11From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 15 April 1818 (Adams Papers)
I HAVE received your obliging favour of the 8th, but cannot consent to your resolution to ask no more questions. Your questions revive my sluggish memory. Since our national legislature have established a national painter—a wise measure, for which I thank them, my imagination runs upon the art, and has already painted, I know not how many, historical pictures. I have sent you one, give me...
12From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 15 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
Do not expect to escape so, I have a hundred if not a thousand letters to write you. which however I shall never write, upon the restoration of the tories to this Country, and their subsequent Conduct towards me—of that host of Vagabond Foreigners who have tormented and deceived this Simple American people for four and forty years—for the secret Correspondences’s and Corruption—Civil political...
13From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 18 September 1818 (Adams Papers)
The English doctrine of Allegiance, is so mysterious, fabulous, & enigmatical, that it is difficult to decompose the Elements Of which it is compounded. The Priests under the Hebrew Economy, especially the Sovereign Pontiff were anointed with consecrated Oil, which was poured upon their heads in such profusion, that it ran down their beards, & they were thence called “The Lords Anointed” When...
14From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 23 September 1818 (Adams Papers)
If, in our Search of Principles We have not been able to investigate any moral phylosophical or rational foundation for any Claim of Dominion or Property in America, in the English Nation, their Parliament or even of their King; if the whole appears a mere Usurpation of Fution Fancy and Superstition: What was the Right to dominion or Property in the native Indians? Shall We Say that a few...
15From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 23 April 1818 (Adams Papers)
I have Seldom read so much good sense, in so few Words as in your Letter of the 5th. Your Judgment of Mr Wirts Biography of My Friend Mr Henry, is in exact Unison with my own. I have read it with more delight than Scotts Romances in Verse and Prose or Miss Porters Scottish Chiefs and other Novels. I am sorry you have introduced me. I could wish my own Name forgotten, if I could devellope, the...
16From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 12 May 1818 (Adams Papers)
In my Letters to you, I regard no order. And I think, I ought to make you laugh Sometimes: otherwise my Letters would be too grave, if not too melancholly. To this End I Send you Jemmibellero “the Song of the Drunkard” which was published in Fleets “Boston Evening Post” on the 13th. of May 1765. It was universally agreed to have been written by Samuel Waterhouse, who had been the most...
17From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 24 June 1817 (Adams Papers)
As we have amused ourselves with looking at a few pictures, suppose we should add one more to the Gallery. The Artist makes the scene of his action that spacious Apartment that we very properly denominated Fanuel Hall. The Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Judges, the Counsellors, the Representatives, the President and Professors & Students of the University; the Docters of Law, Physic, &...
18From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 9 July 1818 (Adams Papers)
In the Search for Something, in the History and Statutes of England, in any degree resembling this Monstrum horrondum ingens the Writt of Assistance, the following Examples were found. In the Statute of the first Year of King James the Second Chapter third “An Act for granting to his Majesty an imposition upon all Wines and Vinegar &c ” ; Section 8, it is enacted “That the Officers of his...
19From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 25 February 1818 (Adams Papers)
As Mr Wirt has filled my head with James Otis; and as I am well informed that The Honourable Mr Benjamin Austin alias Honestus alias Old South alias Old North alias Politicastor roundly asserts that Mr “Otis had no Patriotism”; and that “he acted only from Revenge of his Fathers disapointment of a Seat on the Superior Bench” I will tell you a Story which may make you laugh, if it should not...
20From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 21 August 1818 (Adams Papers)
Mr Otis quoted another Author “The political and Commercial Works of Charles D’Avenant, L.L.D. Vol 2. Discourse 3. On the Plantation Trade.” I cannot transcribe Seventy Six Pages, but wish that Americans of all Classes would read them: They are in the Same Strain with Downing; Childs, Gee, Ashley, Charles 2. James 2, William and Mary William The Third Ann, George The Second and George The...