Papers of John Adams, volume 9
I never heard a Word of your Arrival, untill this Day.1 I sincerely congratulate you upon it, and hope the fine Cargo you have brought will Set you at your Ease. Pray how did you leave all Friends and all Things at Baltimore, and in the rest of America? What is become of my old Friends Johnson, Paca, Chase, and many others?2
Baltimore flourishes, it
It is very strange that it should require a Combination of all the Nations of the Earth, with America, Ireland and the Whigs in England, to bring to reason, Scotland and the Tories. Yet so it is. And it seems it must take a good deal of time for the whole Combination to succeed. Have you any News of Mr. Laurens Father or Son?3 Do you know the designs of Congress relative to Holland? Can you give me a more particular Account of the storm the first of the Year. An hurricane of 15 days, is a new Phenominon in America? What must have become of Clintons Fleet?
Adieu
JA and MacCreery, a Maryland native and merchant, had exchanged numerous letters in 1778 and 1779. In a letter of 28 April 1779, MacCreery had informed JA of his imminent departure for America. JA may have learned of his return from Benjamin Franklin, to whom MacCreery had written from Bordeaux on 8 April (vol. 8:49;
Cal. Franklin Papers, A.P.S.
, 2:235).
Thomas Johnson, William Paca, and Samuel Chase were all prominent Maryland politicians.
JA initially ended the letter at this point, for the remainder of the text is written around the closing “Adieu.”