Abigail Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 27 April 1800
Abigail Adams to Abigail Adams Smith
Philadelphia April 27th. 1800.
My dear Mrs Smith
I have been so much engaged that I have not been able to get time to write you a line this week. I have paid four visits to the Secretarie’s ladies, and took tea with them, and one to Mrs Senator Read, all of which you know by experience takes up time. we had on thursday 14 couple of young ladies and gentlemen to dine, Bingham, Hares, Whites, Wilsons, Peter’s, Rush’s, Pinckney’s, Breck’s, Reads, and Bard, & Miss Duane from New York.1 Whilst at dinner Thomas, rose, or rather just before I left the table, he came and whispered “suppose we have a dance this evening,” with all my heart provided it is thus accidentally struck up, but you must not sit long at table. They all came to the drawing room to tea, & in the meantime the tables were cleared, the room lighted up, and by eight o clock they were all dancing, they kept it up till 12, when they all retired. A happier or pleasanter circle I have not seen together. Maria Morris, was also of the party, & two Miss Walice’s, several of them expressed great satisfaction, coming so unexpectedly, when it was so little contemplated, said they should place it amongst the happiest evenings of their lives. You will see from the trial of Cooper, from that of three French Pirates Fries that neither calumny, treason, or Piracy, are tolerated by even Philadelphia juries.2 May justice and judgment be the stability of our Government, and Mercy temper justice where it can, may our laws be a terror to evil doers, whilst they encourage those who do well. I believe these decisions will work out our safety. I consider them of much greater importance than the mutiny’s on board a ship or two, one of which was occasioned by a refusal to let the sailor’s have lights,3 it shows however a spirit of disorder and insubordination which must be quelled and by severity if no mild measures will do. I think however that representations should be made, and precautions taken to gaurd against surprize. We should at all times be ready for defence.
Your affectionate / Mother
A. A.
Tr in ABA’s hand (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs W. S. Smith”; APM Reel 327.
1. Sarah Duane was the daughter of the late James Duane, former mayor of New York City (George Rogers Howell and Jonathan Tenney, History of the County of Albany, N.Y., N.Y., 1886, p. 163; ).
2. The Philadelphia schooner Eliza, Capt. William Wheland, was bound for St. Thomas on 12 Sept. 1799 when it was commandeered by three Frenchmen who had joined the crew under assumed names. Mutineers Joseph Boulanger, Joseph Berrouse, and Peter La Croix killed all of the crew except Wheland, who was spared in exchange for continuing to navigate. Wheland managed to retake the vessel and brought the mutineers as prisoners to Philadelphia. The men were convicted in U.S. Circuit Court on 21 April 1800 and hanged on 9 May (Joseph Gibbs, On the Account: Piracy and the Americas, 1766–1835, Portland, Ore., 2012, p. 12–14, 20, 26–27). For the trials of Dr. Thomas Cooper and John Fries, see AA to JQA, 27 April, and note 4, above, and TBA to JQA, 11 May, and note 6, below.
3. AA may have been referring to a 4 April mutiny by 200 sailors aboard the U.S. frigate Congress off Norfolk, Va., which was attributed to “a tendency to Mutiny and disorder in the late Crew.” Two leaders were at first sentenced to death, but the punishment was reduced to 100 lashes (Philadelphia Universal Gazette, 17 April; , 5:462, 520–521).