To John Adams from Jeremy Belknap, 18 July 1789
From Jeremy Belknap
Boston July 18. 1789
Much respected & dear Sir
It was a very singular pleasure to me to receive a Line from you approving the discourse which I did myself the honor to send to you; the good opinion of such a Gentleman as Mr Adams & the very great honor wch he has done me will not easily be effaced from my remembrance.
Not till this Week have I met with the political annals of George Chalmers printed in London 1780 in one Vol 4to.1 From what little I have as yet had Opportunity to read of the work, I conceive the author to have the spirit of indefatigable enquiry which is necessary in a historian, tho’ I think not so much of that Candor which is becoming in judging the characters & actions of those who have trod the Stage before us— The reason of my mentioning him to you is to introduce an enquiry whether you know the Man—Whether he be an American refugee or an Englishman—a Lawyer I think he is—& whether there is or is likely to be a second volume of his work. When I observe his having had access to the papers in the plantation Office, I feel a regret that an Ocean seperates me from such a grand repository. how necessary to form a just judgment of the secret springs of many American transactions!
The want of public repositories for historical materials as well as the destruction of many valuable ones by fires, by war & by the lapse of time has long been a subject of regret in my mind. Many papers which are daily thrown away may in future be much wanted, but except here & there a person who has a curiosity of his own to gratify no one cares to undertake the Collection & of this class of Collectors there are scarcely any who take Care for securing what they have got together after they have quitted the Stage. The only sure way of preserving such things is by printing them in some voluminous work as the Remembrancer—but the attempt to carry on such a work would probably not meet with encouragement— the publication of Govr Winthrop’s journal labours & I fear will come to nought.—2
You have done what I wished in publishing the Letters to Dr Calkoen, a Copy of which I was favoured with the Sight of by Mr Cranch before this publication was made. It is certainly an important point in the History of our Revolution that it was the work of the people at large & not of any party or faction as our Enemies have affected to believe. There is another point which ought to be as fully ascertained & that is that our Opposition to Great Brittain did not originate in a desire of Independence, but that we preserved our loyalty & affection to the Crown of Great Brittain as long as was practicable considering the immense provocation which we received.
Pray my dear Sir is it a fact that Baron Kalb was sent over hither by the Court of France to sound the inclinations of the Americans after the Repeal of the Stamp-act & that he found us so passionately attached to the British nation as to report the impossibility of attempting a seperation?3
You will pardon me for thus intruding on your more important engagements—& if you think me too forward or impertinent in my enquiries, suggest to me the propriety of being less so & you shall be obeyed—for really Sir I have a regard for your Character little short of veneration.—
Believe me therefore yr truly respectful / & much obliged friend & humble Ser[vant]
Jere Belknap
RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “The Honourable / Mr Adams / Vice President of the United States / New York”; endorsed: “Rev. Jeremiah Belknap. / July 18. ansd. 24. 1789.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed.
1. The same edition of George Chalmers’ Political Annals of the Present United Colonies, from Their Settlement to the Peace of 1763 is in JA’s library at MB. Chalmers (1742–1825), a prolific Scottish antiquarian, studied law in Edinburgh and practiced in Baltimore. Appointed chief clerk of the British Privy Council’s Board of Trade and Plantations in 1786, Chalmers drew on official records to publish various historical works (; ).
2. Then comprising two manuscript volumes, the journal of Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop (1588–1649) circulated widely in early American antiquarian circles. Connecticut governor Jonathan Trumbull Sr. (1710–1785), Harvard 1727, toiled with secretary John Porter to transcribe the journal for publication, but he died before finishing the task. Belknap, inspired by London editor John Almon’s monthly newspaper of Anglo-American politics, The Remembrancer, sought to preserve the new nation’s past through publication. He recovered Winthrop’s journal from Trumbull’s Lebanon, Conn., estate and brought it home to Boston.
In 1790 Noah Webster published a Hartford, Conn., edition of Winthrop’s account entitled A Journal of the Transactions and Occurrences in the Settlement of Massachusetts and the Other New-England Colonies, from the Year 1630 to 1644: Written by John Winthrop, Esq. First Governor of Massachusetts: And Now First Published from a Correct Copy of the Original Manuscript. A third volume of Winthrop’s manuscript, discovered in 1816, was temporarily deposited with the Massachusetts Historical Society, which Belknap founded in Jan. 1791 (The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630–1649, ed. Richard S. Dunn, James Savage, and Laetitia Yeandle, Cambridge, 1996, p. xi, xvi, xxii; , 8:267, 268, 298; ; Louis Leonard Tucker, Clio’s Consort: Jeremy Belknap and the Founding of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 1990, p. 93, 115, 116).
3. Maj. Gen. Johann von Robais, Baron de Kalb (1721–1780), of Hüttendorf, Germany, gathered political intelligence for the Duc de Choiseul, French minister of war and foreign affairs, during his travels through Amsterdam and London in 1767. Arriving in Philadelphia on 12 Jan. 1768, and observing Americans’ fury with the British parliament over a new wave of taxes, Kalb reported that the Stamp Act “affair is very far from being adjusted.” Intending to learn specifics about the colonists’ military capabilities, Kalb described a rising tide of violence within the provincial assemblies of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. He sailed to New York City two weeks later and made side trips to Boston and Halifax to gauge the political mood. Kalb informed the French ministry that Americans, while liberty-minded, would not invoke foreign aid, expecting that independence would evolve naturally in time. With his mail repeatedly intercepted and no reply from Choiseul, Kalb returned to Paris in mid-June. He sent Choiseul a memorandum listing British Army forces stationed in the colonies, which the minister dismissed as inflated. Kalb continued to report for several months on American affairs despite Choiseul’s indifference (Reneé Critcher Lyons, Foreign-Born American Patriots: Sixteen Volunteer Leaders in the Revolutionary War, Jefferson, N.C., 2014, p. 141, 145–147; Friedrich Kapp, The Life of John Kalb: Major-General in the Revolutionary Army, transl. Charles Goepp, N.Y., 1884, p. 46–71).