Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams During the Revolution Part 48

184. JOHN ADAMS.

Philadelphia, 22 May, 4 o'clock in the morning.

After a series of the severest and harshest weather that ever I felt in this climate, we are at last blessed with a bright sun and a soft air.

The weather here has been like our old easterly winds to me and southerly winds to you. The charms of the morning at this hour are irresistible. The streaks of glory dawning in the east, the freshness and purity in the air, the bright blue of the sky, the sweet warblings of a great variety of birds intermingling with the martial clarions of a hundred c.o.c.ks now within my hearing, all conspire to cheer the spirits.

This kind of puerile description is a very pretty employment for an old fellow whose brow is furrowed with the cares of politics and war. I shall be on horseback in a few minutes, and then I shall enjoy the morning in more perfection. I spent last evening at the war office with General Arnold. He has been basely slandered and libeled. The regulars say "he fought like Julius Caesar."[173] I am wearied to death with the wrangles between military officers, high and low. They quarrel like cats and dogs. They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts. I believe there is no one principle which predominates in human nature so much, in every stage of life from the cradle to the grave, in males and females, old and young, black and white, rich and poor, high and low, as this pa.s.sion for superiority.

Every human being compares itself in its imagination with every other round about it, and will find some superiority over every other, real or imaginary, or it will die of grief and vexation. I have seen it among boys and girls at school, among lads at college, among pract.i.tioners at the bar, among the clergy in their a.s.sociations, among clubs of friends, among the people in town-meetings, among the members of a House of Representatives, among the grave councillors on the more solemn bench of justice, and in that awfully august body, the Congress, and on many of its committees, and among ladies everywhere; but I never saw it operate with such keenness, ferocity, and fury as among military officers. They will go terrible lengths in their emulation, their envy, and revenge in consequence of it.

So much for philosophy. I hope my five or six babes are all well. My duty to my mother and your father, and love to sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles. Pray how does your asparagus perform? etc. I would give three guineas for a barrel of your cider. Not one drop is to be had here for gold, and wine is not to be had under six or eight dollars a gallon, and that very bad. I would give a guinea for a barrel of your beer. The small beer here is wretchedly bad. In short, I can get nothing that I can drink, and I believe I shall be sick from this cause alone.

Rum, at forty s.h.i.+llings a gallon, and bad water will never do in this hot climate in summer, when acid liquors are necessary against putrefaction.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 173: At Danbury. This caused a temporary reaction in Congress in his favor.]

185. JOHN ADAMS.

Philadelphia, 25 May, 1777.

At half past four this morning I mounted my horse and took a ride in a road that was new to me. I went to Kensington and then to "Point-no-point" by land, the place where I went once before with a large company in the row-galleys by water. That frolic was almost two years ago. I gave you a relation of it in the time, I suppose. The road to Point-no-point lies along the river Delaware, in fair sight of it and its opposite sh.o.r.e. For near four miles the road is as straight as the streets of Philadelphia. On each side are beautiful rows of trees, b.u.t.tonwoods, oaks, walnuts, cherries, and willows, especially down towards the banks of the river. The meadows, pastures, and gra.s.s-plats are as green as leeks. There are many fruit trees and fine orchards set with the nicest regularity. But the fields of grain, the rye and wheat, exceed all description. These fields are all sown in ridges, and the furrow between each couple of ridges is as plainly to be seen as if a swath had been mown along. Yet it is no wider than a plough-share, and it is as straight as an arrow. It looks as if the sower had gone along the furrow with his spectacles, to pick up every grain that should accidentally fall into it. The corn is just coming out of the ground.

The furrows struck out for the hills to be planted in are each way as straight as mathematical right lines; and the squares between every four hills as exact as they could be done by plumb and line, or scale and compa.s.s.

I am ashamed of our farmers. They are a lazy, ignorant set; in husbandry, I mean; for they know infinitely more of everything else than these. But after all, the native face of our country, diversified as it is with hill and dale, sea and land, is to me more agreeable than this enchanting artificial scene.

27 May.

The post brought me yours of May 6th and 9th. You express apprehensions that we may be driven from this city. We have no such apprehensions here. Howe is unable to do anything but by stealth. Was.h.i.+ngton is strong enough to keep Howe where he is.

How could it happen that you should have 5 counterfeit New Hamps.h.i.+re money? Can't you recollect who you had it of? Let me entreat you not to take a s.h.i.+lling of any but Continental money or Ma.s.sachusetts, and be very careful of that. There is a counterfeit Continental bill abroad, sent out of New York, but it will deceive none but fools, for it is copper-plate, easily detected, miserably done.

186. JOHN ADAMS.

Philadelphia, Monday, 2 June, 1777.

Artillery Election! I wish I was at it or near it. Yours of the 18th reached me this morning. The cause that letters are so long in travelling is that there is but one post in a week, who goes from hence to Peekskill, although there are two that go from thence to Boston.

Riding every day has made me better than I was, although I am not yet quite well. I am determined to continue this practice, which is very necessary for me.

I rejoice to find that the town have had the wisdom to send but one Representative. The House last year was too numerous and unwieldy. The expense was too great. I suppose you will have a Const.i.tution formed this year. Who will be the Moses, the Lycurgus, the Solon? or have you a score or two of such? Whoever they may be, and whatever form may be adopted, I am persuaded there is among the ma.s.s of our people a fund of wisdom, integrity, and humanity which will preserve their happiness in a tolerable measure.

If the enemy comes to Boston again, fly with your little ones, all of them, to Philadelphia. But they will scarcely get to Boston this campaign. I admire your sentiments concerning revenge. Revenge in ancient days (you will see it through the whole Roman history) was esteemed a generous and an heroic pa.s.sion. Nothing was too good for a friend, or too bad for an enemy. Hatred and malice without limits against an enemy were indulged, were justified, and no cruelty was thought unwarrantable. Our Saviour taught the immorality of revenge, and the moral duty of forgiving injuries, and even the duty of loving enemies. Nothing can show the amiable, the moral, the divine excellency of these Christian doctrines in a stronger point of light than the characters and conduct of Marius and Sylla, Caesar, Pompey, Antony, and Augustus, among innumerable others. Retaliation we must practice in some instances, in order to make our barbarous foes respect, in some degree, the rights of humanity. But this will never be done without the most palpable necessity. The apprehension of retaliation alone will restrain them from cruelties which would disgrace savages. To omit it then would be cruelty to ourselves, our officers and men.

We are amused here with reports of troops removing from Rhode Island, New York, Staten Island, etc.; wagons, boats, bridges, etc., prepared; two old Indiamen cut down into floating batteries, mounting thirty-two guns, sent round into Delaware river, etc., etc.; but I heed it no more than the whistling of the zephyrs. In short, I had rather they should come to Philadelphia than not. It would purify this city of its dross.

Either the furnace of affliction would refine it of its impurities, or it would be purged yet so as by fire. This town has been a dead weight upon us. It would be a dead weight upon the enemy. The mules here would plague them more than all their money.

187. JOHN ADAMS.

Philadelphia, 4 June, 1777.

I wish I could know whether your season is cold or warm, wet or dry, fruitful or barren whether you had late frosts, whether those frosts have hurt the fruit, the flax, the corn or vines, etc. We have a fine season here and a bright prospect of abundance.

You will see, by the inclosed papers in a letter from my friend Parsons, a very handsome narration of one of the prettiest exploits of this war, a fine retaliation of the Danbury mischief. Meigs, who was before esteemed a good officer, has acquired by this expedition a splendid reputation. You will see by the same papers, too, that the writers here in opposition to the Const.i.tution of Pennsylvania are making factious use of my name and lucubration; much against my will, I a.s.sure you, for although I am no admirer of the form of this government, yet I think it is agreeable to the body of the people, and if they please themselves they will please me. And I would not choose to be impressed into the service of one party or the other, and I am determined I will not enlist. Besides, it is not very genteel in these writers to put my name to a letter[174] from which I cautiously withheld it myself. However, let them take their own way; I shall not trouble myself about it.

I am growing better by exercise and air.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 174: This was addressed to George Wythe and printed under the t.i.tle _Thoughts on Government_. _Works of John Adams_, Vol. I., p. 208.]

188. JOHN ADAMS.

Philadelphia, 8 July, 1777.

Yours of 23d June I have received. I believe there is no danger of an invasion your way, but the designs of the enemy are uncertain, and their motions a little mysterious. Before this letter is sealed, which will not be till Sunday next, I hope I shall be able to inform you better.

I rejoice at your fine season and at my brother Cranch's attention to husbandry. I am very glad he bought the farm and that he likes it so well. I pant for domestic life and rural felicity like his. I am better than I have been. But I dread the heats which are coming on. This day completes six months since I left you. I am wasted and exhausted in mind and body, with incessant application to business, but, if I can possibly endure it, will hold out the year. It is nonsense to dance backwards and forwards. After this year, I shall take my leave.

Our affairs are in a fine, prosperous train, and if they continue so, I can leave this station with honor. Next month completes three years that I have been devoted to the service of liberty. A slavery it has been to me, whatever the world may think of it. To a man whose attachments to his family are as strong as mine, absence alone from such a wife and such children would be a great sacrifice. But in addition to this separation what have I not done? What have I not suffered? What have I not hazarded? These are questions that I may ask you, but I will ask such questions of none else. Let the cymbals of popularity tinkle still.

Let the b.u.t.terflies of fame glitter with their wings. I shall envy neither their music nor their colors. The loss of property affects me little. All other hard things I despise, but the loss of your company and that of my dear babes, for so long a time, I consider as a loss of so much solid happiness. The tender social feelings of my heart, which have distressed me beyond all utterance in my most busy, active scenes, as well as in the numerous hours of melancholy solitude, are known only to G.o.d and my own soul.

How often have I seen my dearest friend a widow, and her charming prattlers orphans exposed to all the insolence of unfeeling, impious tyrants! Yet I can appeal to my final Judge, the horrid vision has never for one moment shaken the resolution of my heart.

189. JOHN ADAMS.

Philadelphia, 11 July, 1777.