 | Letters of Mrs. Adams, |  |
TO JOHN ADAMS.
I dare say, before this time you have interpreted the
Northern Storm. If the presages chilled your blood,
how must you be frozen and stiffened at the disgrace
brought upon our arms![1]
unless some warmer passion
seize you, and anger and resentment fire your
breast. How are all our vast magazines of cannon,
powder, arms, clothing, provision, medicine, &c., to
be restored to us? But, what is vastly more, how
shall the disgrace be wiped away? How shall our
to that fortress are very vague and uncertain. Some
write from thence, that there was not force sufficient
to defend it. Others say it might have stood a long
siege. Some there are, who ought to know why and
wherefore we have given away a place of such
importance.
That the inquiry will be made, I make no doubt;
and, if cowardice, guilt, deceit, are found upon any
one, howsoever high or exalted his station, may
shame, reproach, infamy, hatred, and the execrations
of the public, be his portion.
I would not be so narrow-minded, as to suppose,
that there are not many men of all nations, possessed
of honor, virtue, and integrity; yet, it is to be
lamented, that we have not men among ourselves
sufficiently qualified for war, to take upon them the
most important command.
It was customary among the Carthaginians, to
have a military school, in which the flower of their
nobility, and those whose talents and ambition
prompted them to aspire to the first dignities, learned
the art of war. From among these, they selected
all their general officers; for, though they employed
mercenary soldiers, they were too jealous and suspicious
to employ foreign generals. Will a foreigner,
whose interest is not naturally connected with ours
(any otherwise than as the cause of liberty is the
cause of all mankind), will he act with the same
zeal, or expose himself to equal dangers, with the
same resolution, for a republic of which he is not a
country? And can the people repose an equal confidence
in them, even supposing them men of integrity
and abilities, and that they meet with success
equal to their abilities? How much envy and malice
are employed against them! And how galling to
pride, how mortifying to human nature, to see itself
excelled.
I have nothing new to entertain you with, unless
it is an account of a new set of mobility, which has
lately taken the lead in Boston. You must know
that there is a great scarcity of sugar and coffee,
articles which the female part of the state is very
loth to give up, especially whilst they consider the
scarcity occasioned by the merchants having secreted
a large quantity. There had been much rout
and noise in the town for several weeks. Some
stores had been opened by a number of people, and
the coffee and sugar carried into the market, and
dealt out by pounds. It was rumored that an eminent,
wealthy, stingy merchant[2]
(who is a bachelor)
had a hogshead of coffee in his store, which he refused
to sell to the committee under six shillings per
pound. A number of females, some say a hundred,
some say more, assembled with a cart and trucks,
marched down to the warehouse, and demanded the
of them seized him by his neck, and tossed him into
the cart. Upon his finding no quarter, he delivered
the keys, when they tipped up the cart and discharged
him; then opened the warehouse, hoisted out the
coffee themselves, put it into the truck, and drove off.
It was reported, that he had personal chastisement
among them; but this, I believe, was not true. A
large concourse of men stood amazed, silent spectators
of the whole transaction.
Adieu. Your good mother is just come; she
desires to be remembered to you; so do my father
and sister, who have just left me, and so does she,
whose greatest happiness consists in being tenderly
beloved by her absent friend, and who subscribes
herself ever his
| Letters of Mrs. Adams, | |