John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 27 August 1802
John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams
Boston 27. August 1802.
My dear Brother.
I duly received your letters of the 21st: enclosing the pamphlet of Gentz, and likewise the post-note, with your account—1 This last I have not yet examined, but I presume it to be substantially correct.— I am again to repeat my thanks for your attention to my affairs.
I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you soon here, though I hope also that the tremendous menaces of malignant yellow fever at Philadelphia, have permanently subsided— The weather here for a fortnight past has been very oppressive, and with strong putrid tendencies— We hope and pray for the best.
My family and our father’s, are generally in average health— Your mother continues at intervals to be very unwell— My child suffers by the season, and at this critical time is cutting several large double teeth—
You have seen two letters from your father to S. Adams, written in 1790. lately published in the Newspapers— They have been attacked with characteristic violence and bitterness, by the fifty-dollar men at Washington, Worcester and Boston— They are defended in the Boston Gazette— The first publication was to defeat the basest misrepresentations, which were circulating here by the paid slanderers, who had seen them, by the treachery of the old prophet, and who were affirming that the letters in so many words urged the establishment of an hereditary monarchy, and nobility in this Country, and named the families of which this nobility was to be composed—2 Judge how much the publication has exasperated these fellows, by taking the lie out of their mouths, and holding it up to the public view— They are flouncing, and foaming and spouting, and dashing with the tail at a furious rate; but the harpoon is in them—they shall have their full length of rope to plunge downward; and then if they are not drawn up, cut up, barreled up and salted tried down for the benefit of the public, say to all the world that I am the disgrace of New-England whale-men.
Your’s faithfully.
J. Q. Adams.
RC (MQHi); internal address: “T. B. Adams Esqr.”
1. Neither the letters from TBA to JQA of 21 Aug. nor the enclosures have been found. The first enclosure mentioned was , which JQA had requested from TBA on 10 Aug. (MHi:Adams Papers, All Generations). The second enclosure was a post-note for $1,805.94 for JQA’s shares in the Bank of North America. JQA had asked TBA to sell the shares in a 30 July letter, not found, and TBA reported on 5 Aug. (Adams Papers) that it would be a straightforward process. He also informed JQA that he would take care if yellow fever returned to Philadelphia. JQA’s 10 Aug. letter was in reply, and in addition to requesting the Gentz pamphlet, he asked for William Loughton Smith’s Phocion essays, published as The Pretensions of Thomas Jefferson to the Presidency Examined; And the Charges against John Adams Refuted, 2 vols., [Phila.], 1796, Nos. 31212, 31213, and James Thomson Callender’s The Prospect before Us (vol. 11:438, 439; M/JQA/12, APM Reel 209).
2. The Boston Commercial Gazette, 19, 22 July, published JA’s letters to Samuel Adams of 12 Sept. 1790 and 18 October. The letters were apparently obtained from Adams by Dr. Charles Jarvis, who sent copies to the newspaper and to Thomas Jefferson. In the 12 Sept. letter, JA remarked that a recent visit to Philadelphia had sparked memories of their service in the Continental Congress, and he also commented on the state of current politics: “What? my old Friend is this World about to become.? … Are there any Principles of political Architecture?” In the 18 Oct. letter JA continued his political discussion, arguing that a “natural and actual Aristocracy among Man kind” has a legitimate role in republican government and citing as an example the leadership of Boston’s “noble Families.” Although Adams’ replies of 4 Oct. and 25 Nov. demonstrate an exchange of political ideologies, it was only JA’s letters that were initially published. They received a mixed response, with Federalist newspapers characterizing them as innocent discourse and Democratic-Republican publications condemning them as monarchical. The Boston Commercial Gazette, 26 July 1802, praised the 18 Oct. 1790 letter as “universally read and eulogised, by all men, who have the capacity to think and the honesty to speak.” Whereas the Worcester, Mass., National Aegis, 28 July 1802, stated that JA had “a thorough contempt and detestation, even for the very name of ‘Republic’”; the Washington, D.C., National Intelligencer, 4 Aug., called the letters a “Libel upon liberty, upon all that is sacred in America”; and the Boston Republican Gazetteer, 7 Aug., noted that had JA’s letters been published prior to the presidential election of 1800, “he would not have obtained ten votes.” The full exchange was published as a pamphlet on 16 Aug. 1802 (, 20:413–414, 417–419, 424–429, 434–439; , 38:249–250; Four Letters: Being an Interesting Correspondence between Those Eminently Distinguished Characters, John Adams, late President of the United States, and Samuel Adams, late Governor of Massachusetts, on the Important Subject of Government, Boston, 1802, , No. 1713; Boston Commercial Gazette, 16 Aug.).