John

Abigail

     I never enjoyed better health in any of my journeys, but this has been the most irksome, the most gloomy and melancholy I ever made. I cannot with all my philosophy and Christian resignation keep up my spirits. The dismal prospect before me, my family, and my country, is too much for my fortitude.

         ”Bear me, some god! Oh quickly snatch me hence,
         To wholesome solitude, the nurse of sense;
         Where Contemplation prunes her ruffled wings,
         And the free soul looks down to pity kings.”*

     The day before yesterday a gentleman came and spoke to me, asked me to dine with him on Saturday; said he was very sorry I had not better lodgings in town; desired, if I came to town again, I would take a bed at his house and make his house my home; I should always be very welcome. I told him I had not the pleasure of knowing him. He said his name was Codman¹. I said I was very much obliged to him, but I was very well accommodated where I lodged. I had a clean bed and a very neat house, a chamber to myself, and everything I wanted.
     Saturday, I dined with him, in company with Brigadier Preble, Major Freeman² and his son, etc., and a very genteel dinner we had. Salt fish and all its apparatus, roast chickens, bacon, pease, as fine a salad as ever was made, and a rich meat pie. Tarts and custards, etc., good wine, and as good punch as ever you made. A large, spacious, elegant house, yard, and garden; I thought I had got into the palace of a nobleman. After dinner, when I was obliged to come away, he renewed his invitation to me to make his house my home whenever I shall come to town again.
     Friday I dined with Colonel, Sheriff, alias Bill Tyng.³ Mrs. Ross and her daughter Mrs. Tyng dined with us, and the court and clerk, and some of the bar. At table we were speaking about Captain MacCarty†, which led to the African trade. Judge Trowbridge said, “That was a very humane and Christian trade, to be sure, that of making slaves.” “Aye,” says I, “it makes no great odds; it is a trade that almost all mankind have been concerned in, all over the globe, since Adam, more or less, in one way or another.” This occasioned a laugh.
     At another time Judge Trowbridge said, “It seems, by Colonel Barré’s speeches, that Mr. Otis has acquired honor by releasing his damages to Robinson.‡” “Yes,” says I, “he has acquired honor with all generations.” Trowbridge: “He did not make much profit, I think.” Adams: “True, but the less profit, the more honor. He was a man of honor and generosity, and those who think he was mistaken will pity him.”
     Thus you see how foolish I am. I cannot avoid exposing myself before these high folks; my feelings will at times overcome my modesty and reserve, my prudence, policy, and discretion. I have a zeal at my heart for my country and her friends, which I cannot smother or conceal; it will burn out at times and in companies where it ought to be latent in my breast. This zeal will prove fatal to the fortune and felicity of my family, if it is not regulated by a cooler judgment than mine has hitherto been. Colonel Otis’s phrase* is, “The zeal-pot boils over.”
     I am to wait upon brother Bradbury to meeting to-day, and to dine with brother Wyer. When I shall get home, I know not, but if possible, it shall be before next Saturday night. I long for that time to come, when my dear wife and my charming little prattlers will embrace me.

     Your,
     John Adams
     Falmouth
     9 July 1774

Footnotes:

     * – John quotes a poem by Alexander Pope, “The Fourth Satire of Dr. John Donne Versified,” lines 184-187. Interestingly, John misremembered the first line. It should have read, “Bear me, some god! Oh quickly bear me hence,”.
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     ¹ – Richard Codman, a merchant from Falmouth.
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     ² – Brigadier Jedediah Preble, served under General James Wolfe in Canada before becoming a representative to the Massachusetts General Court. Enoch Freeman was a major in the Militia.
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     ³ – William Tyng (1737-1807), sheriff of Cumberland County, was recently commissioned as a Colonel by Governor Thomas Gage.
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     † – Captain MacCarty, unidentified, possibly a slave trader.
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     ‡ – Over the previous decade, Isaac Barré (1726-1802) had been a frequent speaker in the House of Commons, speaking up for the rights of the Americans. In a speech against the Stamp Act given in 1765, his use of the phrase “sons of liberty” to refer to the American patriots is one of the earliest known uses of that distinctive phrase.
James Otis Jr. had been assaulted on September 5, 1769, by John Robinson, a Crown Officer. John Adams represented Otis in his suit for damages. Despite winning £2,000, after receiving an apology, Otis refused to accept any damages beyond court costs, lawyer’s fees, and medical expenses.
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     * – Colonel James Otis (1702-1778) was the father of James Otis Jr., the aforementioned orator and propagandist against parliamentary rule.
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John

Abigail

     Our Justice Hutchinson* is eternally giving his political hints. In a cause this morning, somebody named Captain Mackay as a referee. I said, “An honest man?” “Yes,” says Hutchinson, “he’s an honest man, only misled“–”he, he, he!”–blinking and grinning. At dinner today somebody mentioned determinations in the Lord’s House (the Court sits in the meeting-house). “I’ve known many very bad determinations in the Lord’s house of late,” says he, meaning a fling upon the clergy. He is perpetually flinging about the Fasts, and ironically talking about getting home to the Fast. A gentleman told me that he had heard him say frequently that the Fast was perfect blasphemy. “Why don’t you pay for the tea? Refuse to pay for the tea! and go to fasting and praying for direction! Perfectly blasphemy!”
     This is the moderation, candor, impartiality, prudence, patience, forbearance, and condescension of our Judge.
     Samuel Quincy said yesterday, as Josiah told me, he was for staying at home and not going to meeting as they, i.e., the meetings, are so managed.
     Such is the bitterness and rancor, the malice and revenge, the pride and vanity, which prevail in these men. And such minds are possessed of all the power of the province.
     Samuel makes no fortune this court. There is very little business here, it is true, but S. gets but very little of that little–less than anybody.
     Wyer retains his old good nature and good humor, his wit, such as it is, and his fancy, with its mildness. Bradbury retains his anxiety, and his plaintive, angry manner; David Sewall his softness and conceited modesty.
     Bradbury and Sewall always roast Dr. Gardiner at these courts, but they have done it more now than usual, as Gardiner had not me to protect him. See how I think of myself!
     I believe it is time to think a little about my family and farm. The fine weather we have had for eight or ten days past I hope has been carefully improved to get in my hay. It is a great mortification to me that I could not attend every step of their progress in mowing, making, and carting. I long to see what burden. But I long more still to see to the procuring more sea-weed, and marsh mud, and sand, etc.
     However, my prospect is interrupted again, I shall have no more time. I must prepare for a journey to Philadelphia, a long journey indeed! But if the length of the journey were all, it would be no burden. But the consideration of what is to be done is of great weight. Great things are wanted to be done, and little things only I fear can be done. I dread the thought of the Congress’ falling short of the expectations of the continent, but especially of the people of this province.
     Vapors avaunt! I will do my duty, and leave the event. If I have the approbation of my own mind, whether applauded or censured, blessed or cursed, by the world, I will not be unhappy.
     Certainly I shall enjoy good company, good conversation, and shall have a fine ride and see a little more of the world than I have before.
     I think it will be necessary to make me up a couple of pieces of new linen. I am told they wash miserably at New York, the Jerseys, and Philadelphia too in comparison of Boston, and am advised to carry a great deal of linen. Whether to make me a suit of new clothes at Boston or to make them at Philadelphia, and what to make, I know not, nor do I know how I shall go–whether on horseback, in a curricle, a phaeton, or altogether in a stagecoach I know not.
     The letters I have written, or may write, my dear, must be kept secret, or at least shown with great caution. Mr. Fairservice goes tomorrow: by him shall I send a packet. Kiss my dear babes for me.

     Your¹,
     John Adams
     Falmouth
     6 July 1774

     I believe I forgot to tell you one anecdote. When first came to this house it was late in the afternoon, and I had ridden thirty-five miles at least. “Madam,” said I to Mrs. Huston, “is it lawful for a weary traveller to refresh himself with a dish of tea, provided it has been honestly smuggled, or paid no duties?” “No, sir,” said she, “we have renounced all tea in this place, but I’ll make you coffee.” Accordingly I drank coffee every afternoon since, and have borne it very well. Tea must be universally renounced, and I must be weaned, and the sooner the better.

Footnotes:

     * – Justice Foster Hutchinson (1724-1799), an associate justice of the Superior Court, brother of Thomas Hutchinson, one of John’s most frequent targets for rancor, given Thomas Hutchinson’s support of British policies.
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     ¹ – This time John actually signed the letter for a change! Huzzah! Just thought I’d point this out, since I mentioned previously that most of the time he didn’t bother to sign them, for some unknown reason. Now back to our regularly scheduled letter!
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John

Abigail

     Mobs are the trite topic of declamation and invective among all the ministerial people far and near. They are grown universally learned in the nature, tendency, and consequences of them, and very elegant and pathetic in descanting upon them. They are sources of all kinds of evils, vices, and crimes, they say. They give rise to profaneness, intemperance, thefts, robberies, murders, and treason. Cursing, swearing, drunkenness, gluttony, lewdness, trespasses, maims, are necessarily involved in them and occasioned by them. Besides, they render the populace, the rabble, the scum of the earth, insolent and disorderly, impudent and abusive. They give rise to lying, hypocrisy, chicanery, and even perjury among the people, who are driven to such artifice and crimes to conceal themselves and their companions from prosecutions in consequence of them.
     This is the picture drawn by the Tory pencil; and it must be granted to be a likeness. But this is declamation. What consequence is to be drawn from this description? Shall we submit to Parliamentary taxation to avoid mobs? Will not Parliamentary taxation, if established, occasion vices, crimes, and follies infinitely more numerous, dangerous, and fatal to the community? Will not Parliamentary taxation, if established, raise a revenue unjustly and wrongfully? If this revenue is scattered by the hand of corruption among the public officers and magistrates and rulers of the community, will it not propagate vices more numerous, more malignant and pestilential among them? Will it not render magistrates servile and fawning to their vicious superiors, and insolent and tyrannical to their inferiors? Are insolence, abuse, and impudence more tolerable in a magistrate than in a subject? Are they not more constantly and extensively pernicious? And does not the example of vice and folly in magistrates descend and spread downwards among the people?
     Besides, is not the insolence of officers and soldiers and seamen, in the army and navy, as mischievous as that of porters, or of sailors in the merchant service? Are not riots raised and made by armed men as bad as those by unarmed? Is not an assault upon a civil officer, and a rescue of a prisoner from lawful authority, made by soldiers with swords and bayonets, as bad as if made by tradesmen with staves?
     Are not the killing of a child by R.*, and the slaughter of half a dozen citizens by a party of soldiers, as bad as pulling down a house or drowning a cargo of tea, even if both should be allowed to be unlawful? Parties may go on declaiming, but it is not easy to say which party has excited most riots, which has published most libels, which has propagated most slander and defamation? Verbal scandal has been propagated in great abundance by both parties; but there is this difference, that one party have enjoyed almost all public offices, and therefore their defamation has been spread among the people more secretly, more maliciously, and more effectually. It has gone with greater authority, and been scattered by instruments more industrious. The ministerial newspapers have swarmed with as numerous and as malicious libels as the antiministerial ones. Fleet’s paper, “Mein’s Chronicle”*, etc., etc., have been as virulent as any that was ever in the province. These bickerings of opposite parties, and their mutual reproaches, their declamations, their sing-song, their triumphs and defiances, their dismals and prophecies, are all delusion.
     We very seldom hear any solid reasoning. I wish always to discuss the question without all painting, pathos, rhetoric, or flourish of every kind. And the question seems to me to be, whether the American colonies are to be considered as a distinct community so far as to have a right to judge for themselves when the fundamentals of their government are destroyed or invaded, or whether they are to be considered as part of the whole British empire, the whole English nation, so far as to be bound in honor, conscience, or interest by the general sense of the whole nation. However, if this is the rule, I believe it is very far from the general sense of the whole nation, that America should be taxed by the British parliament. If the sense of the whole of the empire could be fairly and truly collected, it would appear, I believe, that a great majority would be against taxing us against or without our consent. It is very certain that the sense of parliament is not the sense of the empire, nor a sure indication of it.
     But, if all other parts of the empire were agreed unanimously in the propriety and rectitude of taxing us, this would not bind us. It is a fundamental, inherent, and unalienable right of the people, that they have some check, influence, or control in their supreme legislature. If the right of taxation is conceded to Parliament, the Americans have no check or influence at all left.
     This reasoning never was nor can be answered.

     John Adams
     Falmouth
     6 July 1774

Footnotes:

     * – Ebeneezer Richardson, a customs officer, shot and killed eleven-year-old Christopher Snider when an anti-British mob tried to break into his house on February 22, 1770. The boy’s funeral became a political event, and his shooting was a prelude to the Boston Massacre, also referred to here. The incident was the subject of Phillis Wheatley’s poem, “On the Death of Mr. Snider Murder’d by Richardson.” An earlier mob had destroyed Thomas Hutchinson’s house on August 26, 1765.
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     ¹ – Thomas and John Fleet’s Boston Evening Post and John Mein and John Fleeming’s Boston Chronicle supported British policies to various degrees.
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John

Abigail

     I spent an hour last evening at Mr. Wyer’s, with Judge Cushing*. Wyer’s father, who has a little place in the customs, came in. He began upon politics, and told us that Mr. Smith¹ had a fast last week which he attended. Mr. Gilman² preached, he said, part of the day, and told them that the judgments of God upon the land were in consequence of the mobs and riots which had prevailed in the country; and that turning to me old Wyer said, “What do you think of that, Mr. Adams?”
     I answered, “I can’t say but mobs and violence may have been one cause of our calamities. I am inclined to think that they do come in for a share; but there are many other causes. Did not Mr. Gilman mention bribery and corruption as another cause? He ought to have been impartial, and pointed out the venality which prevails in the land as a cause, as well as tumults.” “I think he did,” says Wyer. I might have pursued my inquiry, whether he did not mention universal pilfering, robbery, and picking of pockets which prevails in the land,–as every man’s pocket upon the continent is picked every day by taking from him duties without his consent. I might have inquired whether he mentioned the universal spirit of debauchery, dissipation, luxury, effeminacy, and gaming, which the late ministerial measures are introducing, etc., etc., etc., but I forbore.
     How much profaneness, lewdness, intemperance, etc., have been introduced by the army and navy and revenue; how much servility, venality, artifice, and hypocrisy have been introduced among the ambitious and avaricious by the British politics of the last ten years. In short the original faulty causes of all the vices which have been introduced are the political innovations of the last ten years. This is no justification and a poor excuse for the girls who have been debauched, and for the injustice which has been committed in some riots; but surely the soldiers, sailors, and excisemen who have occasioned these vices ought not to reproach those they have corrupted. These Tories act the part of the devil. They tempt men and women into sin and then reproach them for it, and become soon their tormentors for it. A tempter and tormentor is the character of the devil. Hutchinson, Oliver³, and others of their circle, who for their own ends of ambition and avarice have pursued, promoted, encouraged, counseled, aided, and abetted the taxation of America, have been the real tempters of their countrymen and women into all the vices, sins, crimes, and follies which that taxation has occasioned. And now by themselves and their friends, dependents, and votaries, they are reproaching those very men and women with those vices and follies, sins and crimes.
     There is not a sin which prevails more universally and has prevailed longer than prodigality in furniture, equipage, apparel, and diet. And I believe that this vice, this sin, has a large a share in drawing down the judgments of Heaven as any. And perhaps the punishment that is inflicted may work medicinally and cure the disease.

     John Adams
     Falmouth
     6 July 1774

Footnotes:

     * – Judge William Cushing (1732-1810), an associate justice for the Superior Court of Massachusetts.
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     ¹ – Rev. Thomas Smith, minister from Falmouth.
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     ² – Rev. Tristram Gilman, also a minister from Falmouth. On a totally random note, I think “Tristram” is my new favorite name! It sounds like the name for some sort of product you’d see on a late-night infomercial, doesn’t it? Oh, oops, sorry, that really doesn’t sound very historic and intellectual, does it?
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     ³ – Peter Oliver (1713-1791) was Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court, but John may be referring to Lieutenant Governor Andrew Oliver (1703-1774), who along with his brother in law Thomas Hutchinson was a frequent target of John’s resentment. However, Andrew Oliver had died on March 3, 1774.
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John

Abigail

     I can’t be easy without my pen in my hand, yet I know not what to write.
     I have this morning heard a dialogue between Will Gardiner and a Captain Pote*, of Falmouth. Gardiner says he can’t subscribe the non-consumption agreement¹ because he has a hundred men coming from England to settle upon Kennebeck River, and he must supply them, which he can’t do without English goods. That agreement he says may do at Boston, but not in the Eastern country. Pote said he never would sign it, and railed away at Boston mobs, drowning tea, and tarring Malcom².
     James Sullivan at dinner told us a story or two. One member of the General Court, he said, as they came down stairs after their dissolution at Salem said to him, “Though we are killed, we died scrabbling, did not we?”
     This is not very witty, I think.
     Another story was of a piece of wit of brother Porter³, of Salem. He came upon the floor and asked a member, “What state are you in now?” The member answered, “In a state of nature.” “Aye,” says Porter, “and you will be damned before you will get into a state of grace.”

     John Adams
     Falmouth
     5 July 1774

Footnotes:

     * – William Gardiner was the son of Dr. Silvester Gardiner. Jeremiah Pote, merchant in Falmouth, was a loyalist who fled to New Brunswick in 1775.
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     ¹ – Nonconsumption of British imports had been a strategy of protest in Massachusetts and the other colonies since the 1760s, and had been periodically renewed. Joseph Warren’s “Solemn League and Covenant” of Massachusetts merchants to boycott British goods had just been published on June 8 and is undoubtedly referred to here.
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     ² – The tarring and feathering of John Malcolm, a customs collector in Boston, in January 1775 received considerable notice on both sides of the Atlantic. The incident was a possible inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “My Kinsman, Major Molyneux.”
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     ³ – Samuel Porter was a lawyer in Salem. The Massachusetts legislative body, the General Court, called to meet in Boston in May 1774, was adjourned to Salem for a session beginning June 7 in order to escape Boston political unrest. Salem was thought to be a Tory stronghold.
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John

Abigail

     Arrived last evening at Falmouth, and procured a new place to lodge at, Mrs. Euston’s. Quincy and I have taken a bed together. My brother Neg Freeman* came to pay his respects to me and to invite me to a bed in his house; but I was fixed before, and therefore thanked him and excused myself. It is a very neat house where we sleep. The desk and table shine like mirrors. The floors are clean and white and nicely sanded, etc.
     But when shall I get home? This tedious journey will produce me very little profit. I never saw Falmouth before with such lean expectations and empty pockets. I am much concerned for my family. These Acts of Parliament and ministerial manoeuvres will injure me both in my property and business as much as any person whatever in proportion.

     John Adams
     Tuesday Morning, Falmouth
     5 July 1774

Footnote:

     * – Enoch Freeman (1706-1788) practiced law in Falmouth, Maine, now known as Portland, and thus was John’s “brother” as a fellow lawyer. John also considered him a brother in that they were both elected to the Massachusetts Council – essentially the upper house of the legislature – but were both negatived, i.e., rejected, by Governor Thomas Gage.
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John

Abigail

     We went to meeting at Wells and had the pleasure of hearing my friend upon “Be not partakers in other men’s sins. Keep yourselves pure.” Mr. Hemmenway came and kindly invited us to dine, but we had engaged a dinner at Littlefield’s, so we returned there, dined, and took our horses to meeting in the afternoon and heard the minister again upon “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” There is a great pleasure in hearing sermons so serious, so clear, so sensible and instructive as these.
     We went to Mr. Hemmenway’s, and as it rained a little he put out our horses, and we took a bed with him, i.e., Mr. Winthrop and I.
     You know I never get or save anything by cozening or class-mating. So I gave pistareens* enough among the children and servants to have paid twice for my entertainment.
     Josiah Quincy¹, always impetuous and vehement, would not stop, but drove forward; I suppose, that he might get upon the fishing ground before his brother Sam and me. I find that the divines and lawyers this way are all Tories. Brother Hemmenway is as impartial as any I have seen or heard of. James Sullivan seems half inclined to be a Whig.
     Mr. Winthrop has been just making some observations which I think worth sending to you. Upon reading an observation in the Farmer’s fourth letter², that some of our (the Massachusetts) resolves and publications had better have been suppressed, Mr. Winthrop said that many things in our newspapers ought to have been suppressed, for example, whenever there was the least popular commotion or disturbance, it was instantly put in all the newspapers in the province. But in all the other provinces they took care to conceal and suppress every such thing.
     Another thing, he says we ought to avoid all paragraphs in our papers about our own manufactures, especially all vaporing puffing advertisements about them, because such paragraphs only tend to provoke the ministers, merchants, and manufactures. But our presses in Boston, Salem, and Newburyport are under no regulation, nor any judicious, prudent care. Therefore it seems impracticable to keep out such imprudences. The printers are hot, indiscreet men, and they are under the influence of others as hot, rash, and injudicious as themselves, very often.
     For my own part, it has long been my resolution to avoid being concerned in counseling, or aiding, or abetting any tumult or disorder; to avoid all exceptionable scribbling in the newspaper of every kind; to avoid all passion and personal altercation or reflections. I have found it difficult to keep these resolutions exactly; all but the last, however, I have religiously and punctiliously observed these six years.

     John Adams
     Patten’s, at Arundel
     4 July 1774

Footnotes:

     * – A pistareen was a small Spanish coin used at the time in the West Indies and the American colonies. It came to be used colloquially to mean “small change.”
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     ¹ – Josiah Quincy Jr. (1744-1775) had earlier joined John in defending soldiers tried for their role in the Boston Massacre. His important Observations on the Act of Parliament Commonly Called the Boston Port Bill appeared later in 1774. He was a well respected patriot. His brother, Samuel Quincy, was mentioned in the previous letter.
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     ² – One of the Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies, written by John Dickinson in 1767-68 in protest of the Stamp Act. Widely reprinted, these letters constituted one of the most important American critiques of British power in the years before the Revolution.
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John

Abigail

     Mr. Winthrop, Mr. Quincy*, and I came this morning from York before breakfast, fifteen miles, in order to hear my learned friend Hemmenway. Mr. Quincy brought me a letter from Williams¹, in which he lets me know that you and the family were well. This is very refreshing news.

     John Adams
     Wells, Maine
     3 July 1774

Footnotes:

     * – Samuel Quincy (1735-1789), elder brother of the patriot Josiah Quincy Jr., was cultivated by Hutchinson and the Olivers; in 1770 he had been appointed solicitor general of Massachusetts. He left the country as the Revolution broke out and died in Antigua.
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¹ – Jonathan Williams (d. 1780) was one of John’s legal clerks.
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