Adams Papers Digital Edition

Papers of John Adams, volume 9

De Kemtenstrauss to John Adams: A Translation

To the President of Congress, No. 63
To Edmé Jacques Genet, 10 May 1780 JA Genet, Edmé Jacques To Edmé Jacques Genet, 10 May 1780 Adams, John Genet, Edmé Jacques
To Edmé Jacques Genet
Dear Sir Paris May 10th 1780

I have communicated your Invitation to Commodore Jones.1 He will go to Versailles a Sunday, but I believe is engaged to dine. I will have the Honor of waiting on You with Mr. Dana and Mr. Thaxter, on Sunday: but I believe, it will be best to leave my little Sons, and give them another Opportunity of availing themselves of your Goodness.

Sir John Dalrymple is at Madrid, and coming this Way, from Portugal, on Account of his Lady's Health as it is given out.

The Slanderer of Algernon Sidney will do no good in Spain, France or any where else.2

Adieu

LbC in John Thaxter's hand (Adams Papers).

1.

See Genet's letter of 9 May, and note 2 (above).

 2.

For the report concerning Dalrymple, see letters from John Jay andWilliam Carmichael of 26 and ca. 26 April respectively (both above). JA's reference to Dalrymple as “the Slanderer of Algernon Sidney” stems from Dalrymple's Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, From the Dissolution of the Last Parliament of Charles II, Until the Sea-Battle off La Hogue, 2 vols., London, 1771–1773; a 3-volume edition published at Dublin in 1773 is in JA's library at the Boston Public Library ( Catalogue of JA's Library ). There Dalrymple presented evidence implying that Sidney's revolutionary activities were motivated in part by payments he received from France. Ardent whigs such as JA saw this as an effort to 297blacken the reputation of their heroic precursor (Caroline Robbins, The Eighteenth Century Commonwealthman, N.Y., 1968, p. 46, 360).