John Adams to Thomas, Jr Crafts, May 25, 1790

New York 25 th [ May ] 1790

Dear Sir

I have received with a mixture of pleasure and gloomy melancholy
your favour of the 17 th. What motives the eastern members
can have to support the silly petition of Franklin and his Quakers, I never could
conceive: but it was not that conduct which sowered the minds of the Southern members
against an assumption of the State debts. The seat of government is more likely to have
had such an effect on some minds. 1 What
is the reason that bills should be ten or twelve per Ct below par here, and only five at
Boston The demand from Europe for grain would not alone have produced so great and
sudden a change in the price of bills. The sudden rise of stock which was certainly
occasioned by the new government contributed a great share to this symptom of
prosperity. If no measures would ever be carried in the State
Legislature to encourage the fisheries I leave you to Judge whether it is probable that
bounties can be obtained from the general government.

Ships before the revolution were built upon British capitals. There
are no capitals in Boston I fear but such as consist in credits to the nation or the
State or employed in speculations in the Stocks. The carrying trade is the only resource
for shipbuilding. The English are in possession of this. They not only have ships ready;
but they own the crops for the most part. To dispossess the English from this business
requires a system of measures and a course of time and our people are so fickle and
unsteady, that it is doubtfull whether they would bear with patience the trial of a fair
experiment The Massachusetts a few years ago, made a navigation act, which if it had
been preserved to this day would in my opinion have found full employment for her
shipwrights: but M r Sullivan and Parson Thatcher, I heard in
London became declaimers if not preachers against it and it was repealed. 2 If Congress should make a similar law, it will
be opposed by powerful interests, who will continually grumble against it and there is
neither vigour nor constancy enough in the government, I am afraid, to persevere. That
Congress will take some measures to bring into circulation the monies locked up, I
cannot doubt. This must be done— I am assured that considerable sums of money are
ordered to America from Europe, so that I hope we shall not have so great a scarcity of
money long. The State debts, I fear will not be assumed this session.

Without a national government and steady measures we shall never be
prosperous, and there is too powerful a party in Massachusetts against both. I hope we
shall see better times, but my hopes are not sanguine

Yours &c

J A