To John Adams from John Bondfield, 20 November 1789
From John Bondfield
Bordeaux 20 Nov 1789
Sir
I am this day honor’d with your favor of the 16 September
I am happy to find that the affairs of America are in a state to fix a permanent line of Reimburssment, becoming thereby truely independant.
Notwithstanding the weight of Opossion against the leading Members of the National Assembly, the steddy perseverance of the few and the effectual support of the Marquis de La fayette in whose hands are the reigns of the National Troops. that the Motions made by the Patriote Committees are decretted by a Powerful majority
The Revolution is Compleat unless you regard leaving in the Person of the King a Susperiur Power and an hereditary Succession, [. . .] abuses both have limits that render the nation a Curb to infractions
the distinction of orders are Vanish’d, the Incorporated Bodies are Supprest, all provincial distinctions of charters Privalidges and Customs are destroy’d the formadable Body of the Parliaments and all Religious Orders Supprest. The Estates of the Clergy Sequester’d for the benefit of the Nation applicable to the discharge of the National Debt, the Courts of Justice suspended to the Establishment of a New Code—
The Old Mansion is thus entirely demolish’d and the materials are colected to A heap to be destroyd by time The Plan of the New fabrique is before the House of Assembly They have begun by the Ground Work, by a New division of the Kingdom into 80 equal parts of 36 by 36 Leagues. called Departement, the 80 departments into 9 equal divivissions of 6 by 6 Leagues call’d Com̃unes or Districts. The Communes into 9 equal Divissions of 2 by 2 Leagues called Cantons or Primaires The Names of the Old Provinces have no longer existence
The present deliberations are imploy’d in organizing the Municipality’s. The Represtations are to take Rise from the Cantons or Primaires in the proportion of Population of 1 to 600 to form the provincial assemblys
from these outlines you see a methodique order establish’d by the Moteurs of the Revolution and all personalties being set asside and a general chain of Popular measures pursued. the People at large approve the measusurs and smother the murmurs of the discontented1
The Austrian Netherlands [. . .] in Arms have Publish’d
their manifest against the Souveregnety of the Emperor, but their principals motifs not springing from Liberal
Principles but from Religious fermentations fomented by discontented Religious Orders
who were supprest by order of Gouverment it is posible their resistence may prove a
Civil Slaughter without reaping any Solid advantages.2
I shall ship by the french Pacquet that will leave this in ten or fifteen Days the wine you have pleased to Commission3
If on application that will be made to you for Supplies of Wheat and flour from the Ministry of france should be complied with permit me to Solicite your Influence in my favor as your Agent for the Receipt of the Cargoes that may be addrest to this port4
with respectful Attatchment I have the Honor to be / Sir, / Your most Obedient / Humble Servant
John Bondfield
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “The Honble John Adams Esq Vice President of Congress”; endorsed: “Bondfield / 20. Nov. 1789.” Some loss of text due to an ink blot.
1. After the National Assembly’s abolition of the three estates and renunciation of special privileges for provinces on 4 Aug., the French Revolution’s political progress gained pace. The assembly dissolved all monasteries and convents on 28 Oct. and then confiscated church property amounting to an estimated 2.5 billion livres. As Bondfield pointed out, Louis XVI held some power, but on 14 Dec., that, too, changed when the assembly established new municipal governments and courts. By 15 Feb. 1790, France was divided into 83 departments of roughly equal size (, p. 140, 145, 148–149).
2. Beginning in 1781, Joseph II, emperor of Austria, conducted a two-year program of political reforms that stripped away the power of the Roman Catholic Church in the Austrian Netherlands. In a rapid series of edicts, he suppressed monastic orders and reallocated their funds. He cut off formal contact with officials in Rome and rejected the authority of papal bulls. The emperor pushed through these changes without the consent of the States General, provoking his critics in the Democrat and Statist parties to join forces with the Catholic clergy in revolt. In Dec. 1789, the States General proclaimed Joseph II’s deposition and the establishment of a short-lived Republic of the United States of Belgium. After Joseph II’s death on 20 Feb. 1790, his brother and successor, Leopold II, recaptured the Austrian Netherlands (, 6:648–655).
3. JA received his wine order of 16 Sept. 1789, above, via the French packet Suffrein, Capt. Le Grand, which arrived in New York on 15 May 1790 after a 53–day voyage from Bordeaux (New York Daily Advertiser, 17 May).
4. Hailstorms, drought, and a severe winter ravaged the French wheat crop in late 1788, inciting bread riots. As the shortage continued and bread prices skyrocketed, Thomas Jefferson noted that bakers set quotas, weekly subscriptions were collected to feed the poor, and dinner party guests were asked to bring their own bread. He relayed France’s need to at least one Virginia planter, Alexander Donald, who shipped 10,000 barrels of flour in Jan. 1789.
Although the grain shortage was often blamed on embattled finance minister Jacques Necker, other members of the French government drew Jefferson into the food crisis. On 6 July Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, falsely informed the National Assembly that Jefferson had promised Necker that the United States would send “a large supply” of wheat and flour to ease the famine. Seeking confirmation, the Marquis de Lafayette contacted Jefferson, who denied the claim. Mirabeau retracted it two days later, but the damage was done. Several of Jefferson’s exchanges with the ministry appeared in the French press, and in an unflattering light. On 6 Nov. Mirabeau put forth a new motion in the assembly, requesting that the United States pay its Franco-American loans in grain. Although he was unsuccessful, additional American shipments of wheat and flour reached Bordeaux in Jan. 1790 (, 15:243–256; , p. 305, 324; , 4:282–284; , 6:230).