Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams During the Revolution Part 46

"Well, Burne, what is the lie of the day?"

"Sir, Mr. ---- told me that a privateer from Baltimore has taken two valuable prizes with sixteen guns each. I can scarcely believe it."

"Have you heard of the success of the _Rattlesnake_, of Philadelphia, and the _St.u.r.dy Beggar_, of Maryland, Mr. Burne? These two privateers have taken eleven prizes, and sent them into the West India Islands; nine transports and two Guinea-men."

"Confound the ill luck, sir; I was going to sea myself on board the _Rattlesnake_, and my wife fell a-yelping. These wives are queer things.

I told her I wondered she had no more ambition. 'Now,' says I, 'when you walk the streets and anybody asks who that is, the answer is, "_Burne the barber's wife_." Should you not be better pleased to hear it said, "_That is Captain Burne's lady_, the captain of marines on board the Rattlesnake"?' 'Oh,' says she, 'I would rather be called Burne the barber's wife, than Captain Burne's widow. I don't desire to live better than you maintain me, my dear.' So it is, sir, by this sweet, honey language, I am choused out of my prizes, and must go on with my soap and razors and pincers and combs. I with she had my ambition."

If this letter should be intercepted by the Tories, they will get a booty. Let them enjoy it. If some of their wives had been as tender and discreet as the barber's, their husbands' ambition would not have led them into so many salt ponds. What an _ignis fatuus_ this ambition is?

How few of either s.e.x have arrived at Mrs. Burne's pitch of moderation, and are able to say, "I don't desire to live better, and had rather be the Barber's wife than the Captain's widow!" Quite smart, I think, as well as philosophical.

174. JOHN ADAMS.

Philadelphia, Sat.u.r.day Evening, 26 April, 1777.

I have been lately more remiss than usual in writing to you. There has been a great dearth of news. Nothing from England, nothing from France, Spain, or any other part of Europe, nothing from the West Indies, nothing from Howe and his banditti, nothing from General Was.h.i.+ngton.

There are various conjectures that Lord Howe is dead, sick, or gone to England, as the proclamations run in the name of Will. Howe only, and n.o.body from New York can tell anything of his lords.h.i.+p.

I am wearied out with expectations that the Ma.s.sachusetts troops would have arrived, ere now, at Head-quarters. Do our people intend to leave the continent in the lurch? Do they mean to submit? or what fatality attends them? With the n.o.blest prize in view that ever mortals contended for, and with the fairest prospect of obtaining it upon easy terms, the people of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay are dead. Does our State intend to send only half or a third of their quota? Do they wish to see another crippled, disastrous, and disgraceful campaign, for want of an army? I am more sick and more ashamed of my own countrymen than ever I was before. The spleen, the vapors, the dismals, the horrors seem to have seized our whole State. More wrath than terror has seized me. I am very mad. The gloomy cowardice of the times is intolerable in New England.

Indeed, I feel not a little out of humor from indisposition of body. You know I cannot pa.s.s a spring or fall without an ill turn, and I have had one these four or five weeks; a cold, as usual. Warm weather and a little exercise, with a little medicine, I suppose, will cure me, as usual. I am not confined, but mope about and drudge, as usual, like a galley-slave. I am a fool, if ever there was one, to be such a slave. I won't be much longer. I will be more free in some world or other. Is it not intolerable, that the opening spring, which I should enjoy with my wife and children, upon my little farm, should pa.s.s away, and laugh at me for laboring, day after day and month after month, in a conclave where neither taste, nor fancy, nor reason, nor pa.s.sion, nor appet.i.te can be gratified?

Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent it in heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.

175. JOHN ADAMS.

Philadelphia, 27 April, 1777.

Your favors of April 2d and 7th I have received. The inclosed "Evening Post" will give you some idea of the humanity of the present race of Britons. My barber, whom I quote as often as ever I did any authority, says "he has read histories of cruelty and he has read romances of cruelty, but the cruelty of the British exceeds all that he ever read."

For my own part I think we cannot dwell too much on this part of their character and conduct. It is full of important lessons. If the facts only were known, in the utmost simplicity of narration, they would strike every pious and humane bosom in Great Britain with horror. Every conscience in that country is not callous, nor every heart hardened. The plainest relation of facts would interest the sympathy and compa.s.sion of all Europe in our favor. And it would convince every American that a nation, so great a part of which is thus deeply depraved, can never be again trusted with power over us. I think that not only history should perform her office, but painting, sculpture, statuary, and poetry ought to a.s.sist, in publis.h.i.+ng to the world and perpetuating to posterity the horrid deeds of our enemies. It will show the persecution we suffer in defense of our rights; it will show the fort.i.tude, patience, perseverance, and magnanimity of Americans, in as strong a light as the barbarity and impiety of Britons, in this persecuting war. Surely impiety consists in destroying with such h.e.l.lish barbarity the rational works of the Deity, as much as in blaspheming and defying his majesty.

If there is a moral law, if there is a divine law,--and that there is, every intelligent creature is conscious,--to trample on these laws, to hold them in contempt and defiance, is the highest exertion of wickedness and impiety that mortals can be guilty of. The author of human nature, who can give it its rights, will not see it ruined, and suffer its destroyers to escape with impunity. Divine vengeance will, some time or other, overtake the Alberts, the Philips and Georges, the Alvas, the Geslers, and Howes, and vindicate the wrongs of oppressed human nature. I think that medals in gold, silver, and copper ought to be struck in commemoration of the shocking cruelties, the brutal barbarities, and the diabolical impieties of this war; and these should be contrasted with the kindness, tenderness, humanity, and philanthropy which have marked the conduct of Americans towards their prisoners. It is remarkable that the officers and soldiers of our enemies are so totally depraved, so completely dest.i.tute of the sentiments of philanthropy in their own hearts, that they cannot believe that such delicate feelings can exist in any other, and therefore have constantly ascribed that milk and honey with which we have treated them, to fear, cowardice, and conscious weakness. But in this they are mistaken, and will discover their mistake too late to answer any good purpose for them.

176. JOHN ADAMS.

Philadelphia, 28 April, 1777.

There is a clock calm at this time in the political and military hemispheres. The surface is smooth and the air serene. Not a breath nor a wave, no news nor noise.

Nothing would promote our cause more than Howe's march to this town.

Nothing quickens and determines people so much as a little smart. The Germans, who are numerous and wealthy in this State, and who have very imperfect ideas of freedom, have a violent attachment to property. They are pa.s.sionate and vindictive, in a degree that is scarcely credible to persons who are unacquainted with them, and the least injury to their property excites a resentment beyond description. A few houses and plantations plundered (as many would be if Howe should come here) would set them all on fire. Nothing would unite and determine Pennsylvania so effectually. The pa.s.sions of men must cooperate with their reason in the prosecution of a war. The public may be clearly convinced that a war is just, and yet, until their pa.s.sions are excited, will carry it languidly on. The prejudices, the anger, the hatred of the English against the French contributes greatly to their valor and success. The British Court and their officers have studied to excite the same pa.s.sions in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of their soldiers against the Americans, well knowing their powerful effects. We, on the contrary, have treated their characters with too much tenderness. The Howes, their officers, and soldiers too, ought to be held up to the contempt, derision, hatred, and abhorrence of the populace in every State, and of the common soldiers in every army. It would give me no pain to see them burned or hanged in effigy in every town and village.

177. JOHN ADAMS.

Philadelphia, 4 May, 1777.

Inclosed with this you will have an "Evening Post" containing some of the tender mercies of the barbarians to their prisoners. If there is a man, woman, or child in America who can read these depositions without resentment and horror, that person has no soul, or a very wicked one.

Their treatment of prisoners last year, added to an act of Parliament which they have made, to enable them to send prisoners to England, to be there murdered with still more relentless cruelty in prisons, will bring our officers and soldiers to the universal resolution to _conquer or die_. This maxim, "CONQUER OR DIE," never failed to raise a people who adopted it to the head of mankind. An express from Portsmouth, last night, brought us news of the arrival of arms and ordnance enough to enable us to take vengeance of these foes of human nature.

178. ABIGAIL ADAMS.

6 May, 1777.

'T is ten days, I believe, since I wrote you a line, yet not ten minutes pa.s.s without thinking of you. 'T is four months wanting three days since we parted. Every day of the time I have mourned the absence of my friend, and felt a vacancy in my heart which nothing, nothing can supply. In vain the spring blooms or the birds sing. Their music has not its former melody, nor the spring its usual pleasures. I look around with a melancholy delight and sigh for my absent partner. I fancy I see you worn down with cares, fatigued with business, and solitary amidst a mult.i.tude.

And I think it probable before this reaches you that you may be driven from the city by our barbarous and hostile foes, and the city sharing the fate of Charlestown and Falmouth, Norfolk and Danbury. So vague and uncertain are the accounts with regard to the latter, that I shall not pretend to mention them. 'T is more than a week since the event, yet we have no accounts which can be depended upon. I wish it may serve the valuable purpose of arousing our degenerated countrymen from that state of security and torpitude into which they seem to be sunk.

9 May.

I have been prevented writing for several days by company from town.

Since I wrote you I have received several letters; two of the 13th of April, one of the 19th, and one of the 22d. Though some of them were very short, I will not complain. I rejoice to hear from you though you write but a line.

Since the above we have some account of the affair at Danbury, and of the loss of General Wooster.[171] That they had no more a.s.sistance, 't is said, was owing to six expresses being stopped by the Tories. We shall never prosper till we fall upon some method to extirpate that blood-thirsty set of men. Too much lenity will prove our ruin. We have rumors too of an action at Brunswick much to our advantage, but little credit is yet given to the report. I wish we may be able to meet them in the field, to encounter and conquer so vile an enemy.

The two Continental frigates lie windbound, with three brigs of twenty guns and some others, which are all going out in company. The wind has been a long time at east and prevented the vessels from going out.

I was mistaken in my brother's going with MacNeal. He is going in the _Darter_, a vessel which mounts twenty-four guns, is private property, but sails with the fleet.

I cannot write you half so much as I would. I have left company because I would not lose an opportunity of sending this. Believe me, etc.

I must add a little more. A most horrid plot has been discovered of a band of villains counterfeiting the Hamps.h.i.+re currency to a great amount. No person scarcely but what has more or less of these bills. I am unlucky enough to have about five pounds L. M. of it, but this is not the worst of it. One Colonel Farrington, who has been concerned in the plot, was taken sick, and has confessed not only the counterfeiting, but says they had engaged and enlisted near two thousand men, who, upon the troops' coming to Boston, were to fall upon the people and make a general havoc.

How much more merciful G.o.d is than man, in thus providentially bringing to light these horrid plots and schemes. I doubt not Heaven will still continue to favor us unless our iniquities prevent. The Hamps.h.i.+re people have been stupid enough to let one of the princ.i.p.al plotters, Colonel Holland, out upon bail, and he has made his escape.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 171: Inclosed with the letter appears an official copy of a report of the loss of men and stores at Danbury.]