From Thomas Brand Hollis to John Adams, 3 March [1791]
From Thomas Brand Hollis
March 3d [1791]
Dear Sir
I am much in your debt for letters by mr Knox General Mansell & Mr Broome who seems an excellent citizen1 we had an American dinner all rejoiced in the welfare of America & remember’d our friend & the Patriots of that country.
I have just recd intelligence of the Boxes of Books for cambridge have been recd. the former letter not coming to hand
yesterday the 2 of march I sent on board the Apollo Captn Wm Billing a case for John Adams vice President of the United states containing Book for you particularly the 2 vol of the History of Bologna which you have preserved to the world I sent it in the condition it is in supposing you would make as like your first vol. as might be several tracts which will amuse a parcell for mrs Adams my amiable friend & a fish caught in Dorsetshire for her table to whom I wrote some time agoe for the engaging compliment she with her daughter have made me some tracts to be given to the Library of Philadelphia anonimously all of which you have2
should be glad to know in what state the Libraries are in that city.
many thanks for your tracts every thing from America is interesting & agreable me
some years past your pleasing advice would had great weight with me—
there is no doubt the french will succeed & continue a free & liberal nation the family seems to be taking leave of the country the aunts are gone.
I wished to have sent you a new book additions to common sense but cannot I write this to inform you of the case of books as I could put any note in the box being straitned for time.
we go on in old way— a bill to releive the Dissenting catholicks who will probably be put on a better footing that the protestant Dissenters at which I shall rejoice.3
“Aristocracy has never but one child the rest are thrown to the cannibal for prey & the natural parent prepares the unnatural repast.
“every thing which out of nature in man affects more or less the interest of society so does this—
“Etablish family justice & Aristocracy falls
“Aristocracy is kept up by family Tiranny & injustice”4
Farewell Health & good spirit to you & Mrs Adams and I am as ever Dear Sir / with esteem & affection / yr friend
T Brand Hollis
am obliged to stop.
RC (Adams Papers).
1. British Army officer John Maunsell delivered JA’s 1 June 1790 letter and a packet of congressional journals to Hollis, while New Haven merchant Samuel Broome carried JA’s 3 Nov. letter (vol. 20:366–367, 432–433). The dating of this letter is based on JA’s acknowledgment of it in his reply of 19 Feb. 1792, below.
2. For the books that Hollis sent to Joseph Willard for the Harvard College library, see vol. 20:10. Hollis then sent various tracts, not found, with Cherubino Ghirardacci’s Delia historia di Bologna, 2 vols., Bologna, Italy, 1605, via the Apollo, Capt. William Billings, which reached Philadelphia on 13 April 1791 after a voyage of 43 days from London (vol. 20:474; Pennsylvania Mercury, 5 April; Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser, 25 April).
3. Parliament was debating what became the Second Relief Act of 10 June, which widened paths of toleration extended thirteen years earlier. Roman Catholics were still barred from holding civil, military, and political offices. More a measure of relief than of full emancipation, the new legislation stipulated that Catholics could worship freely, operate schools, and practice law. Dissenting Protestants, like JA’s friend Joseph Priestley, did not enjoy the same result, for which see William Gordon’s 15 Sept. letter, and note 8, below (vols. 9:xii, 19:31, 20:298; Robert Hole, Pulpits, Politics and Public Order in England, 1760–1832, Cambridge, Eng., 1989, p. 105, 106; Margaret H. Turnham, Catholic Faith and Practice in England, 1779–1992: The Role of Revivalism and Renewal, Martlesham, Eng., 2015, p. 21).
4. Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, London, 1791 p. 73, 74).