Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 26 August 1799
Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams
Germantown 26th: August 1799
My dear Mother.
I have no letter from you later than the 4th: which I mention only because the interval is a little longer than usual between your communications and lest any you might have written may have miscarried. From William I got a packet on Saturday, after my letter of that day was sent to town, otherwise, I should have acknowledged its receipt.1 In J Russells paper of the 15th: which he enclosed me, I perceive a very handsome letter addressed to Peter Porcupine by a New England man, on the subject of expunging from the new edition of his works which he proposes to publish by subscription, the illiberal, accrimon[ious] & unprovoked attack upon the character of Joseph Priestly. I co[ncur] so fully in the sentiments of this writer on that subject, that I hope [. . .] may take the whim of inserting the letter with his “Observations on the Emigration” &ca: if he will not adopt the advice of the writer in the other particular, which there is little reason to think he will. Can you guess who the New Englandman is?2
I have received the letter on the subject of my brother’s affairs, which he refers to in his last to you.3 It is very explicit & intelligible as a letter of instructions and I have the satisfaction of having anticipated compliance with a great part of the injunctions. His letter is dated April 29th: at which time he had received only my two first numbers, which contained little of the detail of my transactions in his affairs; my two next letters were filled with little else. From one of your letters he had collected information, which detected a considerable error in the account rendered by his Boston Agent in July 1798, in which the instalments on the shares in the Middlesex Canal are charged to my brother as paid; that is, the 30th: instalment fell due 18th: July and is charged—no payment was made subsequent to that and the time of his delivering up the papers, but instead of two hundred dollars only one hundred could have been due for four month’s assessments on five shares, of course payments for four months prior to July must have ceased and yet they were charged as paid— How to repair this mistake would puzzle wiser heads than mine, unless the extremity of the law were put in force.
The Minister say’s to me, “You will never think yourself entitled to betray my confidence, because I am your brother, or to ruin me, because I cannot take the law of you.” Such an insinuation would have hurt my feelings, had I been less acquainted with his character or my own— But he has had ample occasion to speak plain to those whom he entrusts with his affairs.
The fever prevails in the City to an awful degree, considering the earliness of the season—the mortality is equal to the same period of the last year. Our house is full of fugitives, but we are entirely free from danger.
I have recently become acquainted in the family of Mr: Hare, who has a pretty seat in this neighborhood. I dined there last week and was much gratified with the conversation of the elder & younger branches of the family. Mr: Hare told me that I reminded him of my Father as he was more than 20 years ago, when he lodged in the same house with him at Mrs: Yards in Philadelphia— “I recollect your father wore his hair then much as yours is now.” Did he, indeed Sir, said I, the information is very acceptable to me and shall not be lost, for I have been somewhat persecuted since my return on account of the cut of my hair. Young Mr: Hare observed, he supposed because it was democratic.4 Mrs: Powell whom I saw last evening desired me to present her best congratulations on the reestablishment of your health— The widow looks as youthful & blooming almost as her niece Miss Hare.5 The gift of tongue seems to pervade every branch of this family.
Present me kindly to my Father for whom the annecdote of the crop is particularly related & to whom you will please to read it / for your Son
T. B. Adams6
RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “Mrs: A Adams / Quincy”; internal address: “Mrs: A Adams”; endorsed: “T B Adams / August 26 / 1799.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed.
1. Not found.
2. William Cobbett had attacked Joseph Priestley for his French sympathies beginning with the publication of Observations on the Emigration of Dr. Joseph Priestly, Phila. and N.Y., 1794, No. 26778, and continuing in the pages of Porcupine’s Political Censor, for Jan. 1797, for which see vol. 12:49, 50. More recent attacks appeared in the Philadelphia Porcupine’s Gazette, 5, 15 Jan., 13 March, 12 August. The Boston Russell’s Gazette, 15 Aug., featured a piece by “A New-England Man” comparing the attacks to “a wren pecking at an eagle” and calling on Cobbett to either leave them out of his upcoming collected works or to print the letter alongside them. Although AA disputed the information in her 4 Sept. reply to TBA, below, an article in Porcupine’s Gazette, 26 Aug., identified “A New-England Man” as John Gardner. Cobbett included “Observations on Priestley’s Emigration” and other attacks in his Porcupine’s Works, 12 vols., London, 1801, 1:151–215.
3. JQA to AA, 7 May, above.
4. The trend toward short natural hair that gained popularity in the 1790s and was hastened in England by a 1795 tax on powder extended to the United States, where it was often interpreted as a political statement promoting republican ideals (vol. 9:294; Victoria Sherrow, Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History, Westport, Conn., 2006, p. 322, 404–405). For JA’s inconsistent use of wigs, see vols. 9:293; 11:138, 139.
5. On 18 Aug. 1799 TBA recorded in his Diary that he had had a “very sociable time” after “Charles Hare called & invited me to dine at his father’s in a family party.” Charles Willing Hare (1778–1827) was the eldest surviving child of Margaret Willing and Robert Hare Sr., for whom see , 4:499. The current speaker of the Penn. senate, Hare Sr. had resided in the boardinghouse of Sarah Yard at the same time as JA in the mid-1770s. His only daughter was Martha (1779–1852). For Elizabeth Willing Powel, the sister of Margaret Willing Hare, see vol. 9:168 (TBA, Diary, 1798–1799; , 10:626; , 2:115; Charles P. Keith, The Provincial Councillors of Pennsylvania, Phila., 1883, p. 89–90, 129).
6. TBA wrote AA a second letter on 26 Aug. after receiving her letter of 17 Aug., above. In it he confirmed that Col. Thomas Hartley had become a supporter of Thomas McKean, downplayed Joel Barlow’s political influence, and reported the 11 Aug. birth of John Stephens Smith, son of WSS’s sister Elizabeth and her husband, John Smith (Adams Papers).