American Aurora
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[W]hen it is well known that the command was in a manner forced upon me, that I accepted it with the utmost diffidence, from a consciousness that it required greater abilities and more experience than I possessed, to conduct a great Military machine … it is rather grating to pass over in silence charges which may impress the uninformed …1123
General Charles Lee, formerly George Washington’s second in command, wrote the disparaging remarks in the form of twenty-five queries, including,
Query 9th. “Whether it is salutary or dangerous … to inculcate and encourage in the people an idea that their welfare, safety and glory depend on one man?
10th. “Whether amongst the late warm or rather loyal addresses of this city [Philadelphia] to his Excellency General Washington, there was a single mortal … who could possibly be acquainted with his merits? …
“Whether the armies under Gates … and the detachment under Stark to the northward … gave the decisive turn to the fortune of war? …”1124
Monday, August 2, 1779. Today, after a forty-five-day crossing aboard the French frigate Le Sensible, John Adams arrives at Boston’s harbor.1125
Thursday, August 12, 1779. Today, in Geneva, Benny Bache turns ten years old. To obtain a republican education, Benny lives under the watchful eye of Philibert Cramer, who is the brother of Voltaire’s publisher and a friend of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Is there any question that Benny will be a child of the Enlightenment? Philibert’s wife, Catherine, has practically adopted Benny Bache, and the Cramers’ son, Gabriel, is Benny’s best friend.1126
Thursday, August 19, 1779. Today, from Paris, Ben Franklin writes Benny Bache in Geneva:
My Dear Child,
Do not think I have forgotten you, because I have been so long without writing to you. I think of you every day, and there is nothing I desire more than to see you furnish’d with good Learning, that I may return you to your Father and Mother so accomplish’d, with such Knowledge & Virtue as to give them Pleasure, and enable you to become an honourable Man in your own Country. I am therefore very willing you should have a Dictionary, and all such other Books as M. du Marignac or M. Cramer shall judge proper for you …
I continue very well, Thanks to God; and I shall always love you very much if you continue to be a good Boy; being ever
Your Affectionate Grandfather B. Franklin
Let me know what you are learning, & whether you begin to draw.1127
Wednesday, September 1, 1779. Today, in Boston, a constitutional convention begins work on a new Massachusetts state constitution.1128 John Adams, now back in Boston, is to be its principal author. Just as Pennsylvania’s constitution is seen to be Ben Franklin’s, the new Massachusetts constitution will be seen to be John Adams’. John Adams:
Upon my return from France in 1779, I found myself elected by my native town of Braintree a member of the convention for forming a constitution for the state of Massachusetts. Here I found a chaos of absurd sentiments concerning government … Lieutenant-Governor Cushing was avowedly for a single assembly like [Dr. Franklin’s constitution in] Pennsylvania. Samuel Adams was of the same mind In short, I had at first no support but from the [radically conservative] Essex Junto who had adopted my ideas in the “Letter to Mr. Wythe.” They supported me timorously and at last would not go with me to so high a mark as I aimed at, which was a complete negative [veto] in the governor upon all laws. They made me draw up the constitution, and it was finally adopted with some amendments very much for the worse … A foundation was here laid of much jealousy and unpopularity among the democratical people …1129
Sunday, September 19, 1779. Today, from his home in Braintree, John Adams writes his friend Benjamin Rush, who has resigned from the army to practice medicine in Philadelphia:
I have little to Say about the Time and manner of my being Superceeded [by Benjamin Franklin]. Let those reflect upon them selves who are disgraced by it, not I. Those who did it are alone disgraced by it. The Man who can shew a long Series of disinterested Services to his Country cannot be disgraced even by his Country.1130
Thursday, September 23, 1779. Tonight, the American naval operations in Europe, operating under the auspices of Benjamin Franklin, enjoy a heroic victory. Off Flamborough Head on the east coast of England, a small American vessel, named the Bon Homme Richard (“Poor Richard”) to honor Franklin, overcomes a much larger British vessel, the fifty-gun ship-of-war Serapis, in a fiery encounter. In the midst of the battle, as Bon Homme Richard fills with flames and water, Captain John Paul Jones boldly declares—in words that will live for centuries—“I have not yet begun to fight.”1131
Monday, September 27, 1779. Today, the Continental Congress grants John Adams new diplomatic credentials. The Journals report:
Resolved, That Congress proceed to the election of a minister plenipotentiary for negotiating a treaty of peace and a treaty of commerce with Great Britain.
Congress accordingly proceeded, and the ballots being taken,
Mr. John Adams was elected.1132
Wednesday, September 29, 1779. Today, John Adams receives his commissions from Congress to negotiate treaties with Great Britain:
1. For peace.
The Delegates of the United States,
To all who see these Presents, send Greeting
It being probable that a Negotiation shall soon be commenced for putting an End to the Hostilities … Know Ye, therefore, that We … Have nominated and constituted … John Adams our Minister Plenipotentiary … to confer, treat, agree, and conclude with … his Britannic Majesty … the great Work of Pacification …
Samuel Huntington, President
2. The Commission for making a Treaty of Commerce with Great Britain …
The Delegates of the United States,
To all who see these Presents, send Greeting
It being the desire of the United States that the Peace which may be established between them and his Britannic Majesty may be permanent and accompanied with the mutual Benefits derived from commerce, Know Ye, therefore, that We … have nominated and constituted … John Adams our Minister Plenipotentiary … to sign, and thereupon make a Treaty of Commerce.
Samuel Huntington, President1133
John Adams sees these commissions as a victory over Franklin. John Adams:
The first insinuation of the Propriety, Expediency, and necessity of appointing a Minister Plenipotentiary to reside in Europe ready to negotiate a Peace … was made to Congress a year before this time … [I]t was the Expectation of the French Ministry that Dr. Franklin would be elected. In this respect Congress disappointed them …1134
Thursday, September 30, 1779. France has now liberated Rhode Island! The British have withdrawn their forces to New York as a precaution against the French fleet, under Admiral d’Estaing, which has returned from the West Indies and is reportedly off the coast of Georgia. Today, British Commander in Chief Sir Henry Clinton reports to London:
The Admiral … imagined he had every reason to believe that d’Estaing’s fleet was on the coast of Georgia and to suppose he might probably visit some part of this continent … In these opinions … the fleet assembled in New York …
I was induced by the Admiral’s suggestion to … evacuate Rhode island and to avail myself of the force left inactive there.
[F]resh advices concerning [the French fleet under] d’Estaing arrived … [T]he Admiral … could not spare a ship to protect Rhode Island. Such forcible arguments then appear for quitting [Rhode Island], as the rescuing the garrison, stores etc. from the most unprotected state and the giving full security to the harbour of New York.1135
Friday, October 8, 1779. Today, from Philadelphia, the new French Minister to the U.S., Anne-César de La Luzerne, reports to French Foreign Minister Vergennes that John Adams’ feelings toward Franklin may have prejudiced his view of France:
Nearly two months of living with Mr. Adams have let me get to know him …
[Mr. Adams said] “I have not been able to forget entirely where I was left in the n
omination of M Franklin to be Minister Plenipotentiary to France; No one even deigned to tell me whether to remain in France or return, and I took the latter choice because I refused to debase myself or compel myself to play a meaningless role which I was condemned to do and which appeared undignified for a gentleman.” Furthermore, Mr. Adams did not enjoy watching the attention that Parisians heaped on Mr. Franklin, while hardly anyone recognized him. I could believe that this painful situation, painful for a man whose purpose is public admiration, has caused him some bias against France.1136
Saturday, October 9, 1779. Today, French Admiral Comte d’Estaing who has returned from the West Indies with an enlarged fleet of twenty-two ships of the line and eleven frigates, disembarks a French army of 3,600 for an assault on the British at Savannah, Georgia. Joining a much smaller American army of only six hundred men, under General Benjamin Lincoln, the French carry Savannah’s outposts, plant French and American flags on the ramparts, but are repulsed by British forces, who were forewarned of the attack. One hundred eighty-three French officers and soldiers are killed; 454 French soldiers are wounded. French Admiral d’Estaing himself receives two wounds.
Though the French do not, by today’s attack, liberate Savannah, their appearance off the coast of Georgia arrests the British campaign in the South and causes the British to withdraw their forces from Rhode Island to concentrate them in New York.1137 With winter ahead, d’Estaing will now return his fleet to France.
Thursday, October 28, 1779. Today, in New York, British Commander in Chief Sir Henry Clinton finishes a report to London:
My Lord, I inform your lordship that the troops from Rhode Island arrived here yesterday, the evacuation of the place having been completed …
The troops arrived here in perfect health. I hope from the attention the Admiral gives to procuring information of [French Admiral] D’Estaing’s movements that we shall soon have such accounts as will admit of my employing them to very useful purposes.1138
Today, in Boston, John Adams’ new constitution for the state of Massachusetts goes before the Massachusetts constitutional convention.1139 From John Adams’ draft:
In the government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the legislative, executive, and judicial power shall be placed in separate departments, to the end that it might be a government of laws, and not of men.
CHAPTER II.
THE FRAME OF GOVERNMENT
Section I.
ART. I. THE department of legislation shall be formed by two branches, A SENATE and HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES; each of which shall have a negative [veto] on the other …
And the first magistrate [the governor] shall have a negative [veto] upon all the laws [of the legislature] …
Section II. Senate
I. There shall be … forty persons [in a senate] … to be chosen … by the respective districts … by the proportion of the public taxes paid by the said districts … provided that the number of such districts shall be never more than sixteen …
II. The senate shall be the first branch of the legislature … [E]very male person … having a freehold estate within the commonwealth of three pounds, or other real or personal estate of the value of sixty pounds, shall have a right to give in his vote for the senators …
v… [N]o person shall be capable of being elected as a senator who is not of the Christian religion and seised in his own right of a freehold within this commonwealth of the value of three hundred pounds and who has not been an inhabitant … seven years …
Section III. House of Representatives
i. THERE shall be in the legislature of this commonwealth a representation of the people annually elected and founded in equality.
ii … [E]very corporate town, containing one hundred and fifty ratable polls [voters], may elect one representative …
iii … [N]o person shall be qualified or eligible to be a member of the said house, unless he be of the Christian religion, and for one year … an inhabitant of, and have been seised in his own right of a freehold in the value of one hundred pounds …
iv. Every male person … having a freehold estate … of the annual income of three pounds, or other estate real or personal or mixt of the value of sixty pounds, shall have a right to vote in the choice of a representative …
CHAPTER III. EXECUTIVE POWER.
SECTION I. Governor.
ART. I. THERE shall be a supreme executive magistrate, who shall be styled, THE GOVERNOR …
ART. II. The governor shall be chosen annually; and no person shall be eligible to this office unless … seised in his own right of a freehold … of the value of one thousand pounds; and unless he shall be of the Christian religion.
III. Those persons who shall be qualified to vote for senators and representatives … shall … give in their votes for a governor … 1140
The Massachusetts constitutional convention will adopt, with only minor changes, John Adams’ plan for government. It will submit the constitution to Massachusetts towns with an explanatory text, “ADDRESS OF THE CONVENTION … TO THEIR CONSTITUENTS,” including:
The House of Representatives is intended as the Representative of the Persons, and the Senate [as a Representative] of the property of the Commonwealth … each having a Negative [veto] upon the Acts of [the] other … Your Delegates considered that Persons who … have no Property are either those who live upon a part of a Paternal estate, expecting the fee [title] thereof, who are but just entering into business, or those whose idleness of Life and profligacy of manners will forever bar them from acquiring and possessing Property. And we will submit it to the former class, whether they would not think it safer … than … to have their Privileges liable to the control of Men, who will pay less regard to the Rights of Property because they have nothing to lose.
The Power of Revising, and stating objections to any Bill or Resolve that shall be passed by the two Houses, we were of opinion ought to be lodged in the hands of some one person … We have thought it safest to rest this Power in [the Governor’s] hands …1141
As one historian will observe, “The Senate of Massachusetts was created in order to protect property against democracy.”1142 John Adams:
Is it not … true that Men in general, in every Society, who are wholly destitute of property, are also too little acquainted with public Affairs to form a Right Judgment and too dependent on other Men to have a Will of their own? … Such is the Frailty of the human Heart that very few Men who have no Property have any Judgment of their own.1143
Ben Franklin, Tom Paine, and other supporters of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 will disapprove of John Adams’ new Massachusetts constitution. John Adams:
Paine’s wrath was excited because my plan of government was essentially different from the silly projects that he had published in his Common Sense. By this means I became suspected and unpopular with the leading demagogues and the whole Constitutional Party in Pennsylvania.1144
Tuesday, November 2, 1779. Today, in Philadelphia, the most democratic of all state institutions, the Pennsylvania Assembly, chooses Tom Paine to be its Clerk.1145
Saturday, November 13, 1779. Today, with his new congressional commissions to negotiate peace and commerce with Great Britain and with his draft of the new Massachusetts constitution in hand, John Adams begins his return to France:
On the Thirteenth day of November 1779, I had again the melancholly Tryal of taking Leave of my Family, with the Dangers of the Seas and the Terrors of British Men of War before my Eyes … We went to Boston and embarked on Board the Frigate [Sensible] …1146
Wednesday, December 15, 1779. Today, George Washington writes the Continental Congress:
I beg leave to add that, from a particular consultation of the Commissaries, I find our prospects are infinitely worse than they have been at any period of the War, and that unless some expedient can be instantly adopted, a dissolution of the Army for want of Subsistence is unavoidable. A part of it has been again several days without Bread … [T]his defi
ciency proceed[s] … from the absolute emptiness of our magazines every where and the total want of money or credit to replenish them. I look forward to the consequences with an anxiety not to be described.
The only temporary resource we seem to have left … is this—To solicit a loan of four or five thousand barrels [of gunpowder] out of the quantity provided for the use of the French fleet and army … I know the measure recommended is a disagreeable one, but motives of delicacy must often yield to those of necessity.1147
George Washington hasn’t fought a battle in a year and a half!
Wednesday, January 5, 1780. Today, from the army’s headquarters which he has reestablished at Morristown, New Jersey, George Washington writes the Continental Congress:
Many of the [men] have been four or five days without meat entirely and short of bread, and none but on very scanty supplies. Some for their preservation have been compelled to maraud and rob from the Inhabitants, and I have it not in my power to punish or to repress the practice. If our condition should not undergo a very speedy and considerable change for the better, it will be difficult to point out all the consequences that may ensue.1148
Wednesday, February 9, 1780. Today, John Adams arrives in Paris with his new commissions to negotiate peace and commerce treaties with Britain.1149 John Adams:
In 1780, when I arrived [back] in France, I carried a printed copy of the report of the Grand Committee of the Massachusetts Convention, which I had drawn up; and this became an object of speculation. Mr. Turgot, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, and Mr. Condorcet, and others admired Mr. Franklin’s Constitution and reprobated mine.1150
Thursday, February 10, 1780. Today, John Adams visits the French court at Versailles. John Adams:
I never heard the French Ministry so frank, explicit, and decided … in their declarations to pursue the War with vigour and afford effectual Aid to the United States. I learned with great Satisfaction that they are sending, under Convoy, Cloathing and Arms for fifteen thousand Men to America; that seventeen Ships of the Line are already gone … and that five or six more at least are to follow in Addition to ten or twelve they have already there.1151