Diary of John Adams, volume 3
Thursday March 14. 1776. The State of the Country so obviously called for independent Governments, and a total Extinction of the Royal Authority, and We were so earnestly urging this measure from day to day, and the Opposition to it was growing so unpopular, that a kind of Evasion was contrived in the following Resolution, which I considered as an important Step, and therefore would not oppose it, though I urged with several others, that We ought to make the 370Resolution more general, and Advize the People to assume all the Powers of Government. The Proposition that passed was
Resolved That it be recommended to the several Assemblies, Conventions and Committees or Councils of Safety, of the United Colonies, immediately to cause all Persons to be disarmed, within their respective Colonies, who are notoriously disaffected to the cause of America, or who have not associated, and shall refuse to associate to defend by Arms these united Colonies, against the hostile Attempts of the British Fleets and Armies, and to apply the Arms taken from such Persons in each respective Colony, in the first place, to the Arming the continental Troops raised in said Colony, in the next, to the arming such Troops as are raised by the Colony for its own defence, and the Residue to be applied to the arming the Associators; that the Arms when taken be appraised by indifferent Persons, and such as are applied to the Arming the Continental Troops, be paid for by the Congress and the Residue by the respective Assemblies, Conventions, or Councils or Committees of Safety.
Ordered that a Copy of the foregoing resolution be transmitted by the Delegates of each Colony, to their respective Assemblies, Conventions, or Councils or Committees of Safety.
This Resolution and Order was indeed assuming the Powers of Government in a manner as offensive, as the Measures We proposed could have been: But it left all the Powers of Government in the hands of Assemblies, Conventions and Committees, which composed a Scaene of much Confusion and Injustice the Continuance of which was much dreaded by me, as tending to injure the Morals of the People and destroy their habits of order, and Attachment to regular Government. However I could do nothing but represent and remonstrate: The Vote as yet was against me.
Fryday March 15. 1776. Congress resolved itself into a Committee of the whole to take into Consideration the State of New York, and after some time the President resumed the Chair and Mr. Harrison reported, that the Committee have come to certain Resolutions. These may be seen in the Journal and relate wholly to the defence of New York.1
This is the first Appearance of Mr. Harrison as Chairman of the Committee of the whole. The President Mr. Hancock had hitherto nominated Governor Ward of Rhode Island to that conspicuous distinction. Mr. Harrison had courted Mr. Hancock, and Mr. Hancock had courted Mr. Duane, Mr. Dickenson and their Party, and leaned 371so partially in their favour, that Mr. Samuel Adams had become very bitter against Mr. Hancock and spoke of him with great Asperity, in private Circles, and this Alienation between them continued from this time till the Year 1789, thirteen Years, when they were again reconciled. Governor Ward was become extreamly Obnoxious to Mr. Hancocks Party by his zealous Attachment to Mr. Samuel Adams and Mr. Richard Henry Lee. Such I supposed were the motives which excited Mr. Hancock, to bring forward Mr. Harrison.2
Although Harrison was another Sir John Falstaff, excepting in his Larcenies and Robberies, his Conversation disgusting to every Man of Delicacy or decorum, Obscaene, profane, impious, perpetually ridiculing the Bible, calling it the Worst Book in the World, yet as I saw he was to be often nominated with Us in Business, I took no notice of his Vices or Follies, but treated him and Mr. Hancock too with uniform Politeness. I was however, too intimate with Mr. Lee, Mr. Adams, Mr. Ward &c. to escape the Jealousy and Malignity of their Adversaries. Hence I suppose the Calumnies that were written or otherwise insinuated into the Minds of the Army that I was an Enemy to Washington, in favour of an annual Election of a General, against Enlisting Troops during the War &c. &c. all utterly false and groundless.3
JCC
, 4:206–207.
Ward may have already been ill with smallpox, of which he died on 26 March; see the entry of that date below. But JA's own extracts above show that Harrison had been named chairman of a committee of the whole as early as 5 March.
An adequate explanation of these allusions would require a short monograph on the relations of JA and Washington and particularly on the charges sometimes encountered that JA participated in what has come to be called “the Conway Cabal.” For the worst of the allegations against JA see George Washington Himself, Indianapolis, 1933Washington and the Revolution: A Reappraisal, N.Y., 1940Letters
, 2:1197–1208, L. H. Butterfield has dealt with aspects of the JA–Washington relationship and concluded that Fitzpatrick's delineation of JA as Washington's spiteful rival during the Revolution is caricature rather than history.