From John Adams to Henry Marchant, 17 September 1789
To Henry Marchant
New York Septr. 17. 1789
Dear sir
Your kind Letter of Aug. 29, gave me much pleasure.
There is more Confinement, in my present Situation than in any, that I have been in these thirty Years: and another Evil is come upon me, under which I suffered formerly, but from which I have been wholly relieved during my Absence from America.— Publick Speaking ever gave me a Pain in my Breast, which was not only troublesome for the time, but dangerous for the future. My present Office not only obliges me to a constant and close Attention of Mind, but to continual Reading and Speaking, which has again affected, La Poitrine, as it used to do, and raises many doubts how long I shall be able to go on.
Your Account of the Prophecy is humorous enough: but you must be mistaken in the Point of time. I left Congress on the 11th. of Nov. 1777 (that Year which the Tories Said had three Gallows’s in it meaning the three sevens 777) just as Congress had gone through the Confederation, but before it was Signed. My Name is not to that Confederation. So that the Prediction must have been uttered either at York Town, a day or two before I left it, or before, at Philadelphia. I recollect Some Expressions of that Sort, on the Floor of Congress in Philadelphia, immediately after the Determination that the Votes Should be by States, and not by Numbers a Point which Wilson and I laboured with great Zeal. After that determination and some others, I own, I gave up that Confederation in despair of its Efficacy or long Utility.
Congress have passed a Law, as you Solicited but a Clause has been introduced relative to Rum &c which perhaps your People may not relish so well.1 It is now the Universal Expectation that your State will come in before Winter.— but if the Public should be disappointed, some thing very unpleasant will undoubtedly be the Consequence.— It would not be difficult for Congress to make the Unsocial Rhode Islanders, See, and feel, that the Union is of Some importance to their Interest and Happiness.— Winning however by Mildness and Condescension is much more agreable.
My oldest Son, arrived here Yesterday, very full of Gratitude for the Kindness and Attention of your Family to him at Newport.
Deacon Sayward of York, who was a timid Tory, Said to me at Dinner with the Judges on the Eastern Circuit in June 1774 “Mr Adams, you are chosen to go to Philadelphia as a Member of Congress. it is a weighty Trust, and I beg leave to recommend to you as a rule of your Conduct, the Doctrine of our former Minister Mr Moody. at the Declaration of the War of 1745, he preached a Sermon from those Words, And they know not what to2 do.— His Doctrine from the Words was, that in times of private or publick Calamity Distress or Danger it was the Duty of a Person or a People to be very careful that they do not do, they know not what.”3
This Doctrine of Mr Moody I would very humbly and earnestly recommend to the Faith And Practice of every Member of the Rhode Island Legislature and Convention. and if you please you may give them this Advice of Deacon Sayward to a Member of Congress, without mentioning my Name in the Newspapers. I am / sir affectionately yours
John Adams
RC (MHi:Adams Papers, All Generations); addressed by CA: “Honble Henry Marchant / New Port R.I.”; internal address: “The Hon. Henry Marchant / Newport.”; endorsed: “Recd. Oct. / 7. 1789”; and: “Letter from / His Exccellency / John Adams / Esqr. Vice President / of the United States / of America dated / New York Sepr. 17 / Answered Decr 19 / 1789.”; notation by JA: “Free / John Adams.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 115.
1. For the congressional battle over the molasses duty, which affected the Rhode Island rum trade, and JA’s role in settling it, see his letter of 12 June to Cotton Tufts, and note 2, above.
2. In the LbC, CA replaced “to” with “they.”
3. While riding the eastern circuit in the summer of 1774, JA noted the influence of York, Mass. (now Maine), merchant Jonathan Sayward (1713–1797), a loyalist who was active in town politics and served as a deacon in the First Congregational Church. Dining with Sayward in June, JA found him to be an “artfull, selfish, hypocritical Man.” Sayward quoted a 1745 sermon given by Rev. Samuel Moody (1676–1747), Harvard 1697, in the York church, mustering support for the Louisbourg expedition, which JA called an “oracular Jingle of Words, which seemed, however to contain some good Sense” (, 1:110, 111, 116, 120–121; , 3:307).