Adams Family Correspondence, volume 12
th.1798
After a most fatigueing journey I arrived on friday Evening. I travel’d all the first night, & arrived in Baltimore the next night at 9 oClock, & sat off again at 3 the next morning. The roads as far as Wilmington were extremely bad, the rest were much better, and in this City they are quite settled. I found Mrs. Cranch well, altho’ fatigued & worried with watching and attending my little William, who had been dangerously ill with a fever which the Doctr. thought was pleuretic, but had that day begun to mend. He is now, I hope, recovering. Richard, too, had been ill a few days with a bad cold.— William had not taken the least notice of anything for several days before my return, but on my going up to him he held up his little emaciated arms for me to take him, & held his face to be kiss’d. He has been trying to run about, to day, but he is took weak to get across the Chamber without falling.
Yesterday (Sunday) the weather was uncomfortably warm, so that we wanted the windows open— But at night we had a thunder shower, and to day it is freezing.—
I was much shock’d on my return at being inform’d of the sudden death of Colo. W. Deakins of Geo. Town.1 He was almost the only man of real respectability and influence on whose active friendship I could place dependence. He knew all the Circumstances of my situation, and I had always applied to him for advice and assistance in every important occurrence of my life, since my residence here. I had look’d up to him, almost as to a parent, & had received from him almost parental kindness. Amidst a sordid world, he is almost the only man I have met with here whose actions seem’d to flow from the impulses of his heart—and yet he was so far engaged in Business, that he supported almost the whole commerce and Credit of Georgetown and it’s vicinity. He left no children, but he has left a thousand mourners. There was no man in this neighbourhood so universally love’d and respected.— I think I mentioned him to you at Philadelphia.—
I have seen Mr Dalton’s family since my return. I ask’d Mr. D. if
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he would accept the office of Commissioner of this City, if a vacancy should happen. He said he was now out of business & would accept if he should be appointed, but there was no probability of a vacancy. He also said that it would not be in his power to accept any office out of this State at present, as there were some demands on the House of Lear & Co, on which he might perhaps be arrested should he remove from hence.2
I have been inform’d that Mrs. Peter (whose name was Custis a Grand-daughter of Mrs. Washington) said that the President had done a very unpopular thing in refuseing to go to the Ball at Ricketts’s on the 23d. ulto.—and that she spoke it with a little warmth. It was also said by the person who gave me this information that, that family (the Custis’s) were very jealous of any praise bestowed upon the present President, as tending in some measure to detract from the merits of his Predecessor. You may remember that I mentioned a Coolness between Mrs. D & Mrs. Peter & Mrs. Law. This must be taken into Consideration when the force of those Expressions is weighed.—
I have seen the Knoxville Gazette of feby. 2d. containing a great deal of inflamatory stuff, & replete with the seeds of sedition and rebellion. I laid it by with an intent to forward it to you, but it is lost. There were 4 or 5 Columns, pretending to a great deal of Philosophy & moderation, but tending to flatter & inflame the people of Tenesee; and also a letter from Judge somebody (I forget the name) to their members of Congress, & letters from the members to their Constituents.3
In the Virginia Gazette, are also No. 1 & 2 of an Answer to Scipio. I have seen only No. 1.—4 If you wish to see it & can not procure it in Philada. I will endeavour to send them.
Mrs. Cranch presents her most affectionate Respects to you & Love to Louisa.— Believe me with greatest Respect for the President & yourself, most sincerely & affectionately / your obedient servant & obliged Nephew
My Compts. to Mr. Malcom.—
RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “Mrs. A. Adams / Philadelphia”; endorsed: “mr Cranch / March 12th / 1798.”
William Deakins Jr. died on 3 March (Baltimore Federal Gazette, 8 March).
See Ruth Hooper Dalton to AA, 15 Aug. 1797, and note 1, above.
In April 1797 the federal government established the boundary line between
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Cherokee territory and the new state of Tennessee, which put hundreds of American settlers outside the state border despite having land grants from North Carolina. The army was sent in to enforce the boundary and remove settlers from Cherokee lands. The Knoxville Gazette, 2 Feb. 1798, printed a lengthy condemnation of the federal government’s actions and warned that the people when “driven to despair … are not to be subdued.” The judge mentioned by Cranch was David Campbell (1750–1812), who was born in Virginia and served as a judge of the Tennessee Superior Court of Law and Equity from 1797 to 1807. Campbell’s letter accused the administration of using their military presence along the Tennessee-Cherokee border to destroy the civil liberties of Americans by illegally seizing their property, and it further argued that the government was bound to respect the state’s land grants as binding. Letters from William Charles Cole Claiborne (1775–1817), Tennessee’s representative, and Joseph Inslee Anderson (1757–1837), a senator, encouraged citizens to be patient as plans to aid the Tennessee residents were under way (Cynthia Cumfer, Separate Peoples, One Land: The Minds of Cherokees, Blacks, and Whites on the Tennessee Frontier, Chapel Hill, N.C., 2007, p. 90–91; Washington, Papers, Presidential Series
, 5:423;
Biog. Dir. Cong.
).
The Philadelphia Gazette of the United States from 2 to 27 Jan. 1798 ran a fifteenpart response by Scipio to James Monroe’s A View of the Conduct of the Executive, in the Foreign Affairs of the United States. The articles, written by Uriah Tracy, were also published in pamphlet form in early March as Reflections on Monroe’s View, of the Conduct of the Executive, [Phila., 1798], Evans, No. 34675. Drawing from Monroe’s letters to the secretary of state, Scipio argued that Monroe’s recall was warranted because of his misconduct as minister. He claimed that in his zeal to show partiality for France Monroe betrayed the interests of the United States and likely contributed to the current system of French depredations on American commerce and, more particularly, that Monroe explicitly violated his instructions to insist France comply with the 1778 Franco-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce. Monroe not only denied to the French government that he had any such instructions, Scipio noted, but said, “I well know, that if upon consideration, after the experiment made, you should be of opinion that it produces any solid benefit to the republic, the American government and my countrymen in general, will not only bear the departure with patience, but with pleasure” (p. 13, 14). A rebuttal to Scipio by Thrasybulus was printed in the Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser, 21, 28 Feb., 28 March 1798 (Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 8 March; Richard R. Beeman, The Old Dominion and the New Nation, 1788–1801, Lexington, Ky., 1972, p. 174; Jefferson, Papers
, 30:223).
th1798
yesterday dispatches were received from mr King up to the 9th Jan’ry in a postscrip he says, I have just learnt that mr Adams has been received by the new King notwithstanding his commission was to his Father. this is civil and will enable him to proceed with business—1 I received a Letter from dr Tufts yesterday that allarmd me. I thought I inclosed him some Bills. I might as I wrote you the same [ti]me put them into yours, for the dr in a post scrip says that you had written him that you had them—2 when the dr writes to me inclose his Letters in yours, for as those are held sacred now by a promise not to open them I shall receive them, in a way I wish— the dr and I have some buisness transaction which are between ourselves—
Nothing new transpires but what your Boston papers have; warm words in congress must be apprehended, whilst some are for going shares with France submitting intirely to her Will and quietly disposed to receive every lash she pleases to inflict— Northern Blood boils, and I do not know what will take place— I hope they will be cooler to day—but Giles has just opend his batteries.—3
Pray is Betsy going to steal a wedding upon us? she inquires the fashions they are as various as the Changes of the moon— the young Ladies generally have their Hair all in Curls over their heads, and then put a Ribbon Beads Bugles or a Band of some kind through the fore part of the Hair to which they attach feathers. the Band is put upon Ribbon sometimes on wire. frequently two are worn which cross each other they tye behind under over the hind Hair & then a small Bunch of Hair turns up behind in which a small comb is fixd and the ends of the hind Hair fall Back again in curls the Gounds are made to have only one side come forward and that is confind with a belt round the waist, the waist made plain. Some sleaves are drawn in diamonds some Robins drawn up & down with bobbin in 5 or 6 rows. in short a drawing room frequently exhibits a specimin of Grecian Turkish French and English fashion at the same time, with ease Beauty and Elegance equal to any court—
what a medley are my Letters. I had yesterday to visit me after the Prisidents Levee, the Kings of 3 Indian Nation. one of them after Sitting a little while rose and addrest me. He said he had been to visit his Father, and he thought his duty but in part fulfilld, untill he had visited also his mother, and he prayd the great spirit to keep and preserve them. they all came and shook me by the Hand, and then took some cake and wine with me. there were nine of them one of them spoke english well. they then made their bow and withdrew.4 much more civil than the Beast of Vermont.
adieu my dear sister / I am most affectionatly / Your
RC (MWA:Abigail Adams Letters); addressed: “Mrs Mary Cranch / Quincy.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed.
Rufus King’s 9 Jan. letter to Timothy Pickering, which arrived on 12 March, summarized the current situation in Europe but did not include any information about JQA. The information AA notes here was mentioned in a postscript to King’s letter of 14 Jan. (DNA:RG 59, Despatches from United States Ministers to Great Britain, 1791–1906, Microfilm, Reel 5).
Cotton Tufts’ letter to AA has not been found, but see her letter to Tufts of 6 Feb., above, in which she forwarded money. In Cranch’s 26 March reply to AA, she explained that she had taken the money from AA’s letter to Tufts and had given it to him the next time she saw him (Adams Papers).
During a heated House debate over arming U.S. frigates, William Branch Giles argued that while he supported defending the coasts, he viewed the proposal “to afford a defence beyond the limits of the United States, as a part of that system which had a direct tendency to involve us in war.” In a jab at the Federalists he further claimed “that there was not only a part of this House, but a part of Government, determined on war,” to which Harrison Gray Otis responded, calling it a “bold, ungraceful, and … disgraceful assertion.” An indignant Giles expected that Otis “would have been called to order” over the comments, at which point the Speaker of the House gave a “loud call to order” and declared “in vain that he endeavored to confine gentlemen to order Almost every member who had spoken had transgressed in this respect” (
Annals of Congress
, 5th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1256–1257, 1260–1262).
The Kahnawake Mohawk tribe of the upper St. Lawrence River region of Quebec was involved in an ongoing feud with Mohawk chief Joseph Brant over the alleged sale of Kahnawake lands to the United States. Although Brant denied having sold the land, by 1798 the controversy had escalated into a threat of war, and the Kahnawake tried to enlist support among other northern tribes and the United States. The Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 24 Feb., reported that two Kahnawake chiefs, along with five chiefs from other First Nation tribes, were traveling to Philadelphia, via New York, to present their claims to JA and Congress. Additionally, the group carried information about a proposed “confederated Council” of tribes led by Brant, which to them “appeared to be fraught with mischief against the United States.” Ultimately the trip proved futile because they lacked evidence of their claims (Isabel Thompson Kelsay, Joseph Brant, 1743–1807: Man of Two Worlds, Syracuse, N.Y., 1984, p. 178, 548, 551–552; Vergennes Gazette (Vt.), 25 Oct. 1798).
AA also wrote to Cranch the previous day commenting on William Cranch’s concerns over the financial trouble of Morris, Nicholson & Greenleaf and JA’s struggle to decide what to do with the recently deciphered dispatches from the U.S. envoys to France (MWA:Abigail Adams Letters).