From John Adams to Thomas Welsh, 19 January 1797
To Thomas Welsh
Philadelphia January 19. 1797
Dear Sir
After wishing you many happy and prosperous returns of the Season, and a Speedy mitigation of the Severity of the Winter, I wish to know whether you have any Letters from my Sons. I have Seen a Short one, from Thomas to his Mother of the 5th Oct.1 which came I Suppose by the Vessell from Rotterdam and gave me hopes that more, might come by the Same opportunity.
I Should be obliged to you, if any News Should arrive at the Eastward, concerning the Conduct of the French or Spaniards, towards our Commerce in the West Indies, that you would give me as early notice of it as possible. The Conduct of Spain, in adopting the System of Brigandage hitherto confined to the English and French is the most cool, and unprovoked Injustice that ever was heard of; if it is true.2
If France Should declare War against Us, or force a defensive War upon Us, are the Printers of the Chronicle prepared to emigrate, like Madam Draper.3 Have the French Tories Stipulated, or obtained Republican Assurances of Compensation, like the old Loyalists in Case of their being obliged to seek an Assylum in Paris? How many in Boston do you think would join the Sansculotte and Jacobin Standard in Case forty or fifty thousand Mounsieur Citizens should come in forty ships of the Line and a thousand Transports to Boston or New york, or Charlston or Philadelphia? Do you think Governor Adams would carry his Republican Zeal So far as to put on the tricouloured Cockade? Would James Winthrop in his Zeal for fulfilling Prophecies vote an Act with the Atheists and Deists who are to pull down Antichrist?4
Remember how confidential these Sallies must be, as they come from one in the critical Situation of your Friend
John Adams
RC (MHi:Adams-Welsh Coll.); internal address: “Dr Welsh.”; endorsed: “Vice President / Jany 19. 1797 / answered Jany 30th.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 117.
1. , 11:386–388.
2. French and Spanish privateers had been plundering U.S. ships in the Caribbean throughout 1796, a burgeoning trend that alarmed JA and incoming vice president Thomas Jefferson, who were worried about the implications of either a new trade war or a full-scale military conflict; both knew that any resolution of the issue lay with the next administration. In an 8 Jan. 1797 letter to James Madison, Jefferson wrote: “I much fear the issue of the present dispositions of France and Spain. Whether it be in war or in the suppression of our commerce it will be very distressing and our commerce seems to be already sufficiently distressed through the wrongs of the belligerent nations and our own follies. … The President is fortunate to get off just as the bubble is bursting, leaving others to hold the bag” (, 11:506, 12:155; , 29:255).
3. Loyalist printer Margaret Green Draper (1727–1804), of Boston, published the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News Letter from 1774 until she fled to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in March 1776 (vol. 2:170; Donald A. Ritchie, American Journalists: Getting the Story, N.Y., 1997, p. 26).
4. Former librarian James Winthrop (1752–1821), of Cambridge, Harvard 1769, was a special justice of the Mass. Court of Common Pleas who published frequently on the study of biblical prophecy (, 17:317, 326, 329).