Part 29
I think I have sometimes observed to you in conversation, that upon examining the biography of illustrious men, you will generally find some female about them, in the relation of mother or wife or sister, to whose instigation a great part of their merit is to be ascribed. You will find a curious example of this in the case of Aspasia, the wife of Pericles. She was a woman of the greatest beauty and the first genius. She taught him, it is said, his refined maxims of policy, his lofty imperial eloquence, nay, even composed the speeches on which so great a share of his reputation was founded. The best men in Athens frequented her house and brought their wives to receive lessons from her of economy and right deportment. Socrates himself was her pupil in eloquence, and gives her the honor of that funeral oration which he delivers in the "Menexenus" of Plato. Aristophanes, indeed, abuses this famous lady, but Socrates does her honor.
I wish some of our great men had such wives. By the account in your last letter, it seems the women in Boston begin to think themselves able to serve their country. What a pity it is that our Generals in the northern districts had not Aspasias to their wives!
I believe the two Howes have not very great women for wives. If they had, we should suffer more from their exertions than we do. This is our good fortune. A woman of good sense would not let her husband spend five weeks at sea in such a season of the year. A smart wife would have put Howe in possession of Philadelphia a long time ago.
196. JOHN ADAMS.
Philadelphia, Tuesday, 19 August, 1777.
Your obliging favor of the 5th[178] came by yesterday's post, and I intended to have answered it by this morning's post, but was delayed by many matters, until he gave me the slip.
I am sorry that you and the people of Boston were put to so much trouble, but glad to hear that such numbers determined to fly. The prices for carting which were demanded were detestable. I wish your fatigue and anxiety may not have injured your health. Don't be anxious for my safety. If Howe comes here, I shall run away, I suppose, with the rest. We are too brittle ware, you know, to stand the dashing of balls and bombs. I wonder upon what principle the Roman senators refused to fly from the Gauls, and determined to sit with their ivory staves and hoary beards in the porticoes of their houses, until the enemy entered the city and, although they confessed they resembled the gods, put them to the sword. I should not choose to indulge this sort of dignity; but I confess I feel myself so much injured by these barbarian Britons that I have a strong inclination to meet them in the field. This is not revenge, I believe, but there is something sweet and delicious in the contemplation of it. There is in our hearts an indignation against wrong that is righteous and benevolent; and he who is destitute of it is defective in the balance of his affections and in his moral character.
As long as there is conscience in our breasts, a moral sense which distinguishes between right and wrong, approving, esteeming, loving the former, and undermining and detesting the other, we must feel a pleasure in the punishment of so eminent a contemner of all that is right and good and just, as Howe is. They are virtuous and pious passions that prompt us to desire his destruction, and to lament and deplore his success and prosperity. The desire of assisting towards his disgrace is an honest wish.
It is too late in life, my constitution is too much debilitated by speculation, and indeed it is too late a period in the war, for me to think of girding on a sword. But if I had the last four years to run over again, I certainly would.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 178: No. 193, page 287.]
197. JOHN ADAMS.
Philadelphia, Tuesday, 19 August, 1777.
The weather still continues cloudy and cool, and the wind easterly. Howe's fleet and army is still incognito. The gentlemen from South Carolina begin to tremble for Charleston. If Howe is under a judicial blindness, he may be gone there. But what will be the fate of a scorbutic army, cooped up in a fleet for six, seven, or eight weeks, in such intemperate weather as we have had? What will be their condition, landing on a burning shore abounding with agues and mosquitoes, in the most unwholesome season of the whole year? If he should get Charleston, or indeed the whole State, what progress will this make towards the conquest of America? He will stop the trade of rice and indigo, but what then? Besides, he will get some ugly knocks. They are honest, sincere, and brave, and will make his life uncomfortable.
I feel a strong affection for South Carolina for several reasons. 1. I think them as stanch patriots as any in America. 2. I think them as brave. 3. They are the only people in America who have maintained a post and defended a fort. 4. They have sent us a new delegate whom I greatly admire, Mr. Laurens, their Lieutenant-governor, a gentleman of great fortune, great abilities, modesty and integrity, and great experience too. If all the States would send us such men, it would be a pleasure to be here.
In the northern department they begin to fight. The family of Johnson, the black part of it as well as the white, are pretty well thinned. Rascals! They deserve extermination. I presume Gates will be so supported that Burgoyne will be obliged to retreat. He will stop at Ticonderoga, I suppose, for they can maintain posts although we cannot. I think we shall never defend a post until we shoot a General. After that we shall defend posts, and this event, in my opinion, is not far off. No other fort will ever be evacuated without an inquiry, nor any officer come off without a court martial. We must trifle no more. We have suffered too many disgraces to pass unexpiated. Every disgrace must be wiped off.
We have been several days hammering upon money. We are contriving every way we can to redress the evils we feel and fear from too great a quantity of paper. Taxation as deep as possible is the only radical cure. I hope you will pay every tax that is brought you, if you sell my books or clothes or oxen, or your cows, to pay it.
198. JOHN ADAMS.
Philadelphia, Wednesday, 20 August, 1777.
This day completes three years since I stepped into the coach at Mr. Cushing's door, in Boston, to go to Philadelphia in quest of adventures. And adventures I have found. I feel an inclination sometimes to write the history of the last three years, in imitation of Thucydides. There is a striking resemblance in several particulars between the Peloponnesian and the American war. The real motive to the former was a jealousy of the growing power of Athens by sea and land. The genuine motive to the latter was a similar jealousy of the growing power of America. The true causes which incite to war are seldom professed or acknowledged.
We are now upon a full sea; when we shall arrive at a safe harbor, no mariner has skill and experience enough to foretell. But by the favor of Heaven we shall make a prosperous voyage, after all the storms and shoals are passed.
5 o'clock, Afternoon.
It is now fair sunshine again, and very warm. Not a word yet from Howe's fleet. The most general suspicion now is that it is gone to Charleston, South Carolina. But it is a wild supposition. It may be right, however, for he is a wild General.
We have been hammering to-day upon a mode of trial for the general officers at Ti. Whether an inquiry will precede the court martial, and whether the inquiry shall be made by a committee of Congress or by a council of general officers, is not determined, but inquiry and trial both, I conjecture, there will be.
If Howe is gone to Charleston, you will have a little quiet, and enjoy your corn, and rye, and flax, and hay, and other good things, until another summer. But what shall we do for sugar and wine and rum? Why, truly, I believe we must leave them off. Loaf sugar is only four dollars a pound here, and brown only a dollar for the meanest sort, and ten shillings for that a little better. Everybody here is leaving off loaf sugar, and most are laying aside brown. As to rum and wine, give me cider and I would compound. New England rum is but forty shillings a gallon. But if wine was ten dollars a bottle I would have one glass a day in water while the hot weather continues, unless I could get cider.
199. JOHN ADAMS.
Philadelphia, Thursday, 21 August, 1777.
This morning we have heard again from the fleet. At nine o'clock at night on the 14th instant, upwards of a hundred sail were seen standing in between the Capes of Chesapeake Bay. They had been seen from the eastern shore of Virginia, standing off and on, for two days before. This method of coasting along the shore, and standing off and on, is very curious. First, seen off Egg Harbor, then several times off the capes of Delaware, standing in and out, then off Sinnepuxent, then off the eastern shore of Virginia, then standing in to Chesapeake Bay. How many men and horses will he lose in this sea ramble in the heat of dog-days? Whether he is going to Virginia to steal tobacco, to North Carolina to pilfer pitch and tar, or to South Carolina to plunder rice and indigo, who can tell? He will seduce a few negroes from their masters, let him go to which he will. But is this conquering America?
From the northward we learn that Arnold has marched with about two thousand men to the relief of Fort Schuyler. Our people have given Sir John Johnson, and his regulars, Tories, and Indians, a very fine drubbing. The Indians scarcely ever had such a mauling. The devils are so frightened that they are all run away to howl and mourn. The papers inclosed with this will give you more particular information. Can nothing be done at Rhode Island at this critical time? Opprobrium Novangliae! What is become of all the Massachusetts Continental troops? Every regiment and every man of them is at the northward under Gates, and yet we are told they have not four thousand men fit for duty, officers included. And there are three regiments there from New Hampshire, too.
10 o'clock at night.
Just come in from Congress. We have within this hour received letters of General Schuyler and Lincoln, giving an account of the battle of Bennington, wherein General Stark has acquired great glory, and so have his militia. The particulars are to be out in a hand-bill to-morrow morning. I will inclose you one.
200. JOHN ADAMS.
Philadelphia, 23 August, 1777.
It is now no longer a secret where Mr. Howe's fleet is. We have authentic intelligence that it is arrived at the head of Chesapeake Bay, above the river Patapsco, upon which the town of Baltimore stands. I wish I could describe to you the geography of this country, so as to give you an adequate idea of the situation of the two great bays of Chesapeake and Delaware, because it would enable you to form a conjecture concerning the object he aims at. The distance across land from the heads of these bays is but small, and forms an isthmus, below which is a large peninsula, comprehending the counties of Accomac and Northampton in Virginia, the counties of Somerset and Worcester in Maryland, and the counties of Kent and Sussex in Delaware. His march by land to Philadelphia may be about sixty or seventy miles. I think there can be no doubt that he aims at this place, and he has taken this voyage of six weeks, long enough to have gone to London, merely to avoid an army in his rear. He found he could not march this way from Somerset Court House without leaving General Washington in his rear. We have called out the militia of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania to oppose him, and General Washington is handy enough to meet him; and as General Washington saved Philadelphia last winter by crossing the Delaware and marching to Morristown and so getting in the rear of Howe, so, I conjecture, he will still find means to get in his rear between him and Chesapeake Bay. You may now sit under your own vine and have none to make you afraid. I sent off my man and horse at an unlucky time, but if we should be obliged to remove from hence, we shall not go far.
If Congress had deliberated and debated a month, they could not have concerted a plan for Mr. Howe more to our advantage than that which he has adopted. He gives us an opportunity of exerting the strength of all the middle States against him, while New York and New England are destroying Burgoyne. Now is the time! Never was so good an opportunity for my countrymen to turn out and crush that vaporing, blustering bully to atoms.
201. JOHN ADAMS.
Philadelphia, Saturday, 23 August, 1777, 4 o'clock.
We have an express to-day from Governor Johnson, Captain Nicholson, and several other gentlemen, with an account that the fleet, to the number of two hundred and sixty-three sail, have gone up towards the head of Chesapeake Bay. They lie over against the shore between the river Sassafras and the river Elk. We have also a letter from General Washington, acquainting us that to-morrow morning at seven o'clock he shall march his army through the city of Philadelphia, along Front Street, and then turn up Chestnut Street in his way to cross over the bridge at Schuylkill River; so that General Howe will have a grand Continental army to oppose him, in very good season, aided by a formidable collection of militia. I like this movement of the General through the city. Such a show of artillery, wagons, light horse, and infantry, which takes up a line of nine or ten miles upon their march, and will not be less than five or six hours passing through the town, will make a good impression upon the minds of the timorous Whigs for their confirmation; upon the cunning Quakers for their restraint; and upon the rascally Tories for their confusion.
I think there is a reasonable ground for confidence, with the favor of Heaven, that Howe will not be able to reach this city. Yet I really doubt whether it would not be more for our interest that he should come here, and get possession of the town.
1. Because there are impurities here which will never be so soon or so fully purged away as by that fire of affliction which Howe enkindles wherever he goes.
2. Because it would employ nearly the whole of his force to keep possession of this town, and the rest of the continent would be more at liberty.
3. We could counteract him here, better than in many other places.
4. He would leave New England and New York at leisure to kill or catch Burgoyne.
In all events you may rejoice and sing, for the season is so far gone that he cannot remove to you.
202. JOHN ADAMS.
Philadelphia, 24 August, 1777.
My dearest Friend,--We had, last evening, a thunder-gust very sharp and violent, attended with a plentiful rain. The lightning struck in several places. It struck the Quaker almshouse in Walnut Street, between Third and Fourth Streets, not far from Captain Duncan's, where I lodge. They had been wise enough to place an iron rod upon the top of the steeple, for a vane to turn on, and had provided no conductor to the ground. It also struck in Fourth Street, near Mrs. Cheesman's. No person was hurt.
This morning was fair, but now it is overcast and rains very hard, which will spoil our show and wet the army.
12 o'clock.
The rain ceased, and the army marched through the town between seven and ten o'clock. The wagons went another road. Four regiments of light horse, Bland's, Baylor's, Sheldon's, and Moylan's. Four grand divisions of the army, and the artillery with the matrosses. They marched twelve deep, and yet took up above two hours in passing by. General Washington and the other general officers with their aids on horseback. The Colonels and other field-officers on horseback. We have now an army well appointed between us and Mr. Howe, and this army will be immediately joined by ten thousand militia, so that I feel as secure here as if I was at Braintree, but not so happy. My happiness is nowhere to be found but there.
After viewing this fine spectacle and firm defense, I went to Mr. Duffield's meeting to hear him pray, as he did most fervently, and I believe he was most sincerely joined by all present, for its success.
The army, upon an accurate inspection of it, I find to be extremely well armed, pretty well clothed, and tolerably disciplined. Gill and Town, by the motto to their newspapers, will bring discipline into vogue in time. There is such a mixture of the sublime and the beautiful together with the useful in military discipline, that I wonder every officer we have is not charmed with it. Much remains yet to be done. Our soldiers have not yet quite the air of soldiers. They don't step exactly in time. They don't hold up their heads quite erect, nor turn out their toes so exactly as they ought. They don't all of them cock their hats; and such as do, don't all wear them the same way.
A disciplinarian has affixed to him commonly the ideas of cruelty, severity, tyranny, etc., but if I were an officer, I am convinced I should be the most decisive disciplinarian in the army. I am convinced there is no other effective way of indulging benevolence, humanity, and the tender social passions in an army. There is no other way of preserving the health and spirits of the men. There is no other way of making them active and skillful in war; no other way of guarding an army against destruction by surprises; and no other method of giving them confidence in one another, of making them stand by one another in the hour of battle. Discipline in an army is like the laws in civil society. There can be no liberty in a commonwealth where the laws are not revered and most sacredly observed, nor can there be happiness or safety in an army for a single hour where the discipline is not observed.
Obedience is the only thing wanting now for our salvation. Obedience to the laws in the States, and obedience to officers in the army.
12 o'clock.
No express nor accidental news from Maryland to-day, as yet.
203. JOHN ADAMS.
Philadelphia, 25 August, 1777.
Yours of August 12th and 13th came by this morning's post. A letter from Chesapeake Bay, dated yesterday morning, informs that the enemy had not then landed. This morning, General Nash, with his brigade of North Carolina forces, marched through the town with their band of music, their train of artillery, and their baggage wagons, their bread wagons, travelling forges, etc. General Washington's army encamped last night at Derby. Sullivan's division is expected along in two days. Our intelligence of the fleet has been as good as could be expected. They have been six weeks at sea.
If our people do not now turn out and destroy Burgoyne's gang, root and branch, they may justly be reproached as lost to honor and to virtue. He is completely in our power. Gates writes to Congress that Burgoyne is lessened twelve hundred men by the Bennington action.
204. JOHN ADAMS.
Philadelphia, Tuesday, 26 August, 1777.
Howe's army, at least about five thousand of them, besides his light horse, are landed upon the banks of the Elk River, and the disposition he has made of his forces indicates a design to rest and refresh both men and horses. General Washington was at Wilmington last night, and his army is there to-day. The militia are turning out with great alacrity both in Maryland and Pennsylvania. They are distressed for want of arms. Many have none, others have only little fowling-pieces. However, we shall rake and scrape enough to do Howe's business, by the favor of Heaven.
Howe must have intended that Washington should have sent his army up to fight Burgoyne. But he is disappointed. The kindness of Heaven towards us has in nothing appeared more conspicuous than in this motion of Howe. If the infatuation is not so universal as to seize Americans as well as him, it will prove the certain destruction of Burgoyne's army. The New England troops and New York troops are every man of them at Peekskill and with Gates. The Massachusetts men are all with Gates. General Washington has none but southern troops with him, and he has much the largest army to encounter.
If my countrymen do not now turn out and do something, I shall be disappointed indeed. One fifth part of Burgoyne's army has been totally destroyed by Stark and Herkimer. The remainder must be shocked and terrified at the stroke. Now is the time to strike. New England men, strike home!
205. JOHN ADAMS.
Philadelphia, Friday, 29 August, 1777.
The newspapers inclosed will give you all the intelligence of any consequence. General Washington, with a very numerous army, is between Wilmington and the Head of Elk. Howe will make but a pitiful figure. The militia of four States are turning out with much alacrity and cheerful spirits. The Continental army under Washington, Sullivan, and Nash, besides, is in my opinion more numerous by several thousands than Howe's whole force. I am afraid that he will be frightened, and run on board his ships, and go away plundering to some other place. I almost wish he had Philadelphia, for then he could not get away. I really think it would be the best policy to retreat before him, and let him into this snare, where his army must be ruined. However, this policy will not be adopted.
In a letter from good authority, Mr. Paca, we are informed that many dead horses have been driven on the eastern shore of Maryland; horses thrown overboard from the fleet, no doubt.
Prices current. Four pounds a week for board, besides finding your own washing, shaving, candles, liquors, pipes, tobacco, wood, etc. Thirty shillings a week for a servant. It ought to be thirty shillings for a gentleman and four pounds for the servant, because he generally eats twice as much and makes twice as much trouble. Shoes, five dollars a pair. Salt, twenty-seven dollars a bushel. Butter, ten shillings a pound. Punch, twenty shillings a bowl. All the old women and young children are gone down to the Jersey shore to make salt. Salt water is boiling all round the coast, and I hope it will increase. For it is nothing but heedlessness and shiftlessness that prevents us from making salt enough for a supply. But necessity will bring us to it. As to sugar, molasses, rum, etc., we must leave them off. Whiskey is used here instead of rum, and I don't see but it is just as good. Of this the wheat and rye countries can easily distil enough for the use of the country. If I could get cider I would be content.
The business of the country has been in so critical and dangerous a situation for the last twelve months that it was necessary the Massachusetts should have a full representation, but the expenses of living are grown so enormous that I believe it will be necessary to reduce the number of delegates to three, after the campaign is over.
206. JOHN ADAMS.
Philadelphia, Saturday, 30 August, 1777.
A letter from General Washington was received last night by the President, which I read. It is dated the 29th, yesterday.
The enemy are in possession of the Head of Elk, a little town at the head of the river Elk, in which they found a quantity of corn and oats belonging to the States. Wagons were so universally taken up in conveying away the valuable effects of the inhabitants, that none could be procured to transport this grain. Part of their army has advanced to Gray's Hill, about two miles from the Head of Elk, but whether to take post there, or only to cover while they remove their plunder from the Head of Elk, is uncertain.