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The Favour you granted me on aug. 12 was unluckily packeted with a number of Letters and carried to Leicester, but a certain kind Gentleman has just brought it to hand. I will not lessen the pleasure it gave by a Description. But one detestable quality that usually attends your Letters, I find has stain’d it. I think Phylosophers call it, brevity. But, on second reflection I am not surpriz’d....
I promised to write you an account of the scituation of my mind. The natural strength of my facultys is quite insufficient for the task. Attend therefore to the invocation. Oh! thou goddess, Muse, or Whatever is thy name who inspired immortal Miltons pen with a confusion ten thousand times confounded, when describing Satan’s Voyage thro’ Chaos, help me in the same cragged strains, to sing...
All that part of Creation that lies within our observation is liable to Change. Even mighty States and kingdoms, are not exempted. If we look into History we shall find some nations rising from contemp­ tible beginnings, and spreading their influence, ’till the whole Globe is subjected to their sway. When they have reach’d the summit of Grandeur, some minute and unsuspected Cause commonly...
Harvard College(?) and Worcester, mainly compiled in 1755–1756 , with some possibly earlier entries and one (not in JA ’s hand) much later. This is a MS book ( Adams Papers , M/JA/8; Microfilms , Reel No. 187), measuring 8″ x 6″, bound in vellum and containing 182 (unnumbered) pages, including occasional blank leaves or pages and a folded sheet of four pages laid in loose at the back that may...
I receiv’d your favour of Decr. 29. about 3 or 4 Days after it was wrote. The bearer left it at the Tavern and proceeded on his journey, so that I despair’d of ever getting an opportunity of answering it, till this moment. I heartily sympathize with you in your affliction, which I am the better qualified to do as I am confined myself to a like place of Torment. When I compare The gay, the...
I had the Pleasure, a few Days since, of receiving your favour of February 4th. I am obliged to you for your advice, and for the manly and rational Reflections with which you inforced it. I think I have deliberately weighed the subject and had almost determined as you advise. Upon the Stage of Life, we have each of us a part, a laborious and difficult Part, to Act, but we are all capable of...
I am set down with a Design of writing to you.—But the narrow Sphere I move in, and the lonely unsociable Life I lead, can furnish a Letter with little more than Complaints of my hard fortune. I am condemnd to keep School two Years longer. This I sometimes consider as a very grievous Calamity and almost sink under the Weight of Woe.—But shall I dare to complain and to murmur against Providence...
I brought a few Ideas with me when I first came to this Town, that grew in the luxurious soil of Cambridge. These I have dispersd among my Friends, and you have had your share. Be contented, therefore, now with such as grow at Worcester. It is a political Climate and the soil produces state Reflections as rank as hogweeds in a Garden. After the melancholly Accounts from the Mediterranean and...
In my last you remember I desired your sincere Opinion of the new Resolution I had taken, but as you have not yet been so kind as to send it, I must beg your patience while I tell you my sincere opinion of it. The Law, I take to be a very difficult and a very extensive Science and to acquire any considerable degree of knowledge in the Theory and of skill in the Practice, a serene head, a large...
I look upon myself obliged to give you the reasons that induced me to resolve upon the study and profession of the law, because you were so kind as to advise me to a different profession. When yours came to hand I had thoughts of preaching, but the longer I lived, and the more experience I had of that order of men, and of the real design of their institution, the more objections I found in my...
Tho’ I acknowledge that one ought never to be asham’d to speak the truth; yet I find my self much inclin’d to it, when I’m about to tell you that I have two of your very kind and ingenious Letters by me unanswer’d. I assure you sir, that my neglect arises not from any want of esteem for my Friend, but (to tell another ungratefull truth) from downright dullness; I must wait with patience for...
Te Deum &c., I have resigned my school, I have almost recovered my Health, I have received a letter from my Friend, and am scarce able to say it is the kindest Smile of Heaven. But dear Jack I will tell you the Truth for once which our Tribe you know is not very apt to do—when I first read your Letter I resolved very nearly to drop the correspondence. My Vanity could not bear to be feasted...
Braintree, October? 1758. Printed: JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p. 91 , with identifying note on the recipient at p. 92 . Printed : ( JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p. 91 ).
Braintree, October? 1758. Printed: JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p. 65–66 . Printed : ( JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p. 65–66 .)
I resume with Pleasure my long neglected Pen upon this opportunity by Mr. Belcher to inform you that I am still alive, and well; that I am removed from Worcester to Braintree where I expect to live and die; and altho’ I have for a long time neglected to write you, I have never forgot to think frequently of you and to wish you all the Happiness that you deserve; no small Quantity truly! The...
Braintree, October? 1758. Printed: JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p. 64–65 . It is difficult to believe that this draft or retained copy was copied off and sent to Wentworth, because its first paragraph announces the same momentous personal news announced in the opening paragraph of the letter preceding, which is known...
Braintree, October–November? 1758. Printed: JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p. 99 . Printed ( JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p. 99 ).
Braintree, October–November? 1758. Printed: JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p. 66–67 Printed : ( JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p. 66–67 ).
Braintree October–December? 1758. Printed: JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p. 70–72 Printed : ( JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p. 70–72 ).
Braintree October–December? 1758. Printed: JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p. 69–70 , from a draft, with the principal variations from text of RC ( Adams Papers ) recorded in notes. Printed ( JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p.
Braintree, 5 December 1758?, 12 March 1761. Printed: JA, Diary and Autobiography Diary and Autobiography of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. , 1: 61–62 , 201–202 . Printed : ( JA, Diary and Autobiography Diary and Autobiography of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. , 1: 61–62 ,
Braintree, post 17 May 1759. Printed: JA, Diary and Autobiography Diary and Autobiography of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. , 1:113 , from a draft of a letter perhaps not sent. On Col. Josiah Quincy (1710–1784) and JA ’s early relations with him, see JA, Diary and Autobiography Diary and Autobiography of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others,...
Braintree, July? 1759. Printed: JA, Diary and Autobiography Diary and Autobiography of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. , 1:109 . Printed : ( JA, Diary and Autobiography Diary and Autobiography of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. , 1:109 ).
My Absence from home for this Week past has occasioned my delaying an Answer to your very agreable Favor of the 14th. Instant. It gives me the most sensible Pleasure to find in my Friend so becoming a Resolution to persevere in the sublime Study of the Law, maugre all the Difficultys and perplexing Intricacies with which it seems embarrassed. I call it a sublime Study; and what more sublime!...
Braintree, October 1759. Printed: JA, Diary and Autobiography Diary and Autobiography of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. , 1:123–124 . Printed : ( JA, Diary and Autobiography Diary and Autobiography of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. , 1:123–124 ).
I was too much gratified with the Proposal you made me of writing to you, to neglect it long. For as Nature and Fortune have conspired to strip me of all other means of Pleasure I cannot think it either Vanity or Virtue to acknowledge, that the Acquisition and Communication of Knowledge, are the sole Entertainment of my Life. I should therefore be inattentive to my object, and stupidly forget...
In the Name of God Amen. The Eighth day of January in the year of our Lord one Thousand Seven hundred and Sixty, and in the thirty third year of his Majestys Reign King George the Second &c. I John Adams of Braintree in the County of Suffolk in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England Gentleman, being in Health of Body and of Perfect mind and Memory thanks be given to God therefor....
I am lately come from divine Service, if I may be allowed the Expression, performd by the Revd. Mr. Cushing, whom you’re not unaquainted with. He has fill’d my head brimfull, of Portions of Sentences, concerning the spirituall and natural man. If what Mr. Locke says be true, that an intent fixedness on any particular object, will cause an alienation of the rational Faculties, I am under no...
In my last, if I rightly remember, I joined with you in your panegyric on the superior Rewards which ancient Rome proposed to Application and Study, and in your Satyre on those despicable praemia, which we, whose Lot it is to live in the infant State of a new World, can rationally expect. But perhaps we have both been too hasty in our Conclusions; possibly, if we peirce through the Glare of...
I am very willing to join with you, in renouncing the Reasoning of some of our last Letters. There is but Little Pleasure, which Reason can approve to be received from the Noisy applause, and servile Homage that is paid to any Officer from the Lictor to the Dictator, or from the sexton of a Parish to the sovereign of a Kingdom: And Reason will despize equally, a blind undistinguishing...