"...his Genius & Eloquence" — John Adams
AM | @agumack
In 1996, in vol. 12 of The Papers of John Adams (*), editor Gregg Lint published for the first time a series of four letters to Le politique hollandais on Raynal's Révolution de l'Amérique. There's lots of information to read here — it will take a couple of posts to present it. The first thing to note is that John Adams was "encouraged by the abbé himself". This fits well with the evidence according to which key individuals such as Franklin, Adams, Campomanes and Miranda were encouraged to provide information for subsequent editions of Histoire des deux Indes. This is precisely why Raynal's biographer Gilles Bancarel has dubbed HDI a "Wikipedia avant l'heure" [see].
The first letter is very short (2 paragraphs). It merely introduces the theme. Already, Adams detects the powerful combination of reason and pathétique:
... a Writer, so distinguished by his Genius & Eloquence as the abby Raynal, in a work embellished with ornaments to captivate every Man of Taste and Letters, and enriched with such a Variety of usefull knowledge, to secure its Immortality, ought to be corrected in Season, lest they should be found to injure the great Cause of Truth Liberty and Humanity, to which this Writer has devoted his Life and Labour.
(*) Gregg L. Lint (ed.) The Papers of John Adams. Harvard University Press, 1996, Vol. 12, pp. 204-205.
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