John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 25 July 1798
John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams
25. July 1798.
Since my last, I have received your favours of 3d. 26th. 27th. 29th: May, and 12th: June—1 By your very kind and constant attention I find myself as regularly and recently informed of the current Events in our Country, as I could expect or wish— Your pamphlets and papers too, with those which I receive from the department of State are a treasure to me— I have written to the Secretary of State, requesting a copy of the last Edition of the Laws of the United States, published last year by order of Congress.—2 But as he may have none to spare, I shall repeat the request to you. There was ordered a distribution of one copy to almost every public officer of the U.S. excepting their Ministers abroad, who were perhaps forgotten— I have indeed a complete sett of the Laws, as they were published from time to time, but part of them were sent with the rest of my books to Lisbon
It gives me the most cordial satisfaction to see the genuine spirit of freedom and independence unfolding itself so nobly in my Country— You may remember that five years ago, I pledged myself for my cotemporaries, upon a public occasion, in a solemn manner, that they should prove themselves worthy of their fathers.—3 They are now coming forth to justify in its fullest extent the testimony that I bore of them— I only regret that I am not among them to participate in their zeal and enthusiasm, and to contribute my utmost endeavours to keep it in its fervid glow— Cicero tells one of his friends absent from Rome with Caesar in Gaul, that “many, have done the public and themselves, good service, far from their Country, and many others have deserved nothing but disapprobation by staying at home”—4 This reflection has often afforded me consolation and inspired Patience, when I have been inclined to repine, but if I judge from present appearances I am not like to advance either the public interests or my own by my absence from my Country.— I am not apprehensive indeed of doing any injury to the public, other than that of occasioning useless expence, (and that, is too great an evil for me to bear it long) but from the misfortunes or misconduct of those to whom I entrusted my own affairs at home, my long exile is like to turn out but a shabby bargain for myself.— The news of Dr: W’s failure was utterly unexpected to me, and has given me no less grief than surprize— I hope however and believe, that I shall not personally suffer very materially by it— But my brother’s conduct is much more distressing to me.— Large as the trust I had committed to him was, the loss of the money will be what I shall feel the least.— I gave him a very liberal commission and very precise instructions. Had he regarded the latter, my property must have been perfectly secure. It is now nearly two years since I have received a line from him about it. I have written to him over and over again requesting him to inform me regularly of its situation— I have written in vain.— He has (or had) 4000 dollars of mine for which he must account, and for the interest upon it for two years— I authorized him more than eighteen months ago to draw for 2000 more. He has neither drawn nor informed me why he forbore. The consequence has been that the value of the money for eighteen months has been lost to me.— My confidence in him costs me dear— But what is much worse, I am forced to conclude that it was misplaced.
I think that very soon after the date of your last Letter, General Marshall must have arrived at Philadelphia— The issue of this Commission will add one more to the examples innumerable already of confidence misplaced, upon occasions of great importance.— General Pinckney is I believe yet in France, though under the same sentence of exclusion by the Directory as Mr: Marshall. But the state of his daughter’s health, in a deep and probably irrecoverable consumptive decline, prevented his return with his colleague.— Mr: Gerry, first pledged himself not to remain alone as was most insidiously and perfidiously required, and then did remain alone, for no better reason as I hear than that he was threatened with an immediate rupture, if he went.— Why he remains after receiving his letters of recall, I have not heard— I am told he waits for what he calls an ultimatum.— I have received but one letter from him since I have been at Berlin—5 I am afraid it will appear that he was one of the most improper persons that could have been appointed to concur in that negotiation
An ex-Genevan, Bellamy by name, who is settled at Hamburg has published what he calls a vindication of his conduct as Mr: Y.— You will see it before this reaches you.— He declares positively that he neither said, wrote nor did any one thing in the course of the business without the express orders of Mr: Talleyrand— But he undertakes also to prove from the published dispatches of the Commissioners themselves, that he Bellamy, or Y. never said a word about the 1200,000 livres for the Directory and Ministers— His publication, that of Talleyrand, and the conduct of the Directory in leaving the latter still in office after what is public, has confirmed and rendered in a manner universal the public opinion, that the foulness of corruption is fully shared by them all.6
You have seen by the extracts from their newspapers which I have lately sent you that they fully depended upon their party in America, and especially upon the house of Representatives in Congress, not only to annihilate every exertion of our defence against them, but even to effect a Revolution, which should remove the President and the Senate from their stations, and destroy their co-operation to the public administration.— The measures passed at the close of May, and beginning of June, seem unexpected to them. They appear quite chagrined and disappointed to find even the house of Representatives abandon them.—7 By the last accounts from Paris they had not yet declared War, but the Directory had laid an Embargo upon all the American Vessels in their Ports—8 I have some doubt whether they will declare War— This function is by the french Constitution exclusively attributed to the Legislative Councils— But in practice the Directory make War without having it declared at all.— No War was declared either against Venice, or Switzerland— But both were invaded—both were conquered— Venice was given to the Emperor, and Switzerland is made a Republic one and indivisible, subordinate to the french rights of conquest.— There was no declaration of War against Malta, which has just been invaded and conquered; probably the Directory do not choose to ask declarations of War from the Legislature, because if the example was once given, it might lead to a future limitation of their own practice in making it without consulting the Councils.—9 We may be sure however that in fact a long and terrible War is opening upon us. And the more so, as they have the most ineffable contempt for us as Enemies.— They think they can do with us just what they please, and that we cannot in the smallest degree hurt them.— They imagine that we cannot even carry into execution a prohibition against trading with their colonies— This is a point of extreme importance, and I hope we shall shew them their error here, to be no less complete than when they felt sure of their majority in the house of representatives.
We have had here lately a ceremony, similar to a coronation— A Lady belonging to Leipzig told me she came from that place, to see it, because we live in an age when such sights are like to become very scarce— I shall not give you a description of it, because you will find one exactly like it, in Mirabeau’s secret Letters, if you feel curious to know any thing about it— Indeed the actors in this scene were almost all the same as in that;—10 I have sent to the Secretary of State a translation of the Speeches made by the Minister Reck (the same mentioned by Mirabeau) and the answers to them.—11 The new french Minister Sieyes was present, in the diplomatic box— He asked me whether we had many public ceremonies in the United States— I told him, many— That we were quite a ceremonious people, and instanced particularly the solemnities with which our state Legislatures annually meet— He said it was very proper— That it was a great error in France not to have adopted such a custom, as it was necessary to command the respect of the People, by such representations as strike their Senses—12
I have received lately from Mr: Bourne, our Consul at Amsterdam a letter, expressing great uneasiness on account of Letters from him published by Russell in the Centinel— one of them was written to Russell himself, stating that the french Consul at Amsterdam had discharged an American vessel carried in there, upon examination of her papers; and mentioning that our Commissioners at Paris had had several conferences with the Minister of foreign affairs; which was true— But the other is falsely stated in the publication, for it gives as coming directly from Mr: Gerry, what Mr: Bourne mentions only as hearing from a person of his acquaintance.— Mr: Bourne feels very much concerned that the publications should have occasioned comments very disadvantageous to him, and intimations that he is frenchified in his politics; a circumstance which he solemnly protests, and I am fully convinced to be utterly without foundation— During the whole time I was in Holland, I had Every reason to be satisfied that his sentiments and principles were those of a genuine American, without any improper foreign bias, and I still retain the fullest conviction that he deserves the same honourable character.13
His indirect information as from Mr: Gerry that prospects were becoming more favourable, for an arrangement, was erroneous but he received it from an American at Paris.— It has become a very common thing to talk in this manner, by those who wish to cripple all our exertions for defence— This sort of manoeuvre is not yet over, and you will see and hear enough of it still in America.— From no one more probably than Mr: Gerry himself— It is nothing but the metamorphosis of the wolf into a crocodile.
The Rédacteur, the Directory’s official paper says that the bill for suspending intercourse with France is astonishing even to those who know the great and secret motives which actuated the majority of the House of Representatives in passing it— An insinuation of bribery.
It says that they thereby deprive their fellow Citizens of a commerce which constituted 36 out of 51 millions of their exports in the year 1797.— This calculation you know is ridiculous.— But they take it from a speech of Mr: Giles—14 But nothing could be more dreaded by them than this regulation— For the love of Independence, of Liberty, of virtue of everything dear to American Hearts, let it be carried into strict and vigorous execution.— It is their only part deeply vulnerable by us— It is the only spring by which we can bring them to reason or justice
In the same Rédacteur of 27 or 28 Messidor, is an address to the Swiss, excellent for the perusal of those Americans, who count upon the Directory to assist them in the destruction of their own Government.15
Ever your’s.
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs: Adams.”; endorsed: “J Q A / July 25t. / 1798”; notation by TBA: “No 41 / 40 June 27.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 133. Tr (Adams Papers).
1. For AA’s letter to JQA of 3 May, see AA to Catherine Nuth Johnson, 4 May, note 3, above. For her letters of 26 and 29 May, see that of 27 May, and note 1, above.
2. JQA’s letter to Timothy Pickering requesting The Laws of the United States of America, Phila., 1797, No. 32974, has not been found. In letters to Pickering of 20 April 1799 and 16 Oct., however, JQA acknowledged receipt of the laws through the end of the 5th Congress (both LbC’s, APM Reel 132).
3. In his 4 July 1793 oration in Boston, JQA declared that “should the prospect hereafter darken, and the clouds of public misfortune thicken to a tempest; should the voice of our country’s calamity ever call us to her relief, we swear by the precious memory of the sages who toiled, and of the heroes who bled in her defence, that we will prove ourselves not unworthy of the prize, which they so dearly purchased; that we will act as the faithful disciples of those who so magnanimously taught us the instructive lesson of republican virtue” (JQA, An Oration, Pronounced July 4th, 1793, Boston, 1793, p. 14–15, No. 25076). See also vol. 9:432–433.
4. “There are who distant from their native soil, / Still for their own and country’s glory toil: / While some, fast-rooted to their parent-spot, / In life are useless, and in death forgot” (The Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero to Several of His Friends, ed. William Melmoth, 3 vols., London, 1753, 1:139).
5. JQA learned of the illness of Eliza Pinckney and of Elbridge Gerry’s decision to remain in Paris from letters he received from Rufus King and William Vans Murray in July 1798. The letter from Gerry to JQA was dated 5 Jan. (Adams Papers) and informed JQA that the commissioners had “no prospect of success” in their mission. Gerry also offered the opinion that a war between the United States and France would lead to disaster for both sides (King to JQA, 11, 28 June; Murray to JQA, 17 July, all Adams Papers).
6. Pierre Bellamy (1757–1832) was a Genevan banker who became known as “Y” in the XYZ Affair. In exile in Hamburg, Bellamy penned a defense of his negotiations with the American commissioners in the form of a 25 June letter to the Parisian editor François Martin Poultier d’Elmotte. An excerpt of the letter, accurately summarized by JQA here, appeared in both British and American newspapers (, 3:166; , p. 62; London Times, 10 July; Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser, 18 Sept.).
7. The Paris Gazette nationale ou le moniteur universel, 10 July, reported that the bill proposed in the House of Representatives to suspend all commercial intercourse between the United States and France was not taken up and said that the Anglo-American party would never succeed in sparking a war between the two countries. Four days later, however, the newspaper reported that the bill had indeed passed and that this measure, along with the Alien Act, would inevitably lead to a Franco-American rupture and an Anglo-American union.
8. On 9 July, in retaliation for U.S. defensive measures, the French Directory imposed an embargo barring American vessels from all French ports (, p. 147). For the lifting of this embargo, see JQA to AA, 14 Sept., and notes 3 and 4, below.
9. Napoleon’s Mediterranean fleet arrived at Malta on 9 June under orders from the Directory to capture what was seen as the key to Egypt. When the grand master of the Maltese Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, Baron Ferdinand von Hompesch, tried to limit the number of French ships that could enter the Maltese port, Napoleon answered by unleashing a cannon barrage and landing troops on 11 June. However, because many of the knights were Frenchmen reluctant to engage French troops, Napoleon was able to negotiate the surrender of the capital, Valletta, and take possession of it on 12 June. The majority of the French troops left Malta on 19 June bound for Egypt, leaving a 4,000-man occupation force (, 8:597; Juan Cole, Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East, N.Y., 2007, p. 8–11).
10. The ceremony of homage paid to King Frederick William II in Oct. 1786 was described in Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, The Secret History of the Court of Berlin, 2 vols., London, 1789, 1:225–229. Two copies of this work are in MQA (Catalog of the Stone Library). For a similar ceremony in honor of Frederick William III, see TBA to Joseph Pitcairn, 9 July 1798, and note 2, above.
11. In his 23 July letter to Pickering (LbC, APM Reel 132), JQA enclosed his translations of the speeches made at the 6 July ceremony of homage by Baron Eberhard Friedrich von Reck. JQA had been struck by two passages in particular. First, Reck promised that Prussia would go to war only over attacks on “the principles of his throne.” Second, he declared that the Prussian government abounded in “liberty, equality, and rights of man,” and therefore there was no need for revolution in the country. Reck (1744–1816) served as minister of justice from 1784 until 1807 (D/JQA/24, 10 July 1798, APM Reel 27; JQA to Rufus King, 11 July, CSmH:Rufus King Papers; , p. 442–443; Stefan Nienhaus, Geschichte der deutschen Tischgesellschaft, Tubingen, Germany, 2003, p. 368).
12. Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès attended the monarchical ceremony in a French-tricolor toga. JQA reported to Pickering that Sieyès had been “much pleased” by Reck’s speeches on the occasion, which he believed “would suit free Countries, such as either France or America” (Brendan Simms, The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797–1806, Cambridge, Eng., 1997, p. 90; JQA to Pickering, 23 July, LbC, APM Reel 132).
13. In a 10 July letter to JQA, Sylvanus Bourne expressed his concerns about the publication of his letters to Benjamin Russell in the Boston Columbian Centinel, 16 May. The article not only stated that the envoys had met with Talleyrand, it also reported that Bourne had learned from Gerry that “the negotiation appeared to be in good train.” Bourne requested that JQA clear up the matter with JA and assure the president of his “uniform abhorrence of F Politics” (Adams Papers).
14. Following JA’s 19 March address to Congress, the House debated whether to declare war on France. In a 29 March speech, William Branch Giles claimed U.S. exports to France in 1797 amounted to $36 million, while only $8 million went to Great Britain. Robert Goodloe Harper challenged Giles’ figures by pointing to a treasury report of exports for 1 Oct. 1796 to 30 Sept. 1797, submitted to the Senate by Oliver Wolcott Jr. on 5 March 1798, concluding that approximately $8.5 million worth of goods had been exported to Great Britain, while $11.6 million had gone to France. Harper claimed that even that reduced number to France was inflated by the necessity of shipping goods intended for the British West Indies through French ports to avoid French depredations (, 5th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1345, 1351, 1355; , 1:376, 384).
15. JQA was likely referring to the 4 July (An. VI, 16 messidor) address of Gen. Alexis Balthazar Henri Schauenburg, commander in chief of the Helvetic Army, to the Helvetic Directory, which was also printed in the Gazette nationale ou le moniteur universel, 13 July. Schauenburg summarized a letter from the French Directory suggesting that while France respected the rights of nations, the Helvetic Republic was failing to show its loyalty to the French government adequately, in particular in its failure to rein in abuses of the press (Sébastien Evrard, Les campagnes du général Lecourbe, 1794–1799, Paris, 2011, p. 132).