Adams Papers

Benjamin Rush to John Brown Cutting, 18 May 1787

Benjamin Rush to John Brown Cutting

Philadelphia may 18th 1787.1

Dr Rush returns his thanks to Mr: Cutting for the elegant & agreeable manner in which he conveyed Mr Adams’s acceptable treatise on Goverment to him. The Dr begs Mr Cutting would inform Mr: Adams that his work has been received & read with universal Satisfaction, & that a new edition of it is now in the press in Boston—new York & Philadelphia.—

The principles & facts contained in this excellent publication have already had an influence in our Country, & from thier arriving at the time of the setting of our fæderal convention, it is expected they will be very useful in establishing such a fæderal Goverment as Mr Adams has proved to be most safe—most free, and most durable in all countries.

Dr Rush conveyed Mr Cuttings Compliments to the family at morven, who are all in good health. Mr Richard Stockton is in extensive business, & bids fair to be at the head of his profession in new Jersey.2

Tr in John B. Cutting’s hand (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Mr Cutting. / Mr Coxe.”; notation by CFA: “1787.”

1In his letter to JA of the same day (Adams Papers), Cutting enclosed Rush’s letter, adding that he would send Tench Coxe’s new work, An Enquiry into the Principles on Which a Commercial System for the United States of America Should be Founded, Phila., 1787, Evans, description begins Charles Evans and others, American Bibliography: A Chronological Dictionary of All Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Publications Printed in the United States of America [1639–1800], Chicago and Worcester, 1903–1959; 14 vols.; rev. edn., www.readex.com. description ends No. 20306.

2Morven, in Princeton, N.J., was the family estate of Richard Stockton (1730–1781), Princeton 1748, who was a prominent lawyer and Rush’s father-in-law. Stockton’s son, Richard (1764–1828), Princeton 1779, was a New Jersey lawyer who had served as a justice in the Somerset County Court of Common Pleas since 1785 (AFC description begins Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Richard Alan Ryerson, Margaret A. Hogan, Sara Martin, and others, Cambridge, 1963– . description ends , 2:60; Princetonians description begins James McLachlan, Richard A. Harrison, Ruth L. Woodward, Wesley Frank Craven, and J. Jefferson Looney, Princetonians: A Biographical Dictionary, Princeton, N.J., 1976–1991; 5 vols. description ends , 1:7–11, 3:277–284).

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