Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams During the Revolution Part 49

This letter will go by the hand of the Honorable Joseph Hewes, Esquire, one of the delegates in Congress from North Carolina from the month of September, 1774, until 1777. I had the honor to serve with him upon the naval committee who laid the first foundations, the corner-stone, of an American navy, by fitting to sea the _Alfred_, _Columbus_, _Cabot_, _Andrew Doria_, _Providence_, and several others; an honor that I make it a rule to boast of upon all occasions and I hope my posterity will have reason to boast. Hewes has a sharp eye and keen, penetrating sense, but, what is of much more value, is a man of honor and integrity. If he should call upon you, and you should be about, I hope you will treat him with all the complaisance that is due to his character. I almost envy him his journey, although he travels for his health, which at present is infirm.

I am, yours, yours, yours,

JOHN ADAMS.

My dearest Friend,--We have had no news from camp for three or four days. Mr. Howe, by the last advices, was manoeuvering his fleet and army in such a manner as to give us expectations of an expedition somewhere; but whether to Rhode Island, Halifax, up the North River, or the Delaware, is left to conjecture. I am much in doubt whether he knows his own intentions. A faculty of penetrating into the designs of an enemy is said to be the first quality of a General, but it is impossible to discover the designs of an enemy who has no design at all. An intention that has no existence, a plan that is not laid, cannot be divined. Be his intentions what they may, you have nothing to fear from him. He has not force to penetrate the country anywhere.

190. JOHN ADAMS.

Philadelphia, 13 July, 1777.

My dearest Friend,--We have a confused account from the northward of something unlucky at Ticonderoga, but cannot certainly tell what it is.

I am much afraid we shall lose that post, as we did Forts Was.h.i.+ngton and Lee; and indeed, I believe we shall if the enemy surround it. But it will prove no benefit to him. I begin to wish there was not a fort upon the continent. Discipline and disposition are our resources. It is our policy to draw the enemy into the country, where we can avail ourselves of hills, woods, rivers, defiles, etc., until our soldiers are more inured to war. Howe and Burgoyne will not be able to meet this year, and if they were met, it would only be better for us, for we should draw all our forces to a point too. If they were met, they could not cut off the communication between the northern and southern States. But if the communication was cut off for a time, it would be no misfortune, for New England would defend itself, and the southern States would defend themselves.

Colonel Miles is come out of New York on his parole. His account is, as I am informed, that Mr. Howe's projects are all deranged. His army has gone round the circle, and is now encamped in the very spot where he was a year ago. The spirits of the Tories are sunk to a great degree, and those of the army too. The Tories have been elated with prospects of coming to this city and triumphing, but are miserably disappointed. The Hessians are disgusted, and their General De Heister gone home in a miff.

191. JOHN ADAMS TO JOHN Q. ADAMS.[175]

Philadelphia, 27 July, 1777.

If it should be the design of Providence that you should live to grow up, you will naturally feel a curiosity to learn the history of the causes which have produced the late Revolution of our Government. No study in which you can engage will be more worthy of you.

It will become you to make yourself master of all the considerable characters which have figured upon the stage of civil, political, or military life. This you ought to do with utmost candor, benevolence, and impartiality; and if you should now and then meet with an incident which shall throw some light upon your father's character, I charge you to consider it with an attention only to truth.

It will also be an entertaining and instructive amus.e.m.e.nt to compare our American Revolution with others that resemble it. The whole period of English history, from the accession of James the First to the accession of William the Third will deserve your most critical attention.

The History of the Revolutions in Portugal, Sweden, and Rome, by the Abbot de Vertot, is well worth your reading.

The separation of the Helvetic Confederacy from the dominion of the House of Austria is also an ill.u.s.trious event, that particularly resembles our American struggle with Great Britain.

But above all others I would recommend to your study the history of the Flemish Confederacy, by which the seven United Provinces of the Netherlands emanc.i.p.ated themselves from the domination of Spain.

There are several good histories of this great revolution. Sir William Temple's is short but elegant and entertaining. Another account of this period was written by Puffendorf, and another by Grotius.

But the most full and complete history that I have seen is one that I am now engaged in reading. It is ent.i.tled "The History of the Wars of Flanders," written in Italian by that learned and famous Cardinal Bentivoglio, Englished by the Right Honorable Henry, Earl of Monmouth.

The whole work ill.u.s.trated with a map of the seventeen Provinces and above twenty figures of the chief personages mentioned in the history.

Bentivoglio, like Clarendon, was a courtier, and on the side of monarchy and the hierarchy. But allowances must be made for that.

There are three most memorable sieges described in this history, those of Haerlem, Leyden, and Antwerp.

You will wonder, my dear son, at my writing to you at your tender age such dry things as these; but if you keep this letter, you will in some future period thank your father for writing it.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 175: At this time just ten years old.]

192. ABIGAIL ADAMS.

30 July, 1777.

I dare say, before this time you have interpreted the Northern Storm. If the presages chilled your blood, how must you be frozen and stiffened at the disgrace brought upon our arms! unless some warmer pa.s.sion seize you, and anger and resentment fire your breast. How are all our vast magazines of cannon, powder, arms, clothing, provision, medicine, etc., to be restored to us?[176] But, what is vastly more, how shall the disgrace be wiped away? How shall our lost honor be retrieved? The reports with regard to that fortress are very vague and uncertain. Some write from thence that there was not force sufficient to defend it.

Others say it might have stood a long siege. Some there are who ought to know why and wherefore we have given away a place of such importance.

That the inquiry will be made, I make no doubt; and if cowardice, guilt, deceit, are found upon any one, howsoever high or exalted his station, may shame, reproach, infamy, hatred, and the execrations of the public be his portion.

I would not be so narrow-minded as to suppose that there are not many men of all nations, possessed of honor, virtue, and integrity; yet it is to be lamented that we have not men among ourselves sufficiently qualified for war to take upon them the most important command.

It was customary among the Carthaginians to have a military school, in which the flower of their n.o.bility, and those whose talents and ambition prompted them to aspire to the first dignities, learned the art of war.

From among these they selected all their general officers; for, though they employed mercenary soldiers, they were too jealous and suspicious to employ foreign generals. Will a foreigner, whose interest is not naturally connected with ours (any otherwise than as the cause of liberty is the cause of all mankind), will he act with the same zeal, or expose himself to equal dangers with the same resolution, for a republic of which he is not a member, as he would have done for his own native country? And can the people repose an equal confidence in them, even supposing them men of integrity and abilities, and that they meet with success equal to their abilities? How much envy and malice are employed against them! And how galling to pride, how mortifying to human nature, to see itself excelled.

31 July.

I have nothing new to entertain you with, unless it be an account of a new set of mobility, which has lately taken the lead in Boston. You must know that there is a great scarcity of sugar and coffee, articles which the female part of the State is very loath to give up, especially whilst they consider the scarcity occasioned by the merchants having secreted a large quant.i.ty. There had been much rout and noise in the town for several weeks. Some stores had been opened by a number of people, and the coffee and sugar carried into the market and dealt out by pounds. It was rumored that an eminent, wealthy, stingy merchant[177] (who is a bachelor) had a hogshead of coffee in his store, which he refused to sell to the committee under six s.h.i.+llings per pound. A number of females, some say a hundred, some say more, a.s.sembled with a cart and trucks, marched down to the warehouse, and demanded the keys, which he refused to deliver. Upon which one of them seized him by his neck, and tossed him into the cart. Upon his finding no quarter, he delivered the keys, when they tipped up the cart and discharged him; then opened the warehouse, hoisted out the coffee themselves, put it into the trucks, and drove off.

It was reported that he had personal chastis.e.m.e.nt among them; but this, I believe, was not true. A large concourse of men stood amazed, silent spectators of the whole transaction.

Adieu. Your good mother is just come; she desires to be remembered to you; so do my father and sister, who have just left me, and so does she whose greatest happiness consists in being tenderly beloved by her absent friend, and who subscribes herself ever his

PORTIA.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 176: The loss of Ticonderoga.]

[Footnote 177: Thomas Boylston.]

193. ABIGAIL ADAMS.

5 August, 1777.