Part 5
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.
5. JOHN ADAMS.
York, 2 July, 1774.
I have concluded to mount my horse to-morrow morning at four, and ride to Wells to hear my old worthy, learned, ingenious friend Hemmenway, whom I never was yet so happy as to hear. Mr. Winthrop agrees to be my company. Wells is about fifteen miles from this place; from thence we propose to ride after the evening service is over to Saco, _i. e._, Biddeford, which is about thirty miles from here, which will leave us an easy journey to Falmouth for Monday.
Mr. Winthrop tells me that he has heard the late Governor Hutchinson, while he was Chief Justice, frequently say for seven years together, that Salem was the most proper, convenient, and suitable place in the province for the seat of government; that he frequently complimented the gentlemen of Salem with the happiness and convenience of their situation for the seat of government, and with his prophecies that it would certainly be made such in a course of years. I mentioned this to Judge Trowbridge, and he told me that he himself remembered to have heard him say the same thing. I am very much mistaken if I have not heard him say so too. And I remember I happened to be with Kent when he carried to Judge Lynde his commission as Chief Justice, and Judge Lynde entertained me for some time with conversation about making Salem the seat of government, and with the probable effects of such a measure; one of which he said would be a translation of a great part of the trade from Boston to Salem. But he said he did not want to have troops in Salem.
Now let any one who knows these anecdotes judge who was the suggester, planner, and promoter of this wrongheaded and iniquitous measure.
I write you this tittle-tattle, my dear, in confidence. You must keep these letters to yourself, and communicate them with great caution and reserve. I should advise you to put them up safe and preserve them. They may exhibit to our posterity a kind of picture of the manners, opinions, and principles of these times of perplexity, danger, and distress.
Deacon Sayward said at table this week in my hearing that there was but one point in which he differed in opinion from the late Governor Hutchinson, and that was with regard to the reality of witchcraft and the existence of witches. The Governor, he said, would not allow there was any such thing. The Deacon said he was loath to differ from him in anything; he had so great a regard for him and his opinions, that he was willing to give up almost everything rather than differ with him. But in this he could not see with him.
Such is the cant of this artful, selfish, hypocritical man.
Pray remember me to my dear little babes, whom I long to see running to meet me and climb up upon me under the smiles of their mother.
6. JOHN ADAMS.
Littlefield's, at Wells, 3 July, 1774.
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 Williams, in which he lets me know that you and the family were well. This is very refreshing news.
Patten's, at Arundel, 4 July.
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.[21]
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 classmating. So I gave pistareens enough among the children and servants to have paid twice for my entertainment.
Josiah Quincy, 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 letter,[22] 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 this 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 manufacturers in England to confine and restrain or prohibit our 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 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.
5 July, Tuesday Morning.
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.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 21: Thirty-six years afterwards Mr. Adams wrote of the same person, "My affection for him, which began when we first entered college, has continued and increased till it has become veneration."]
[Footnote 22: The letters of John Dickinson, printed under that name.]
7. JOHN ADAMS.
Falmouth, 5 July, 1774.
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 agreement 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 Malcom.
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 Porter, 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."
6 July.
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. Smith had a fast last week which he attended. Mr. Gilman 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 then 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 the 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, Oliver, 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 as 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.
8. JOHN ADAMS.
Falmouth,[23] 6 July, 1774.
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 in 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 or bayonets, as bad as if made by tradesmen with staves?
Are not the killing of a child by R.,[24] 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 a 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 was 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 23: The ancient name of Portland, in Maine, at this period a part of the province of Massachusetts Bay.]
[Footnote 24: Ebenezer Richardson. The affair happened on the 22d February, 1770, a few days before the other and more serious disturbance here alluded to, commonly known as the Boston massacre. A man of the government side, by the name of Lillie, who kept a shop in Hanover Street, finding the non-importation agreement not universally observed, ventured to offer his stock of goods for sale. As a consequence, his shop was at once marked out in the street as infringing the agreement, and a board set up on which a hand was drawn for the purpose of arresting attention and deterring all persons from purchasing. Richardson, well known as an informer attached to the custom house, who lived close by, came out and attempted to get rid of the board. A struggle took place. The mob drove him back to his house, and attacked it with stones. He then fired a musket twice, killing a German boy eleven years old, by the name of Christopher Snyder, and wounding another very severely.]
9. JOHN ADAMS.
Falmouth, 6 July, 1774.
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 to-day 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! Perfect blasphemy!"[25]
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[26] 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 muscle mud, and sand, etc.
However, my prospect is interrupted again. I shall have no 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 seen before.
The letters I have written, or may write, my dear, must be kept secret, or at least shown with great caution.
I believe I forgot to tell you one anecdote. When I 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 have 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:
[Footnote 25: Foster Hutchinson, one of the Associate Justices of the Superior Court, and brother of the Governor. He was proscribed and his property confiscated. He removed to Nova Scotia in 1776, where he died in 1799.]
[Footnote 26: David Wyer, a graduate of Harvard College in 1758, entered on the practice of his profession at Falmouth, but died before he was forty, in October, 1775.]
10. JOHN ADAMS.
Falmouth, 7 July, 1774.
Have you seen a list of the addressers of the late Governor?[27] There is one abroad, with the character, profession, or occupation of each person against his name. I have never seen it, but Judge Brown says against the name of Andrew Faneuil Phillips is "Nothing." And that Andrew, when he first heard of it, said, "Better be nothing with one side than everything with the other."