Adams Family Correspondence, volume 10
If C. as you Say in yours of the 29th.
1 must provide for his Family, I Suppose it will be easy for him to do it: because being not only a Republican but a Democrat by Profession, no doubt he is possessed of the most essential Ingredient in that Character, which is a Love of Poverty and equality. Two Acres of Land is more than an Equality, and as much as Cincinnatus owned, who was an Aristocrat. One Acre then I should Suppose would Satisfy this great and eminent Profesor of deep Democraticallity.
The Election of Mr King is great Joy, to all the rational Part of the Public here, for he has great Information, Steady Conduct, and powerful Elocution. As it is a great Misfortune to the U. S. that New York by the Intrigues of your Monsicur Citizen Egalité, has been made a southern State, it would be a prosperous Event if your Prediction should be accomplished, and your fellow Citizens should be again restored to a sense of their real Interest and Duty. And for the reasons you assign the Change seems probable enough.
We are waiting with Impatience for the Mail from New York of this day to bring the Information by the ship Columbia. some flying Letters yesterday announced a Treaty Signed by Mr Jay.2
The happy Event in Col smiths family gives me much Joy— I hope the Increase of his family will teach him Moderation and Frugality.— If he has it in his Power to make a comfortable Provision for his Family he will be unpardonable to waste his means upon hounds and Horses. I dont wish him Cns.
love of Poverty, but I wish him some of his Frugality. The Lands he is daily eating, would make handsome Portions for his sons and Daughters Thirty or forty Years hence.
You do not mention the Receit of Rowans Tryal which I sent you. I hope you will have all the Tryals I have sent you bound up in Volumes. In your Profession they will be valuable.3
I am afraid the Report of a Treaty will detain me here till the fifth of March, which will expose me to an uncomforable Journey in bad roads.— But it is wicked to complain. Let me be content. Your Brothers Arrival and your sisters Happiness are Blessings in my family for which I ought to be very thankful. I am my Dear Charles, with Thanks also for your comfortable Prospects, Affectionately yours
RC (MHi:Seymour Coll.); internal address: “C. Adams.”
Not found.
On 30 Jan. the Philadelphia Gazette of the United States announced the arrival of private letters from London that confirmed the signing of the treaty. The following day, the same newspaper further identified the vessel that carried the letters as the Columbia, which arrived in New York from Bristol.
Archibald Hamilton Rowan (1751–1834), an Irish patriot, was born and educated in England but settled in Ireland in 1784. A member of the revolutionary republican organization the Society of United Irishmen, Rowan was arrested and charged with seditious libel in 1792. He was found guilty at his Jan. 1794 trial and imprisoned for two years. A record of his trial was published in Dublin in March and reprinted in New York later that year (
DNB
; Report of the Trial of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, Esq. on an Information, Filed, Ex Officio, by the Attorney General, to the Distribution of a Libel, N.Y., 1794, Evans, No. 27643).
CA did have Rowan’s trial report bound with the reports of the trials of Joseph Gerrald, Thomas Muir, and Robert Watt and David Downie, which JA had sent him previously; see JA to CA, 13, 20 Dec. 1794, both above. Until now in private hands, this bound collection of trials has recently been added to the John Adams Library at MB.
You have sometime since, I presume, received my Letters inclosing those of our son Thomas of the 19th. of October: You have also I hope and doubt not been informed by Col smith or Charles of the good Fortune of our Daughter, who on the twenty Eighth of January went to bed in good health as could be expected with an healthy Daughter. I congratulate you on all these prosperous Events, and wish I could be with you at the time I have more than once intimated: We have Reason to be thankful for many Blessings in our Family as well as in our Country.
But a Treaty concluded by Mr Jay is announced to the Public, in the News Papers: and this Report, whether true or not, will excite such Expectation, that I suppose I must Stay here till the End of the Chapter. My Presence or Absence is indeed immaterial because I can in no Case have a Vote, two thirds of the Senate being required to ratify a Treaty: nevertheless both my Friends and my Ennemies, would remark my Absence the former with regret the latter with Malignity. Indeed I have Some scruples in my own Mind, whether I ought not to be present— It may be in my Power to explain some things, and to give some hints which perhaps might not occur to others, as the subject has been so long under my immediate Consideration.
The most mortifying Thing will be, the little Probability that the Treaty will arrive before the 4th. of March. If it were certain it would
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come, I should Stay without hesitation: but as it is in my Mind most improbable that it will, I shall remain here with some Uneasiness.
Col. Ward of Newtown is here, and lodges in this Hotel.1 This Gentleman I believe is one of the most stedfast friends I have in the World. Indeed few have known me so long or been so attentive to my Conduct: but how different is his Behaviour from that of some others who have known me as long and as fully as he has.— A faithful Friend upon disinterested public Principles, is a Jewell: but political friendships which shift with popular Winds, are not worth a straw.
Mrs Otis & Miss Betsy are very well— I saw them last Evening— They send their regards.—
Oh my Hobby Horse—and my little Horse! I want you both for my Health And Oh my2 I want you much more, for the delight of my heart and the cheering of my spirits—
Louisa must walk or die— it does not signify she must be compelled to write and walk too—
I am my dearest Friend, most / tenderly yours
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Febry 1 1795.”
Col. Joseph Ward, for whom see JA, Papers
, 3:238. Ward, who had established a successful land office and then brokerage business in Boston following the Revolution, was likely in Philadelphia seeking payment on the new emission bills of credit issued by Congress after the revaluation of continental currency in 1780. Petitions Ward made in 1795, 1796, and 1798 were rejected (M. F. Sweetser, King’s Handbook of Newton, Massachusetts, Boston, 1889, p. 126; Hamilton, Papers,
22:401;
JCC,
16:263–266).
JA left nearly a full line of blank space at this point.