a thing has not been heard of in our times & will not correspond with any thing in our Country. It will not be so elegant it will not be more commemorative of the talents and services of Gen Washington, than an equestrian statue or marble monument. Travellers as they pass by, will not be reminded of the hero, whom it celebrates is intended to celebrate so much as of the folly of those, who agreed to its erection and the first suggestion which will occur to their minds, will be the same, which occurred to the mind of Anaxagoras, when he saw the immense monument of folly, built by Artemisia in honor of her husband Mausoleus, hence the derivation of the word mausoleum—how much money changed into stones.10
There never was a session of Congress, when the interests of our Country demanded more to be done, and yet I believe they will do less business than at any former session. The federalists appear to be compleatly unnerved and parylised and know not what to do. At present it appears to be the interest of the jacobins to delay and postpone. They had a miserable business before the house respecting privileges, which excited much warmth & occupied the whole of yesterday—whether the Sergeant at arms had a right to confine a man, who had created considerable disturbance in the house.11
The Convention between us & France strikes me as it does you. The article which I like as little as any is the one, which I requires our giving up the public vessels, which we have captured; because I do not see any reciprocity and because we receive no compensation for the spoliations on our commerce, to prevent which, against insults and depredation, the law authorizing the equipment and arming of our public vessels was enacted.12 Soon after the treaty appeared in England, Mr King appeare waited on Lord Grenville and had a long conversation respecting it, when Lord Grenville told Mr King “that he saw nothing in the convention inconsistent with the treaty between them and us, or which afforded them any ground of complaint, nor did he perceive in it, any thing that might not have been expected, unless it was the article respecting convoys, which we were certainly free to make; but which nevertheless, just at the present juncture, had somewhat of a less friendly appearance, than might
have been wished”13 I do not give you this extract as a secret although it must not be published in the newspapers. The second Article of the treaty is a seems to me very exceptionable
I enclose with this letter 15 Doll which T. B. Johnson gave me yesterday—your demand was $14.75— I have paid Johnson the 25 cents— which will pay you for Fennos pamphlet.—14 I thank you for the Diaboliad— I am the only one in the house who thinks it has any merit & it afforded me considerable diversion.15 When the power of Atty arrives you may depend on the pleasure and punctuality with which I shall comply with your wishes.
With a number of pamphlets I send you “Considerations on the government of the territory of Columbia[”] with which I think you will be gratified.16
In haste your loving friend
Wm S Shaw.17
RC (ViU:Adams Family Letters); addressed: “Thomas B. Adams Esqr. / Attorney at Law”; internal address: “T B. Adams Esqr.”; endorsed: “W. S. Shaw. / Jany 8th: 1801. / Do 13th: Recd: / Do ansd:.”
1. TBA wrote to Shaw on [25], 26 Dec. 1800 (both MWA:Adams Family Letters), and [4], 5, 6 Jan. 1801 (all MHi:Misc. Bound Coll.). In the [25 Dec.] 1800 letter, TBA voiced his opinion of the Convention of 1800: “I look upon it as a matter of indifference whether ratified or not, except from a well-grounded apprehension that Jefferson will agree to make worse terms.” With the letter of the 26th, TBA sent copies of Gentz, Origins and Principles of the American Revolution, to Shaw and the secretary of state, calling it the most “authentic history” of the Revolution that he had read. The Jan. 1801 letters all contain instructions on the execution of financial transactions for TBA and JQA.
2. That is, Samuel Harrison Smith and Thomas Claxton (d. 1821), a printer and the doorkeeper to the U.S. House of Representatives, respectively (, 1:43).
3. John Newman was the chief clerk in the War Department ( Joseph B. Felt, Memorials of William Smith Shaw, Boston, 1852, p. 151; , 34:505).
4. Joseph Dennie Jr.’s attempt to publish his “Lay Preacher” and “Farrago” essays as subscription works failed. “The Farrago” was a series of occasional essays that began in the Windsor, Vt., Morning Ray in 1792 and continued in several northern New England newspapers until 1795. Twenty-nine “Farrago” essays, both reprints and original works, appeared in the Port Folio in 1801 and 1802 (, p. 114–115, 144, 150, 171, 179; Sandra Tomc, Industry and the Creative Mind: The Eccentric Writer in American Literature and Entertainment, 1790–1860, Ann Arbor, Mich., 2012, p. 270; ).
5. On 15 Dec. 1800 Congress passed an act extending franking privileges to the delegate from the Northwest Territory, enabling William McMillan and his successors to send and receive letters without charge and receive reimbursement for travel expenses (, 2:88; ).
6. For the debates over the ratification of the Convention of 1800, see AA to Cotton Tufts, 15 Dec., and note 2, above.
7. The judiciary bill that was tabled in the previous session of Congress, for which see TBA to JQA, 25 Feb., and note 3, above, was reintroduced in the House of Representatives by Roger Griswold on 19 December. The bill was largely unchanged from its final amended version, which reduced the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices from six to five, expanded the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and established six federal circuit courts. The U.S. circuit courts assumed regional duties formerly handled by Supreme Court justices and were given jurisdiction over cases tried under the recently enacted federal bankruptcy law. The bill was passed in the House by a 51 to 43 vote on 20 Jan. 1801. The Senate passed it without amendment on 7 Feb., and the bill was signed into law on 13 February. The new law created sixteen judgeships to be filled under presidential nomination; for JA’s actions thereon see Shaw to TBA, 19 Feb., and note 3, below (, 4:291–295; Kathryn Turner, “Federalist Policy and the Judiciary Act of 1801,” , 22:3, 11–12, 15, 19–21 [Jan. 1965]; , 2:89–100).
8. On 27 Feb. Congress passed an act stipulating that Maryland and Virginia laws would be upheld in the areas that each state ceded to form the District of Columbia. The act also divided the district into two counties, Washington County and Alexandria County, and established its judicial system. Prior to its passage, John Smilie of Pennsylvania argued unsuccessfully that the bill should address congressional representation for residents of the district, saying that without it they were reduced “to the state of subjects.” A supplementary act that set out the powers of the district’s circuit court and set fines and punishments for felonies was introduced on 27 Feb. and passed on 3 March (, 2:103–108, 115–116; ; , 6th Cong., 2d sess., p. 991–992, 1060).
9. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part I, ch. xiii, par. 8.
10. Mausolus’ tomb, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was erected by his widow, Artemisia, at Halicarnassus in the fourth century B.C. The Greek philosopher Anaxagoras reputedly stated on visiting the site, “A costly tomb is an image of a petrified estate” (; Diogenes Laertius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, transl. C. D. Yonge, London, 1853, p. 60). For congressional debate over the proposed mausoleum to George Washington, see TBA to Shaw, 21 Dec. 1800, and note 3, above.
11. On 22 Dec., James Lane, a spectator in the House gallery, applauded action on the floor. Ordered to arrest Lane, House sergeant at arms Joseph Wheaton locked him in a committee room until the day’s proceedings were over. Lane filed a complaint with Richard Forrest, a justice of the peace for Prince George’s County, Md., who subsequently ordered Wheaton to be arrested on 24 December. Forrest released Wheaton without charge, and on 6 Jan. 1801, after a lengthy debate, the House issued a report supporting Wheaton’s action (, 6th Cong., 2d sess., p. 880–890; Asher C. Hinds, Hinds’ Precedents of the House of Representatives of the United States, 8 vols., Washington, D.C., 1907–1908, 2:1057).
12. Art. 3 of the Convention of 1800 stipulated that ships captured by either nation prior to the exchange of ratifications would be restored. In a 26 Dec. 1800 letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The French treaty will be violently opposed by the Feds. The giving up the vessels is the article they cannot swallow” (, 2:459; , 17:448).
13. Shaw was quoting from Rufus King’s 31 Oct. letter to John Marshall, for which see JQA to JA, 25 Nov., note 4, above. See also AA to TBA, 15 Jan. 1801, and note 2, below.
14. For John Ward Fenno’s Desultory Reflections, see TBA to Shaw, 28 Aug. 1800, and note 5, above.
15. William Combe, The Diaboliad, London, 1777, a satirical poem lampooning the British aristocracy ().
16. Considerations on the Government of the Territory of Columbia, Washington, D.C., 1801, , No. 1683, was a reprinting of four essays written by Augustus Brevoort Woodward under the pseudonym Epaminondas. The essays originally appeared in the Washington, D.C., National Intelligencer, 24, 26, 29, 31 Dec. 1800, and argued that citizens of the District of Columbia should have representation in Congress and the right to vote. They also endorsed the creation of a judicial system for the district. Woodward published at least three additional pamphlets on the subject between 1801 and 1803 (, 6:527; , p. 24–26; Washington, D.C., National Intelligencer, 5 Jan. 1801; A. P. C. Griffin, “Issues of the District of Columbia Press in 1800, 1801, 1802,” , 4:39–42 [1901]).
17. TBA replied to Shaw on 13 Jan. 1801, discussing the judiciary bill and the public reception of the Port Folio. He also informed Shaw that he would send additional copies of , which sold for “⅜ of a dollar” (MWA:Adams Family Letters).