From John Adams to Thomas Crafts, Jr., 25 [May] 1790
To Thomas Crafts Jr.
New York 25th [May] 1790
Dear Sir
I have received with a mixture of pleasure and gloomy melancholy your favour of the 17th. What motives the eastern members can have to support the silly petition of Franklin and his Quakers, I never could conceive: but it was not that conduct which sowered the minds of the Southern members against an assumption of the State debts. The seat of government is more likely to have had such an effect on some minds.1 What is the reason that bills should be ten or twelve per Ct below par here, and only five at Boston The demand from Europe for grain would not alone have produced so great and sudden a change in the price of bills. The sudden rise of stock which was certainly occasioned by the new government contributed a great share to this symptom of prosperity. If no measures would ever be carried in the State Legislature to encourage the fisheries I leave you to Judge whether it is probable that bounties can be obtained from the general government.
Ships before the revolution were built upon British capitals. There are no capitals in Boston I fear but such as consist in credits to the nation or the State or employed in speculations in the Stocks. The carrying trade is the only resource for shipbuilding. The English are in possession of this. They not only have ships ready; but they own the crops for the most part. To dispossess the English from this business requires a system of measures and a course of time and our people are so fickle and unsteady, that it is doubtfull whether they would bear with patience the trial of a fair experiment The Massachusetts a few years ago, made a navigation act, which if it had been preserved to this day would in my opinion have found full employment for her shipwrights: but Mr Sullivan and Parson Thatcher, I heard in London became declaimers if not preachers against it and it was repealed.2 If Congress should make a similar law, it will be opposed by powerful interests, who will continually grumble against it and there is neither vigour nor constancy enough in the government, I am afraid, to persevere. That Congress will take some measures to bring into circulation the monies locked up, I cannot doubt. This must be done— I am assured that considerable sums of money are ordered to America from Europe, so that I hope we shall not have so great a scarcity of money long. The State debts, I fear will not be assumed this session.
Without a national government and steady measures we shall never be prosperous, and there is too powerful a party in Massachusetts against both. I hope we shall see better times, but my hopes are not sanguine
Yours &c
J A
LbC in CA’s hand (Adams Papers); internal address: “Thomas Crafts Esqr Boston”; APM Reel 115.
1. By late spring, congressional battle lines were drawn over two major issues: settling war debts and siting the capital. Within Congress, Massachusetts and South Carolina favored the federal assumption of state debts, while Virginia and North Carolina stood opposed to it. An antislavery petition, submitted by Benjamin Franklin, complicated both sets of debates. James Madison joined New England representatives in supporting calls to end slavery, but he led the opposition in the House of Representatives regarding assumption (, p. 147, 152, 160).
2. The Mass. General Court’s navigation act of 23 June 1785 prohibited imports sent via British ships, restricted foreign ships to entering only three regional ports, and laid duties on all other foreign ships that were double those paid by American ships. Massachusetts politician James Sullivan backed the measures, but he worried that internal division and a love of luxury kept Americans under Great Britain’s economic sway, writing: “Our Merchants have a supreme regard to her Commerce perhaps the large Sums they owe there keeps them in Awe.” Peter Thacher (1752–1802), Harvard 1769, who was the General Court’s chaplain, sided with Sullivan. On 29 Nov. 1790 Massachusetts lawmakers repealed the restrictions and heavy duties on foreign vessels, retaining the provisions against British ships (vol. 17:83, 535, 605; , 17:237, 245, 246).