Adams Papers
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Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 26 April 1801

Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams

Philadelphia 26th: April 1801.

Dear Mother

Ten days ago, I shipped your Carriage on board a Schooner called the Hannah of Nantucket bound for Boston, and as there was no room below, I had to consent to its being secured upon Deck. Since the vessel sailed, we have had, until this day, a constant Succession of North Easterly storms, which has given me uneasiness on account of your property on board, and in order to cover the loss, in case it should happen, I have had serious thoughts of Insuring, at least the amount of four hundred dollars, which may be done, I presume, at about 4 or 5 per cent. Should this intent be realized, I shall inform you of it. The Bill of lading I enclosed to Mr: Smith, to whom the Carriage is also consigned.1

Your friends here are all well; Dr: Rush is reading a course of lectures to some intelligent ladies of the upper order, being extracts from his annual course delivered to Medical Students. Your friend, Mrs: Bradford is among the number of his hearers,2 & she told me, last evening, that the Professor had been descanting upon the comparative qualities, merits, & excellences, of the sexes; wherein he had attempted to make the discrimination which constitute their appropriate characters. She said it was a fertile theme & had been pretty well treated, though she differed from the Dr: in several of his positions; one of these was, “that men are more prone to disclose their own secrets, than women; but women are most apt to disclose the secrets of others, which have been confided to them.” I told her, that I thought the Dr: was right. She said we neither of us, knew the ladies.

I remember to have heard an Oration delivered before the Royal Society at Berlin, by a french Emigrant of some distinction, whose name I have forgotten— His theme was upon the influence which females have had in the affairs of Empires, from the remotest periods & of their capacity to direct the Councils of Nations.—3 Of all the discourses I ever heard pronounced, this was the most eloquent. The style was perfectly adapted to the delicacy of his subject—the sentiment, pure, correct & refined; & the manner of the speaker was doubtless the more animated by the presence of a few females, who were invited & selected for the refinement of their taste & the culture of their minds. One of the most striking examples which he referred to for the illustration of his subject, was the story of Pericles & Aspasia, which he described in such glowing colours, that you almost saw the parties in your presence by the magic of his pencil.4 If Dr: Rush could charm an audience, in this manner it would be an entertainment, superior to the stage, to attend his lectures.

I have nothing more in point to the above subject to add, than to inform you, that Mr: Lewis, the celebrated lawyer, was married to the widdow Durdon, an English-buxom lady, of whom might be said without much exageration on the score of age—“fat, fair & forty,” as was said, on a former occasion of another English lady— The Bishop performed the office on the 23d: of January last, but for some unknown reason, the thing was kept secret until a few days ago.5

Mr: & Mrs: Bingham, Maria & Miss Willing, embarked a fortnight ago, for Lisbon, a voyage prescribed by Mrs: Binghams physician as the only chance of her recovery.6

I am dear mother, with best love to all / & duty to my father / your son

T B Adams.

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs: A Adams.”

1The schooner Hannah, Capt. Hussey, departed Philadelphia for Boston on 17 April. William Smith Shaw notified TBA in a letter of 5 May, not found, that the carriage arrived safe in Boston (Philadelphia Gazette, 18 April; TBA to Shaw, 10 May, MWA:Adams Family Letters).

2The lectures Benjamin Rush presented to Susan Vergereau Boudinot Bradford and her peers were probably extracted from those published in November as Six Introductory Lecturesupon the Institutes and Practice of Medicine, Delivered in the University of Pennsylvania, 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. 1274 (vol. 14:305; Philadelphia Gazette, 19 Nov.).

3On 9 Aug. 1798 TBA attended a lecture at the Berlin Academy of Sciences given “by M. le vi-comte de Goyon a french Emigrant” and reported that he was “ shighly pleased with it” (TBA, Journal, 1798 description begins Berlin and the Prussian Court in 1798: Journal of Thomas Boylston Adams, Secretary to the United States Legation at Berlin, ed. Victor Hugo Paltsits, New York, 1916. description ends , p. 24).

4Aspasia was the consort of Pericles and is said to have convinced him to launch the Peloponnesian War (Oxford Classical Dicy. description begins Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3d edn., New York, 1996. description ends ).

5Philadelphia attorney William Lewis and Frances Esmond Durdin d, a native of Ireland and widow of Dublin attorney Richard Durdin, were married on 23 Jan. 1801 by Episcopal bishop William White at Christ Church, Philadelphia, though a newspaper notice of the marriage did not appear until 14 April. In characterizing the bride, TBA quoted the title of a 1786 London cartoon depicting Maria Anne Smythe Weld Fitzherbert, whose unsanctioned marriage to George, Prince of Wales, in 1785 caused a stir in London (vol. 7:xi–xii; “Marriage Record of Christ Church, Philadelphia, 1709–1806,” Penna. Archives description begins Pennsylvania Archives, Selected and Arranged from Original Documents in the Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, Philadelphia and Harrisburg, 1852–1935; 119 vols. in 123. description ends , 2d ser., 8:155; Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 14 April 1801; Howard M. Jenkins, The Family of William Penn, Phila., 1899, p. 217–218; Mary Dorothy George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 11 vols. in 12, London, 1870–1954, 6:290).

6For Anne Willing Bingham’s illness and death, see TBA to AA, 31 May, and note 4, below.

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