John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Adams, 19 July 1804
John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Adams
Quincy 19. July 1804.
My visit to Boston yesterday, was equally successful with those I had made several times before; for I found there your’s of the 9th: enclosing the profiles—1 I rejoyce to hear that your tour to Bladensburg has been of service to the health of the children— And I hope your visit to your aunt will prove equally so to them, and to yourself.2
I sincerely sympathise with poor Pichon and his wife, at the heavy loss they have sustained; the severity of which I believe none but Parents can realize.
We dined yesterday with W. Sumner, and a large party of Gentlemen— Among the rest Mr: Rutledge, of S. Carolina, who has just arrived in Boston—3 He appears to be in good Spirits
Conversation now can scarcely turn upon any other subject than the late horrible duel at New-York; the circumstances which led to it, and the manner in which it was conducted are as yet very imperfectly known; but I cannot conceive any possible circumstances, which can justify the conduct of Mr: Burr, either preceding the fatal day, or immediately subsequent to it— His principal aim appears to have been to make a display of indifference and unconcern; and this he did in a manner which in its fairest light can only be considered as an excess of affectation.4
22. July 1804.
Day before yesterday—(Friday,) I went over to Roxbury and dined with Mr: T. Amory—Mr: & Mrs: Dexter, Mr: & Mrs: Jonathan Amory, Mr: & Mrs: W. Payne, the two Miss Payne’s and Sally Gray, were there— Miss Dexter was also to have been there; but had met with an accident; dislocated a bone, in her hand I believe, which prevented her— Mrs: Dexter enquired very particularly after you; and almost scolded me for leaving you behind— Jo: Hall was there too,5 and we discuss’d over again the duel at New-York, and his Imperial Majesty, Bonaparte.
We have now seen the correspondence between Mr: Burr, and General Hamilton, which led to their fatal meeting, and I am fully confirmed in the opinion I had entertained of the transaction before— Mr: Burr began by making a demand of General Hamilton, which he must have known Hamilton could not, and ought not to answer.— To make the matter more sure, he couched the demand in terms at which a much cooler man than Hamilton must have spurned— The substance was so vague and indefinite, as to render impossible the very avowal or disavowal it affected to require— The form was studied to provoke and insult; by an assumption of superiority, which a man of Spirit could not submit to. Hamilton saw through the artifice, and yet had not a sufficient controul over his own passions, or a sufficient elevation over the prejudices of the world to parry it.— Had he omitted half a line in his first answer, which must be considered as inviting a challenge, I see nothing on his part of the correspondence, against which any reasonable objection can be raised—6 The conduct of Mr: Burr through the whole affair, appears to me strongly to corroborate that opinion of his character which his enemies have long ascribed to him.
You remember they used to joke at Berlin, about Prince Louis, (Bonaparte) but in sober sadness it has come to the same thing— This is the turn of one tire more in the wheel of the French Revolution; but it has not yet got completely round. Poor Jerome, who is so cavalierly left out of the line of aggrandizement and succession, must be content to sing to the tune of All for Love, or the world well lost— And well lost in my opinion it really will be for him.— I have been told however that in his Marriage Articles, there is an express provision made for the possible case, of his getting sick of his bargain and casting off the lady.—7 A stipulation which is equally marked with humility, and with prudence on her part.
As to titles, if what we see in the papers be true the french are going to plunge into them with all the fondness of children for a new rattle— There is Imperial Majesty Josephine, Imperial Highnesses Joseph and Louis, Grand Elector, and High-Constable, Serene Highness Arch Chancellor Cambaceres, and Arch Treasurer Lebrun; &c &c—was there ever so horrible a Tragedy, concluded with so ridiculous a farce?—8
RC (Adams Papers). Tr (Adams Papers).
1. In her 9 July letter, LCA reported sending several profiles executed by her sister Carolina Virginia Marylanda Johnson. She also commented on the improved health of GWA and JA2, along with the trials of the Pichon family. In a letter to LCA of 13 July, JQA reported the arrival of his trunk and news of Tilly Whitcomb’s entrepreneurial endeavors. He also commented on local visitors, attempts to set fires at Mount Vernon, and Georgia politics (both Adams Papers).
2. LCA’s aunt Elizabeth Johnson Cook (1739–1806) was the widow of Capt. George Cook (d. 1799) and resided at New Market, near Frederick, Md. She invited LCA to visit, which LCA reported to JQA on 9 July (LCA to JQA, 13 July, Adams Papers; Mrs. Thomas Hamer Johnston [Caroline A. Dorsey Johnston], “The Johnsons of Maryland,” Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine, 45:173 [Oct. 1914]; Baltimore Federal Gazette, 28 Dec. 1799; Woman’s Who’s Who of America … 1914–1915, N.Y., 1914).
3. On 18 July 1804 JQA dined at the home of William Hyslop Sumner in Roxbury; John Rutledge Jr. was among the company (vol. 14:469; D/JQA/27, APM Reel 30).
4. A rivalry spanning fifteen years came to an end just after 7 A.M. on 11 July when Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton dueled at Weehawken, N.J., on the shore of the Hudson River. A shot from Hamilton’s pistol missed, but Burr’s was on target, causing a wound that resulted in Hamilton’s death the next day. Burr was indicted for murder in New York and New Jersey and fled to South Carolina. He was never tried, and he returned to Washington, D.C., and finished his term as vice president. The animosity between the two men began with Burr’s political appointment in 1789 by mutual rival Gov. George Clinton and continued through the 1804 New York gubernatorial campaign, when Hamilton tacitly supported newspaper attacks on Burr’s candidacy, for which see JQA to LCA, 9 April, and note 4, above. In the weeks leading up to the duel, the antagonists carried on a heated exchange of letters, for which see note 6, below (, 26:235–241; , p. 159–166, 187–198; ; Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, N.Y., 2000, p. 26–27, 38–41; , 2:876–883; Harold C. Syrett and Jean G. Cooke, eds., Interview in Weehawken: The Burr-Hamilton Duel as Told in the Original Documents, Middletown, Conn., 2018, p. 3, 12–18, 21–35).
5. On 20 July JQA dined with Boston merchant Thomas Coffin Amory (1767–1812); Amory’s sister Rebecca Amory Dexter (1766–1845) and her husband, Dr. Aaron Dexter (1750–1829), whose eldest daughter was Elizabeth Amory Dexter (1788–1872); along with Amory’s brother and business partner Jonathan Amory (1770–1828), who had been JQA’s classmate at Harvard, and his wife Mehitable Sullivan Cutler Amory (1772–1847). Also in attendance were Mary and Sarah Payne; their brother William Payne, a former business partner of Thomas Amory; Payne’s wife, Lucy Gray Dobell Payne; and her sister Sarah Gray (d. 1830), who would marry Boston lawyer Joseph Hall in 1808 (vol. 9:61; “Memoir of the Family of Amory,” , 10:63, 64 [Jan. 1856]; Orrando Perry Dexter, Dexter Genealogy 1642–1904, N.Y., 1904, p. 73; , p. 20, 22; David B. Hall, The Halls of New England, Albany, N.Y., 1883, p. 307–308; Boston Commercial Gazette, 25 Oct. 1830; Boston Times, 13 Aug. 1808).
6. The New-England Palladium, 20 July 1804, published a series of ten letters that were exchanged prior to the Burr-Hamilton duel, initially between the two antagonists and then picked up by William Peter Van Ness and Nathaniel Pendleton, who would serve as their respective seconds. The exchange began with an 18 June letter from Burr that was prompted by an article in the Albany Register, 24 April, where Dr. Charles D. Cooper claimed that Hamilton believed Burr was “a dangerous man” and hinted that there was “a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr.” Burr’s 18 June letter demanded an explanation, which Hamilton dismissed in his 20 June reply as being too vague to merit clarification. JQA was probably alluding to a subsequent passage in Hamilton’s letter that stated it was improper to speculate on which of his opinions Cooper was referring to, “though nothing would be more easy than to pursue it.” The remaining eight letters were exchanged between 21 and 27 June and culminated with Burr’s challenge on the 27th (Syrett and Cooke, eds., Interview in Weehawken, p. 43–54; , p. 162).
7. JQA and LCA met Louis Bonaparte in Nov. 1800, while the army colonel was in Berlin, LCA finding him on first impression to be “very modest.” Despite showing early promise, Louis lost interest in his military career and was increasingly plagued by mental illness. Unlike Jerome Bonaparte, however, Louis was included in the hereditary line; Jerome was left out of the succession until he renounced his marriage in 1805 (vol. 14:451, 454; , 1:139; , p. 336–337; , 9:107).
8. The Boston Repertory, 20 July 1804, reported on Napoleon’s imperial government, including the appointments and new system of titles that JQA mentioned, noting that all members of the Bonaparte family were to be addressed as “Imperial Highness.” As arch chancellor, Jean Jacques Regis de Camacérès (1753–1824), a French revolutionary whom Napoleon made a second consul after the coup d’etat of 18 brumaire (9 Nov. 1799), continued in his role as president of the French senate, although it became a permanent placement. Charles Francois Lebrun (1739–1824), named a third consul after brumaire, was already a key participant in the French financial system before being named the empire’s treasurer (; Gregory Fremont-Barnes, ed., Encyclopedia of the Age of Political Revolutions and New Ideologies, 1760–1815, 2 vols., Westport, Conn., 2007).