Adams Family Correspondence, volume 11
This is the Sixteenth Day since you left me, and I have not yet heard a word from You. I hope tomorrows post will bring me a Letter. I wrote you on the 10th. the Day before yesterday Was the first
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Winter Weather We have had, a pretty severe snow storm lasted through the Day. it fell moist & the rain the Day before renders it bad for wheels & worse for a Sled. the Weather is so moderate to day that it will run fast. our people got the clover all coverd on saturday. Yesterday Deacon French calld to Setle his account, and his conscience not only permitted him to take the 4/6 pr Day but to Charge 16 shillings in addition for his plow. I paid him 45 Dollors wanting two shillings. You have seen no Doubt the Federilism of Govr Gilman in New hampshire. Maryland too has manifested their Approbation, and even Virginia was almost persuaded. they comprehend the absurdity of it is, and it is not, or I do not conceive how they could approve of the Presidents conduct, and approve of their senators conduct too.1 I am all impatience for the Presidents speach2 O for Authority, and I would humble all Jacobinical Wretches in the Dust. I may safely say this Since France their great exampler has done so. I long to hear from our Dear Children abroad. we have not been so long Since their arrival as now, without hearing from them
Let me hear as often as possible from you, and write me all the News you will venture upon.
My best regards to all inquiring Friends / from Your ever affectionate
Mrs Brisler and Family are well. she is here to day and desires to be rememberd to her Husband—
RC (Adams Papers); addressed by Louisa Catharine Smith: “The Vice President of the / United States / Philadelphia”; endorsed: “Mrs A. Decr 15 / Ansd 24. 1795.”
In New Hampshire Gov. John Taylor Gilman delivered an address on 3 Dec., at the beginning of the state’s legislative session, expressing support for George Washington and John Jay and decrying those who would attack the Jay Treaty without having full knowledge of the agreement. He noted, “For my own part, I freely declare that my confidence in the President, the negociator, and the Senators (who it is said advised to the ratification of a treaty) is not in the least degree impaired, and I find myself more zealously engaged to support the government and administrators than heretofore, believing, as I do, that attempts are making to destroy it.” In a unanimous response, the N.H. house of representatives, with the senate concurring, replied in full support of Gilman’s statement, expressing “abhorrence for those disturbers of the public peace, who have endeavoured to render abortive measures so well calculated to advance the happiness of our country.” Gilman (1753–1828), of Exeter, N.H., was governor of the state from 1794 to 1805 (Journal of the Proceedings of the Hon. House of Representatives of the State of New-Hampshire, at Their Session Begun and Holden at Concord, December, 1795, Portsmouth, N.H., 1796, p. 9–13, 17–21, Evans, No. 47847; A Journal of the Proceedings of the Honorable Senate of the State of New-Hampshire, at a Session of the General Court, Holden at Concord, December, 1795, Portsmouth, N.H., 1796, p. 21, Evans, No. 47848;
ANB
).
The Maryland legislature, while not
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commenting on the treaty directly, unanimously approved and published a statement of support for Washington on 25 Nov. 1795. The legislature, “convinced that the prosperity of every free government is promoted by the existence of rational confidence between the people and their trustees, and is injured by misplaced suspicion and ill founded jealousy, … observing, with deep concern, a series of efforts, by indirect insinuation or open invective, to detach from the first magistrate of the union the well earned confidence of his fellow-citizens, think it their duty to declare … their unabated reliance on the integrity, judgment and patriotism, of the president of the United States” (Votes and Proceedings of the House of Delegates of the State of Maryland, November Session, 1795, Annapolis, Md., 1796, p. 36–37, Evans, No. 30749; Votes and Proceedings of the Senate of the State of Maryland, November Session, 1795, Annapolis, Md., 1796, p. 13, Evans, No. 30750).
By a two-to-one margin the Va. House of Delegates on 20 Nov. voted a resolution approving their U.S. senators’ opposition to the treaty. The next day the house further endorsed a resolution, “That this House do entertain the highest sence of the integrity and patriotism of the President of the United States; and that while they approve the vote of the Senators of this state in the Congress of the United States, relative to the treaty with Great Britain, they in no wise mean to censure the motives which influenced him in his conduct thereupon” (Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Begun … the Tenth Day of November, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety-Five, Richmond, Va., 1795, p. 25–30, Evans, No. 31502).
Washington’s speech to Congress appeared in the Boston Federal Orrery, 17 December.
r16. 1795
The Newspapers will inform you before this Letter reaches you that the Ratifications of the Treaty have been exchanged by Mr Deas the Chargé d’Affairs under Mr Pinkney.1 The President told me the orders were that if Mr Adams did not arrive by a certain day this Business was to be done by another. Whether our Son will go over at all or not is to me uncertain. If he has lost a White Feather, he has avoided a dark one: so that he is as well off. There are Letters from him in the Public offices dated in september.2
having no Letter from you has given me Anxiety for your health, especially as I recollect you complained of some Rheumatic symptoms before I came away. My own health is as good as it has been for Some years. The Countenance of the House wears no very threatning aspect. The senate have refused their Consent to the Nomination of Mr Rutledge. I hope that Chief Justices at least will learn from this to be cautious how they go to popular Meetings especially unlawful: assemblies to Spout Reflections and excite opposition to the legal Acts of Constitutional Authority.
The assembly of New Hampshire have appalled one of their senators and gratified the Friends of Peace order and good Government.3 Their Unanimity could hardly have been expected. I hope the
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Massachusetts Assembly when they meet will at least vote no Resistance to the Law of the Land. I learned from the Children in the Wood not to halloos before We get out of the Wood, but I think the Prospect of Peace is brighter now than it has been for Several Years.4
Your Friends here are all well and enquire after you as usual on every Occasion. The President Seems in as good Health and Spirits as ever I knew him.
Mr Brisler Sprained his ankle which has interrupted his Business somewhat: but he is now better and will soon be quite well. as soon as he is so he will look up some Flour & Grass seeds &c
My Duty to my Mother of whose Situation I wish to be informed. Love to all— Let me know the Progress of Farming &c
I am entirely & forever yours
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A”; endorsed: “Decbr 16—1795.”
William Allen Deas (b. 1764) was a lawyer from South Carolina who served as Thomas Pinckney’s private secretary in England. Having previously served in the S.C. house of representatives, he was reelected in 1796 following his return to the United States and later served in the state senate (N. Louise Bailey, Mary L. Morgan, and Carolyn R. Taylor, Biographical Directory of the South Carolina Senate 1776–1985, 3 vols., Columbia, S.C., 1986).
Besides JQA’s Sept. 1795 letters to Timothy Pickering, for which see JA to AA, 17 Dec., and note 1, below, JQA had also written twice to Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott Jr., on 8 and 24 Sept. (both CtHi: Wolcott Papers).
That is, John Langdon, who had switched his allegiance from the Federalists to the Democratic-Republicans by the previous congressional term (
DAB
).
The final song in Thomas Morton’s opera The Children in the Wood includes the lines, “May I halloo now for joy? / Are we out of the wood, Sirs?” The proverb warns one “not to exult till all danger or difficulty is past” (
OED
).