Adams Papers
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John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 25 February 1804

John Quincy Adams to John Adams

25. Feby: 1804.

I received last Evening yours of the 11th: instt:1 You cannot employ your leisure more charitably, than in writing me these long letters— They give me some of the sweetest of my enjoyments, and comfort me amidst the thorns and briars of the path I am travelling.

I shall endeavour to complete your set of the journals; but I am not sure that I can get spare sheets of all the numbers you want. I now enclose with the last and current numbers, three immediately preceeding the first you have received— So that now you will have from N: 25. inclusive— But you do not tell me what sheets you want of the Senate’s Journals— These are mark’d with letters, at the bottom of the first page of each sheet.

I am still so much engaged, at once in attendance upon the public business, and upon the Supreme Court, that I have not even found time to enclose you these journals, the very day they came out— So that you will now receive at once N’s 55 and 56. of the House’s Journals—2 I wrote you that I argued last week a question, on a cause of Insurance— We had a Judgment of the Circuit Court of Rhode-Island (Judges Lowell and Bourne) […] This morning the opinion of the Court was delivered— Unanimous to reverse the ju[dgment.] Mr: J. T. Mason of Georgetown was with me and argued the Cause admirably well— [. . . .] against us a Mr: Hunter of Rhode-Island, a young man of very handsome talents, and […] L. Martin of Baltimore— I mention all these circumstances, for the fire-side only; because there they will be interesting— And it will give pleasure to learn that my first opening at the Supreme Court of the United States has been successful, as to its issue.—3 With my own argument I was very far from being satisfied— And it completed my conviction that the seven years chasm in my attention to legal practise and legal studies can never be repaired.— I have now another cause to argue, in the course of a few days.— Here we have a Judgment of the Circuit Court in Boston, (Cushing and Davis) in our favour— But the papers are so irregular and informal, that the Judgment will be reversed in all probability, on this account.— The merits however are clearly with us.4

I have subscribed for the Washington Federalist, and ordered it to be sent to Quincy, from this time— So tell Shaw, not to stop it at the Post-Office in Boston— I wish you to receive it, at the Post-Office in Quincy; and keep the file for me till I come home.

We are to adjourn 12th. next month—5 I hope to see you by the last of it.— You say nothing in your last of my dear mother’s health— I hope she has recovered— My wife & children are well— Mrs: Cranch much better—

The bills to protect foreign Seamen, have not yet been acted upon— Some suppose they will be abandoned; at least in their most obnoxious principles— I wait patiently and calmly, to see whether we are to have another deb[at]e upon them.6

RC (private owner, 1961); addressed: “John Adams Esqr / Quincy. / Massachusetts.”; endorsed by TBA: “J Q Adams Esqr: / 25th: Feby 1804 / 10th: March Recd: / 13 acknd.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed.

1Not found.

2Enclosures not found.

3On 7 Feb. JQA was sworn in as a counselor of the U.S. Supreme Court, and on 16 Feb. he argued his first case, joining John Thomson Mason in representing Boston merchants Joseph Head and Jonathan Amory in the case of Head & Amory v. Providence Insurance Company, an appeal of a ruling by U.S. Circuit Court judges John Lowell and Benjamin Bourne (1755–1808). The case arose after Head & Amory insured cargo aboard the Spanish brig Nueva Empresa, then subsequently sent the Providence Insurance Company letters in order to cancel the insurance. While the cancellation was pending in Aug. 1800, the brig was captured by the British ship Pluto and condemned at St. John’s, Newfoundland. Head & Amory then attempted to claim $16,000, but the insurance company declared the policy canceled and refused to pay. JQA argued that mere correspondence did not constitute a cancellation and that his clients were entitled to payment “upon principles of law, of justice, of equity and of honour.” Furthermore, he claimed, if the justices accepted the arguments of opposition attorneys William Hunter (1774–1849) of Providence, R.I., and Luther Martin of Maryland, they must conclude that through “egregious mistake” or “dilatory proceedings” the insurance company failed to carry out the orders in the correspondence. Impressed by the work of the other lawyers, JQA noted, “I never have witness’d a collection of such powerful legal orators.” He also said that his dual duties were exhausting, writing that the work “almost overpowers me. I cannot stand it long.” On 25 Feb. 1804 the court overturned the lower court decision and ordered the insurance company to pay (D/JQA/27, 13, 17 Feb., APM Reel 30; Glen Atkinson and Stephen P. Paschall, Law and Economics from an Evolutionary Perspective, Northampton, Mass., 2016, p. 56–57; Cranch, Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court description begins William Cranch, Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Supreme Court of the United States [title varies], 9 vols., Washington, D.C., 1804–1815. description ends , 2:128–129, 136, 141–142, 155; Joseph Breed Berry, History of the Diocese of Massachusetts, 1810–1872, Boston, 1959, p. 68; Charles Warren, A History of the American Bar, Boston, 1911, p. 261; Biog. Dir. Cong. description begins Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–2005, Washington, D.C., 2005; rev. edn., bioguide.congress.gov. description ends ).

4JQA was not successful in his second case, Church v. Hubbart, failing to convince the Supreme Court to uphold an earlier U.S. Circuit Court decision by judges William Cushing and John Davis. The lower court ruled that JQA’s client, Boston insurance underwriter Tuthill Hubbart, did not have to pay John B. Church Jr., the supercargo for the brig Aurora, for cargo seized by Portuguese warships during a voyage to Brazil because Church had engaged in illicit trade as expressly prohibited by a clause in the insurance contract. On 29 Feb. and 1 March, JQA laid out circumstantial evidence against Church and claimed that the case had “all the material characteristics of a legal condemnation for illicit trade.” The Supreme Court ruled on 5 March that Hubbart failed to adequately document illegal activity and reversed the lower court ruling (Louis B. Sohn and others, eds., Cases and Materials on the Law of the Sea, 2d edn., Boston, 2014, p. 422–426; Cranch, Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court description begins William Cranch, Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Supreme Court of the United States [title varies], 9 vols., Washington, D.C., 1804–1815. description ends , 2:224–225; Hamilton, Papers description begins The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Harold C. Syrett, Jacob E. Cooke, and others, New York, 1961–1987; 27 vols. description ends , 25:481; JA, Legal Papers description begins Legal Papers of John Adams, ed. L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller B. Zobel, Cambridge, 1965; 3 vols. description ends , 3:317; D/JQA/27, APM Reel 30).

5JQA in a letter to William Smith Shaw on 9 March (MHi:Misc. Bound Coll.) reported that the adjournment had been pushed back to 19 March. Congress remained in session until 27 March (U.S. Senate, Jour. description begins Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, Washington, D.C., 1789– . description ends , 8th Cong., 1st sess., p. 404).

6See JQA to TBA, 22 Jan., and note 2, above.

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