Adams Papers Digital Edition

Adams Family Correspondence, volume 2

Mercy Otis Warren to Abigail Adams

Enclosure: Samuel Moody to Samuel Tufts
Samuel Tufts to John Adams, 6 January 1778 Tufts, Samuel JA Samuel Tufts to John Adams, 6 January 1778 Tufts, Samuel Adams, John
Samuel Tufts to John Adams
Hond. Sr. Newburyport the 6 Jany. 1778

Inclosed you have a letter from Saml. Moody Esqr. dated the 5th. Inst. came to my hands by his Brother, unsealed. You will therein read his propossals respecting your son. If you should send him, I shall be ready to offer him my Service so far as lays in my power, in any respect, to make his life happy in his Absence from his Friends.1

378

The Owners and Agents of the Civel Usage have followed your Advice to me respecting the Unloading the Prize Brigantine Lafortune. As Capt. Bertrand declined giving his Consent to Takeing out the goods, had the goods been taken out upon her Arrival, I Imagine it would have been a means of saving many Thousands of Dollars to the Concerned. The Next Superior Court, Which you with Messrs. Lowell and Parsons will Attend in our behalf, Will (I suppose) decide the Dispute, between the Captain and those Concerned in the Prize.2—With my complements to Mrs. Adams and all friends, I am Sr. your Honor's Obedt. Hume. sert.,

Samll. Tufts

Mrs. Tufts desires her Compliments to be deliverd to Mrs. Adams &c.

RC (Adams Papers). Enclosure: Samuel Moody to Samuel Tufts, 5 Jan. 1778, printed herewith.

1.

Samuel Moody (1726–1795), Harvard 1746, was the first master of Governor Dummer Academy in Byfield, founded in 1763, and during more than a quarter-century in that post acquired great repute for his success in preparing boys for Harvard and other New England colleges. His brother Joseph and wife “ran the academy farm and boarded the boys.” See Sibley-Shipton, Harvard Graduates , 12:48–54; James Duncan Phillips, “Harvard College and Governor Dummer's School,” MHS, Procs. , 69 (1947–1950): 194–206.

Doubtless JA discussed with Tufts (whose wife was a Moody) arrangements for placing JQA at Dummer Academy when JA stopped at Tufts' home in December. But the family's decision to let JQA accompany his father to Europe made any such plans obsolete.

 2.

Tufts had no doubt consulted JA on this case in December. He was acting as agent for the officers of the Civil Usage, Capt. Andrew Giddings, a Newburyport privateer, which in September had captured a French vessel, La Fortune, Capt. Yves Bertrand K'Enguen, carrying a cargo of British goods. The maritime court in Boston had condemned the cargo (though not the vessel) in Nov. 1777, but the French captain appealed to the Superior Court, which in its Suffolk session of Feb. 1778 upheld the previous decree. John Lowell and Theophilus Parsons represented Capt. Giddings when the appeal came on. See Superior Court of Judicature, Minute Book 103, Records, 1775–1778, fol. 203–205; MHS, Colls. , 77 (1927):99.