To John Adams from James Boyd, 30 June 1789

From James Boyd

Boston June 30th. 1789

Your Excellency will pardon the freedom of my addressing you, when you are acquainted with my sufferings & my present Indigence. which is such as urges me to request your Influence with Congress respecting the resolv’s of this Court (relative to my sufferings) which was sent on to Congress, by Order of Government. bearing date Novr. 10th: 1786, Copy of which by the desire of the Honbe. Mr. Bowdoin. I inclos’d to the Honbe. Mr: Dalton on the 3 Int. requesting him to deliver the same to your Excelly.1

As your Excellency was in Europe at the time those papers were sent to Congress. I was inform’d by several Gentlemen then in Congress. that nothing respecting them cou’d be done untill your return to America as the Eastern Boundary Line was not then determin’d. Altho’ that Matter is not yet fully determin’d as to the River St. Croix. I am clearly of opinion that its the Most Northern River, as that was the only one known to the Indians by the Name of St. Croix, & is the River Mitchel was order’d by Government to explore & take the true Course, I was present with Mitchel when the Indians (upon Oath) declaird that to be the only St. Croix—2

I am encouraged by my Friends who have wrote to Congress in my behalf, to hope that Congress will take Notice of my present Indigent situation & in their wisdom & goodness grant me some relief. as I am the only Refugee yet unnoticd—

with great Esteem & respect I beg leave to / subscribe my self Your Excelly / Most Obt Hbe. Servt.—

James Boyd

PS. for any particulars I beg leave to refer to Mr: Dalton. who I wrote fully too—

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “His Excellency John Adams Esq / Vice president of the United States.”

1. Seeking restoration of or compensation for his land, Boyd wrote to George Washington on 27 November. The president included Boyd’s petition in his 9 Feb. 1790 message to the Senate on the eastern boundary dispute, along with a copy of the Mass. General Court’s 10 Nov. 1786 resolution supporting Boyd’s quest. The Senate appointed a committee to investigate the claim on 10 Feb. 1790. Six weeks later, it recommended the formation of a joint Anglo-American commission to settle the dispute, effectively reiterating John Jay’s advice on the matter in his 21 April 1785 report to Congress. Boyd did not regain his lands, but on 7 April 1798 Congress passed an act for the relief of refugees from Canada and Nova Scotia. In 1812 Congress recognized that Boyd lost 50,000 acres and awarded his heirs 2,240 acres near Columbus, Ohio (vol. 19:485; First Fed. Cong. description begins Documentary History of the First Federal Congress of the United States of America, March 4, 1789 – March 3, 1791, ed. Linda Grant De Pauw, Charlene Bangs Bickford, Helen E. Veit, William C. diGiacomantonio, and Kenneth R. Bowling, Baltimore, 1972–2017; 22 vols. description ends , 61–62 65–66, 373–376, 383–385; Amer. State Papers description begins American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1832–1861; 38 vols. description ends , 1:95, 96; U.S. Statutes at Large description begins The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, 1789–, Boston and Washington, D.C., 1845–. description ends , 2:712; Edward Livingston Taylor, “Refugees to and from Canada and the Refugee Tract,” Ohio Archæological and Historical Publications, 12:219, 239 [1887]).

2. For the dispute over the location of the Schoodic River (now St. Croix) and the significance of John Mitchell’s map, see vol. 18:241–244, 296, 328–329, 399–400.

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Source Project: Adams Papers
Title: To John Adams from James Boyd, 30 June 1789
Author: Boyd, James
Recipient: Adams, John
Date: 30 June 1789

Reference

Cite as: “To John Adams from James Boyd, 30 June 1789,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-20-02-0034. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 20, June 1789–February 1791, ed. Sara Georgini, Sara Martin, R. M. Barlow, Gwen Fries, Amanda M. Norton, Neal E. Millikan, and Hobson Woodward. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020, pp. 47–48.]