Adams Papers
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Thomas Boylston Adams to William Smith Shaw, 5 April 1801

Thomas Boylston Adams to William Smith Shaw

Philadelphia 5th: April 1801.

Dear William

Your letter of the 29th: ulto: is just received. with the papers enclosed, for which I thank you— The address of the Legislature is friendly— Answer proper— The letter, which is published in the Commercial Gazette, as from the Washington federalist, I had read with great satisfaction, in manuscript—1 I hope to grasp the hand that wrote it in a few months— The gentleman will find it more difficult than I did, to recommence at the Bar, but he must do it, and then perhaps the good people, will, some time or other, chuse him, a Representative. If he understand his interest, he will never accept a public employment, that depends on election; so think I—

The plan, which you have adopted, for yourself, I think judicious, and I wish you much delight in the pursuit of it. While you are reading law, there may occur some vacancy, into which you may step from the Office of your patron, but, upon this you cannot calculate. It matters little however, whether there be few, or many lawyers, in the same place; for business will always be done by a few. I am not much in the habit of expressing the anxiety, which perplexes my mind, on the subject of my own professional success, but I cannot help feeling gloomy, at times, under the conviction, that my business will not be sufficient to support me, for two or three years to come— Will this be enough to satisfy me? Do I not wish for something beyond this? Perhaps I do— What then? Why wait two or three year’s more until the best part of your life is spent, and there is a chance that you may gain a livelihood by your profession— Very consolatory upon my word— But of this, somewhat too much—

I send you herewith the farmer’s boy, for which I paid 50/100 on account— The Oration spoken by Beckley is not printed in pamphlet, as I know of.2

We are to pass sentence, this evening, on a new historical play, written by Charles Ingersoll. It is called “Edwy & Elgiva,” the story you will remember is to be found in the first vol: of Hume, to which I refer you to refresh your memory— The cast of characters, you have enclosed, and on Monday you shall hear the fate of it. Unfortunately the Author could not keep his secret—3 All the town are long since informed, who wrote the piece & it now stands upon its deliverance under less favorable circumstances than if the author had been invisible— I believe it will go down once—perhaps more—

I return best regards to Boylston— His story tells pretty straight; just enough so, to make me think, he made it himself. The conditions he imposed, were quite as rigid, as I should expect from any Quaker, with an only daughter; for if the same measure of fortune be required to be paid down, by a young lawyer, as he may expect to receive as for a marriage portion, if he marry for money, very few rich Quakers, with only daughter’s, would ever be connected with young lawyers. Cousin B. & I have laid a wager, if I remember well, that one of us will be married sooner than the other, & he who marries first is to lose the bet. I hold him to the bargain, in full expectation of winning—4

I am, for the present / Your’s

T B A—

Monday Morng 7th: April.

The Tragedy was performed, on Saturday Evening, to a very full & respectable house, and received with applause enough to ensure it a repetition, this evening— I think it less faulty & exceptionable, than I expected— Some alterations might be suggested, for the better, and in expressing an opinion of its merits, it is necessary to add, “it is well, for such a youth.” I will say more after a second hearing of it. The audience were so intent upon carrying the piece through, that they bewildered sober criticism, with their clamor.

Your’s

T B A

RC (MWA:Adams Family Letters); addressed: “William. S. Shaw / Boston”; internal address: “W S Shaw”; endorsed: “Ans 17 April” and “T B Adams Esqr / rec 17 April”; docketed: “1801 / Apl 5.”

1Shaw’s letter to TBA of 29 March has not been found. One of the enclosures was probably the Boston Columbian Centinel, 28 March, which reported that a committee of the Mass. General Court accompanied by an “extensive cavalcade” of well-wishers visited JA in Quincy on 26 March to present him with a 3 March address marking his retirement. The legislature’s address declared, “The period of the administration of our general Government, under the auspices of Washington and Adams, will be considered as among the happiest eras of time.” In his reply of the same day, JA thanked the legislature: “This final applause of the Legislature so generously given after the close of the last scene of the last act of my political drama is more prescious than any which preceded it.— There is no greater felicity remaining to me to hope or to desire, than to pass the remainder of my days in repose, in an undisturbed participation of the common privileges of our fellow citizens under your protection.” Shaw also enclosed the Boston Commercial Gazette, 26 March, which reprinted an extract of JQA’s 25 Nov. 1800 letter to JA from the Washington Federalist, for which see AA to TBA, 22 March 1801, and note 6, above (Mass., Acts and Laws description begins Acts and Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts [1780–1805], Boston, 1890–1898; 13 vols. description ends , 1800–1801, p. 210–211, 575).

2TBA was referring to Robert Bloomfield, The Farmer’s Boy; A Rural Poem, Phila., 1801, Shaw-Shoemaker description begins Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker, American Bibliography: A Preliminary Checklist for 1801–1819, New York, 1958–1966; 22 vols.; supplemental edn., Early American Imprints, www.readex.com. description ends , No. 206. The second work was John Beckley’s address on Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration, delivered by the former clerk of the House of Representatives on 4 March at Philadelphia’s German Reformed Church. The oration, which spoke of “America, rising with gigantic strength, as Hercules from his cradle,” was published in broadside as An Oration, Delivered by John Beckley, Esq., on the 4th of March, 1801, Phila., 1801, Shaw-Shoemaker description begins Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker, American Bibliography: A Preliminary Checklist for 1801–1819, New York, 1958–1966; 22 vols.; supplemental edn., Early American Imprints, www.readex.com. description ends , No. 149 (New York Commercial Advertiser, 27 Jan.; Boston Constitutional Telegraphe, 18 March).

3Charles Jared Ingersoll (1782–1862), son of TBA’s legal mentor Jared Ingersoll, was still a teenager when his play Edwy and Elgiva debuted at Philadephia’s New Theatre on 4 April. The author was called a “rising genius” in the Philadelphia Repository, 11 April, and a review of the play in Port Folio, 1:126–127 (18 April), reported that prolonged applause “loudly expressed the good humour and approbation of the house.” Advertisements identified the author only as “a young gentleman of rank in this city” until the play was published in May as Charles Jared Ingersoll, Edwy and Elgiva: A Tragedy, Phila., 1801. The story of the courtship of the tenth-century English king was told in David Hume, History of England from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Accession of Henry VII, 2 vols., London, 1762, 1:80–82, a work that was later incorporated into Hume’s monumental six-volume history of England (William M. Meigs, The Life of Charles Jared Ingersoll, Phila., 1897, p. 26, 334; Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 30 March, 2 April, 7 May).

4For Boylston Adams’ Jan. 1802 marriage, see JQA to TBA, 9 Jan., and note 10, below.

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