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

     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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     Dear Abigail,

     I am so idle that I have not an easy moment without my pen in my hand. My time might have been improved to some purpose in mowing grass, raking hay, or hoeing corn, weeding carrots, picking or shelling pease. Much better should I have been employed in schooling my children, in teaching them to write, cipher, Latin, French, English, and Greek.
     I sometimes think I must come to this–to be the foreman upon my own farm and the schoolmaster to my own children. I confess myself to be full of fears that the ministry and their friends and instruments will prevail, and crush the cause and friends of liberty. The minds of that party are so filled with prejudices against me that they will take all advantages, and do me all the damage they can. These thoughts have their turns in my mind, but in general my hopes are predominant.
     In the trial of a cause here to-day, some facts were mentioned, which are worth writing to you. It was sworn, by Dr. Lyman, Elder [John] Bradbury, and others, that there had been a number of instances in this town of fatal accidents, happening from sudden noises striking the ears of babes and young children. A gun was fired near one child, as likely as any; the child fell immediately into fits, which impaired his reason, and is still living an idiot. Another child was sitting on a chamber floor. A man rapped suddenly and violently on the boards, which made the floor under the child [sound?]. The child was so startled, and frightened, that it fell into fits, which never were cured.
     Dr. Gardiner¹, arrived here to-day from Boston, brings us news of a battle at the town meeting, between Whigs and Tories, in which the Whigs, after a day and a half’s obstinate engagement, were finally victorious by two to one. He says the Tories are preparing a flaming protest.
     I am determined to be cool, if I can. I have suffered much torments in my mind heretofore as have almost overpowered my constitution, without any advantage. And now I will laugh and be easy if I can, let the contest of parties terminate as it will, let stand high or low in the estimation of the world, so long as I keep a conscience void of offense towards God and man. And this I am determined by the will of God to do, let what will become of me or mine, my country or my world.
     I shall arouse myself erelong, I believe, and exert an industry, a frugality, a hard labor, that will serve my family, if I can’t serve my country. I will not lie down in despair. If I cannot serve my children by the law, I will serve them by agriculture, by trade, by some way or other. I thank God I have a head, and heart, and hands, which, if once fully exerted altogether, will succeed in the world as well as those of the mean-spirited, low-minded, fawning, obsequious scoundrels who have long hoped that my integrity would be an obstacle in my way, and enabled them to outstrip me in the race.
     But what I want in comparison of them of villainy and servility, I will make up in industry and capacity. If I don’t, they shall laugh and triumph. I will not willingly see blockheads, whom I have a right to despise, elevated above me and insolently triumphing over me. Nor shall knavery, through any negligence of mine, get the better of honesty, nor ignorance of knowledge, nor folly of wisdom, nor vice of virtue.
     I must entreat you, my dear partner in all the joys and sorrows, prosperity and adversity of my life, to take a part with me in the struggle. I pray God for your health–entreat you to rouse your whole attention to the family, the stock, the farm, the dairy. Let every article of expense which can possibly be spared be retrenched; keep the hands attentive to their business, and the most prudent measures of every kind be adopted and pursued with alacrity and spirit.

     - John Adams
     York, July 1, 1774

     Footnotes:
     ¹ Dr. Gardiner: Dr. Silvester Gardiner, a client of Adams’, was a Tory sympathizer with extensive land dealings in Maine (aka Massachusetts, at the time.) The battle between Whigs and Tories that John refers to occurred at a town meeting which was held on June 27th & 28th at Faneuil Hall, and later at Old South Church. The proposal in question was presented by the Tories, who sought a public reading of all the letters written and received by the Boston Committee of Correspondence. After a long debate, the proposal was defeated by a large majority, and a motion commending the committee passed by a similar margin.