51From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 18 December 1787 (Adams Papers)
Last night I received your Letter of the 12. M r Jarvis and Commodore Jones are arrived here from New york both charged with large Dispatches for you. M r Jarvis sent his Packet on by Col. Trumbul who departed from hence for Paris last Thursday. Com r Jones went off a day or two ago. but both will arrive to you before this Letter. The Papers they carry, with a Renovation of your Commission at...
52From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 25 December 1787 (Adams Papers)
By the last Post I answered your Letter of the 12, and Yesterday received yours of the 16.— Com. Jones has before now delivered you dispatches that will Serve no doubt for your direction. M r Van staphorst, will have no Objection to an handsome Commission, for paying off, the Debt M r Fizeaux mentions: and M r Fizeau, will be glad to have it paid off, that the Money Lenders not knowing what to...
53From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 12 February 1788 (Adams Papers)
I have received your Letter of the 6 th. and had before received the Same Information from Amsterdam. I know not how to express to you, the Sense I have of the disingenuity of this Plott.— The Difficulty of Selling the Obligations I believe to be mere Pretence. and indeed the whole appears to me to be a concerted Fiction, in consequence of some Contrivance or suggestion of M r Parker, the...
54From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 2 January 1789 (Adams Papers)
Give me leave to introduce to you John Coffin Jones Esq r , an eminent Merchant of Boston and a late Member of the Legislature from that Town. His Character both in public and private Life is much respected, and his Intelligence will enable him to give you a much better Account of the general and particular Politicks of this Country than I can. our Fellow Citizens are in the midst of their...
55From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 1 March 1789 (Adams Papers)
The inclosed Letter from The Hon. Stephen Higginson Esq r , is upon a Subject of so much Importance, and contains so much Information that I cannot withold it from you. The little Jealousy, Envy or Caprice, that shall deprive our Merchants of the Benefit of Trading to the Isles of France & Bourbon, will only compell them to seek the Ultimate Marketts upon the Continent, directly. In four days,...
56From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 29 July 1791 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday, at Boston, I received your friendly Letter of July 17th. with great pleasure. I give full credit to your relation of the manner, in which your note was written and prefixed to the Philadelphia edition of Mr Paines pamphlet on the rights of Man: but the misconduct of the person, who committed this breach of your confidence, by making it publick, whatever were his intentions, has sown...
57From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 4 April 1794 (Adams Papers)
The inclosed Volume was lately sent in to me by a Servant—I have Since heard that the Author of it is in New York. The Book exhibits a curious Picture of the Government of Berne and is well worth reading. I congratulate you on the charming opening of the Spring and heartily wish I was enjoying of it as you are upon a Plantation, out of the hearing of the Din of Politicks and the Rumours of...
58From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 11 May 1794 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 25th of last month, came to my hands Yesterday and I am glad to find you so well pleased with your Retirement.—I felt the same delightful satisfaction after my Return from Europe, and I feel still every summer upon my little farm all the Ardour, and more than all the Ardor of youth: to such a Degree that I cannot bear the thought of writing or reading, unless it be some...
59From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 21 November 1794 (Adams Papers)
I am desired by our old Acquaintance Mr D’Ivernois to transmit you the inclosed Papers for your inspection Opinion and Advice. The poor Fellow has been obliged to fly a Second time into Banishment. The first time, he was driven out as a Democrat: but it is now, Day about, as they Say, in Geneva, and he is compelled to run, as an Aristocrat. Shall We print his History? What Shall We do with his...
60From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 5 February 1795 (Adams Papers)
The inclosed Pamphlet and Papers I have received this Week from the Author, with his request to transmit them to you. I have before transmitted in the Course of this Winter, another Packet from the same Writer; but have as yet no answer from you: so that I am uncertain whether you have recd. it. Mr Jays Treaty with Britain is not yet arrived at the Secretary of States Office, though there is...
61From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 31 January 1796 (Adams Papers)
I have received from our old Acquaintance D’Ivernois the inclosed volume for you in the course of the last Week. I consider all Reasoning upon French affairs of little moment. The Fates must determine hereafter as they have done heretofore. Reasoning has been all lost—Passion, Prejudice, Interest, Necessity has governed and will govern; and a Century must roll away before any permanent and...
62From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 6 April 1796 (Adams Papers)
Since my Receipt of your favour of the 28 of February I have call’d on the Auditor and had some Conversation with him and with The Secretary of The Treasury and with The Secretary of State upon the Subject of Accounts and they think that some Regulation may be made by Congress which will reach the Cases without any formal Memorial on our Part and indeed without mentioning Names. The Secretary...
63From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 20 February 1801 (Adams Papers)
In order to save you the trouble and expence of purchasing horses & carriages, which will not be necessary, I have to inform you that I shall leave in the stables of the United States seven horses and two carriages with harness the property of the United States. These may not be suitable for you, but they will certainly save you a considerable expence as they belong to the studd of the...
64From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 24 March 1801 (Adams Papers)
I have recd your favour of March 8 with the Letter inclosed, for which I thank you. Inclosed is a Letter to one of your Domesticks Joseph Dougherty. Had you read the Papers inclosed they might have given you a moment of Melancholly or at least of Sympathy with a mourning Father. They relate wholly to the Funeral of a son who was once the delight of my Eyes and a darling of my heart, cutt off...
65From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 1 January 1812 (Adams Papers)
As you are a Friend to American Manufactures under proper restrictions, especially Manufactures of the domestic kind, I take the Liberty of Sending you by the Post a Packett containing two Pieces of Homespun lately produced in this quarter by One who was honoured in his youth with Some of your Attention and much of your kindness. All of my Family whom you formerly knew are well. My Daughter...
66From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 3 February 1812 (Adams Papers)
Sitting at My Fireside, with my Daughter Smith, on the first of February My Servant brought me a Bundle of Letters and Newspapers from the Post office in this Town: one of the first Letters that Struck my Eye, had the Post Mark of Milton 23. Jany. 1812. Milton is the next Town to Quincy and the Post office in it is but three Miles from my House. How could the Letter be so long in coming three...
67From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 10 February 1812 (Adams Papers)
I have received with great pleasure your favour of the 23 of January. I suspected that the Sample was left at the Post Office and that you would soon have it. I regret the Shabby Condition in which you found it: but it was the only Copy I had, and I thought it Scarcely worth while to wait till I could get a Sett properly bound. The Dissertation on the State of real homespun was a feast to me,...
68From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 1 May 1812 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday, I received from the Post Office, under an envellope inscribed with your hand, but without any letter, a very learned and ingenious Pamphlet, prepared by you for the Use of your Counsel, in the case of Edward Livingston against you: Mr Ingersol of Philadelphia, two or three Years ago Sent me two large Pamphlets upon the same Subject. Neddy is a naughty lad as well as a saucy one. I...
69From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 3 May 1812 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you on the first of this month acknowledging the receipt of your “Proceedings” &c and now repeat my thanks for it. It is as masterly a pamphlet as ever I have read; and every way worthy of the Mind that composed and the pen which commited it to writing. There is witt and fancy and delicate touches of Satyr enough in it to make it entertaining while the profusion of learning the close...
70From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 21 May 1812 (Adams Papers)
Samuel B. Malcom Esqr, is not wholly a Stranger to you. He was three years in my family in the Character of my private Secretary, and I believe his conduct appeared to you, as it invariably did to me ingenuous, candid faithful and industrious. His Friends in New York were among the most respectable; his Education was public and his Studies and in the Law and introduction to the Bar regular...
71From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 28 June 1812 (Adams Papers)
I know not what, unless it were the Prophet of Tippacanoe had turned my Curiosity to inquiries after the metaphisical Science of the Indians, their ecclesiastical Establishments and theological Theories: but your Letter, written with all the Accuracy perspicuity and Elegance of your Youth and middle Age, as it has given me great Satisfaction, deserves my best Thanks. It has given me...
72From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 12 October 1812 (Adams Papers)
I have a Curiosity to learn Something of the Character Life and death of a Gentleman, whose name was Wollaston, who came from England with a Company of a few dozens of Persons in the Year 1622, took possession of an height on Massachusetts Bay built houses there for his People, and after looking about him and not finding the face of Nature Smiling enough for him, went to Virginia to seek a...
73From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 26 January 1813 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your rich present of Dec. 28th. The Pettifogger of Furnivals Inn, or of Cliffords Inn, scarcely deserves the pains you have taken to enquire into his Biography. My Curiosity is selfish, personal and local. The Character of the Miscreant, however, is not wholly contemptible. It marks the Complextion of the Age in which he lived. How many Such Characters could you, and I...
74From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 2 February 1813 (Adams Papers)
I will not wait for regular answers to my Letters, while I am engaged in this important occupation of giving you Some Account of Tom Moretons New Canaan; which is infinitely more entertaining and instructive to me, than our Friend Condorcets “ New Heaven ” was almost 30 years ago, or than Swedenborgs “ New Jerusalem ” is now. In his third Chapter is a curious History. Before the English came...
75From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 29 May 1813 (Adams Papers)
To leave the Pettifogger of Funivals Inn, or Cliffords Inn, his Archbishop Laud, and his Chevalier of St. Iago of Compostella Sir Christopher Gardiner, for the present; Paulo Multo majora canamus. There has been put into my hands, within a few days a gross Volume in octavo, of 544 Pages with the Title of “Memoirs of the late reverend Theophilus Lindsey. M. A.” including a brief “Analysis of...
76From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 10 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
In your Letter to Dr Priestley of March 21. 1801, You ask “What an Effort, of Bigotry in politics and religion have We gone through! The barbarians really flattered themselves, they should be able to bring back the times of Vandalism, when ignorance put everything into the hands of power and priestcraft. All Advances in Science were proscribed as innovations; they pretended to praise and...
77From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 11 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
I recd. yesterday your favour of May 27th. I lament with you the loss of Rush. I know of no Character living or dead who has done more real good in America. Robert Treat Paine still lives, at 83 or 84, alert drol and witty though deaf. Floyd I believe, yet remains. Paine must be very great; Philosopher and Christian; to live under the Afflictions of his Family. Sons and Daughters with Genius...
78From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 14 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
In your Letter to Dr. Priestley of March 21. 1801, you “tender him, the protection of those laws which were made for the wise and good, like him; and disclaim the legitimacy of that Libel on legislation, which, under the form of a Law, was for Sometime placed among them.” This Law, I presume was, the Alien Law, as it was called. As your name is Subscribed to that law, as Vice President, and...
79From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 25 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 15th came to me Yesterday, and it is a pleasure to discover that We are only 9 days apart. Be not Surprised or alarmed. Lindsays Memoirs will do no harm to you or me. You have right and reason to feel and to resent the breach of Confidence. I have had enough of the same kind of Treachery and Perfidy practiced upon me, to know how to Sympathize with you. I will agree with...
80From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 28 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
It is very true that “the denunciations of the Priesthood are fulminated against every Advocate for a compleat Freedom of Religion. Comminations, I believe, would be plenteously pronounced by even the most liberal of them, against Atheism, Deism.” against every Man who disbelieved or doubted the Resurrection of Jesus or the Miracles of the New Testament. Priestley himself would denounce the...
81From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 30 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
Before I proceed to the order of the day, which is the terrorism of a former day: I beg leave to correct an Idea that Some readers may infer from an expression in one of your Letters. No Sentiment or expression in any of my Answers to Addresses were obtruded or insinuated by any Person about me. Every one of them was written with my own hand. I alone am responsible for all the Mistakes and...
82From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 5 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
Correspondences! The Letters of Bernard and Hutchinson, and Oliver and Paxton &c were detected and exposed before The Revolution. There are I doubt not, thousands of Letters now in being, but Still concealed, (from their Party to their Friends, which will, one day See the light. I have wondered for more than thirty Years that So few have appeared: and have constantly expected that a Tory...
83From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 9 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
Lord! Lord! What can I do, with so much Greek? When I was of your Age, young Man, i.e. 7 or 8 or 9 years ago I felt, a kind of pang of Affection, for one of the flames of my youth, and again paid my Addresses to Isocrates and Dionissius Hallicarnassensis &c &c &c I collected all my Lexicons and Grammers and Sat down to περι ενθεςεως ονοματων &c. In this Way I amused myself for sometime: but I...
84From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 12 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
I forgot in my last to remark, a very trifling Inaccuracy in yours of June 27th. The Letter intercepted in Hichbournes Trunk which was reported to glance at Mr Dickenson, was not in 1776. It was in the month of June 1775. Had it been June 1776, the English would not have printed it. The Nation had then too maturely reflected, on the necessity of Independence, and was too ripe and too hot for a...
85From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 13 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
Let me allude, to one circumstance more, in one of your Letters to me, before I touch upon the Subject of Religion in your Letters to Priestley. The first time, that you and I differed in Opinion on any material Question; was after your Arrival from Europe; and that point was the french Revolution. You was well persuaded in your own mind that the Nation would Succeed in establishing a free...
86From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 16 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
Your Letters to Priestley, have encreased my Grief if that were possible, for the loss of Rush. Had he lived, I would have Stimulated him to insist on your promise to him to write him on the Subject of Religion. Your Plan, I admire. In your Letter to Priestley of March 21. 1801, dated at Washington you call “The Christian Philosophy, the most Sublime and benevolent, but the most perverted...
87From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 18 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
I have more to Say, on Religion. For more than Sixty Years I have been attentive to this great Subject. Controversies, between Calvinists and Arminians, Trinitarians and Unitarians, Deists and Christians, Atheists and both, have attracted my Attention, whenever the Singular Life, I have lead would admit, to all these questions. The History of this little Village of Quincy, if it were worth...
88From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 22 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
Dr Priestley, in a letter to Mr Lindsey Northumberland Nov. 4. 1803 Says “As you were pleased with my comparison of Socrates and Jesus, I have begun to carry the same comparison to all the heathen Moralists, and I have all the books that I want for the purpose, except Simplicius and Arrian on Epictetus, and them I hope to get from a Library in Philadelphia: lest however I should fail there, I...
89From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 9 August 1813 (Adams Papers)
I believe I told you in my last, that I had given you all in Lindseys Memoirs, that interested you. But I was mistaken. In Priestleys Letter to Lindsey Decr. 19. 1803, I find this Paragraph “With the Work I am now composing I go on much faster and better than I expected; so that in two or three months, if my health continue as it now is, I hope to have it ready for the Press; though I Shall...
90From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 16 August 1813 (Adams Papers)
Κριοùς μὲν ὄνοuς διζήμεθα, Κúρνε, καὶ ἵππους εὐγενέας· καί τις βούλεται ἐξ ἀγαθῶν κτήσασθαι. γῆμαι δὲ κακὴν κακοũ οὐ μελεδαίνει ἐςθλὸς ἀνὴρ, ἤν οἱ χρήματα πολλὰ διδῶ. Behold my translation “My Friend Curnis, When We want to purchace, Horses, Asses or Rams, we inquire for the Wellborn. And every one wishes to procure, from the good Breeds. A good Man, does not care to marry a Shrew, the...
91From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 2 September 1813 (Adams Papers)
Οὐδὲ γυνὴ κακοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἀναίνεται εἶναι ἄκοιτις πλουσίου· ἀλλ’ ἀφνεὸν βούλεται ἀντ’ ἀγαθοῦ. Χρήματὰ γὰρ τιμῶσι, καὶ ἐκ κακοῦ ἐσθλὸς ἔγημε, καὶ κακὸς ἐξ ἀγαθοῦ. πλοῦτος ἔμιξε γένος. Grotius renders this into latin, thus. Nec dedignatur ditemque malumque maritum femina: divitiæ præ probitate placent. In pretio pretium est: genus et prænobile, vili, obscurum claro, miscet avaritia. I Should render...
92From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 14 September 1813 (Adams Papers)
I owe you a thousand thanks for your favour of Aug. 22 and its Enclosures, and for Dr Priestley’s “Doctrines of heathen Philosophy compared with those of Revelation.” Your Letter to Dr Rush, and the Sillabus, I return inclosed with this, according to your Injunction; though with great reluctance. May I beg a copy of both? They will do you no harm: me and others much good. I hope you will...
93From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 15 September 1813 (Adams Papers)
My last Sheet, would not admit an Observation that was material to my design. Dr Price was “inclined to think” that infinite Wisdom and Goodness, could not permit infinite Power, to be inactive, from Eternity: but that, an infinite and eternal Universe, must have necessarily flowed from these Attributes. Plato’s System was “ Αγαθος ” was eternal, Self existent &c. His Ideas, his Word, his...
94From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 22 September 1813 (Adams Papers)
Considering all things, I admire Dr Priestleys last Effort for which I am entirely indebted to you. But as I think it is extremely imperfect, I beg of you to pursue the investigation according to your promise to Dr Rush, and according to your Syllabus. It may be presumptuous in me to denominate any Thing of Dr Priestley imperfect: but I must avow, that among all the vast Exertions of his...
95From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, September 1813 (Adams Papers)
σὲ γὰρ πάντεσσι θέμις θνητοῖσι προσαυδᾶn. “It is not only permitted but enjoined upon all Mortals to address you.” Why should not our Divines translate it “It is our duty and our priviledge to address the Throne of thy grace and pray for all needed lawfull Blessings temporal and Spiritual,”. Θεμις was the Goddess of honesty, Justice, Decency, and right; the Wife of Jove, another name for Juno....
96From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 12 November 1813 (Adams Papers)
As I owe you more for your Letters of Oct. 12. and 28 than I Shall be able to pay. I Shall begin with the P.S. to the last. I am very Sorry to Say, that I cannot assist your memory “in the Enquiries of your letter of August 22d.” I really know not who was the compositor of any one of the Petitions or Addresses you enumerate. Nay farther I am certain I never did know. I was So Shallow a...
97From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 14 November 1813 (Adams Papers)
Accept my thanks for the comprehensive Syllabus, in your favour of Oct. 12. The Psalms of David, in Sublimity beauty, pathos and Originality, or in one Word, in poetry, are Superiour to all the Odes Hymns and Songs in any language. But I had rather read them in our prose translation, than in any version I have Seen. His Morality however, often Shocks me, like Tristram Shandy’s execrations....
98From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 15 November 1813 (Adams Papers)
I cannot appease my melancholly commiseration for our Armies in this furious Snow Storm, in any way So well as by Studying your Letter of Oct. 28. We are now explicitly agreed, in one important point, vizt That “there is a natural Aristocracy among men; the grounds of which are Virtue and Talents.” You very justly indulge a little merriment upon this Solemn Subject of Aristocracy. I often...
99From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 3 December 1813 (Adams Papers)
The Proverbs of the old greek Poets, are as Short and pithy as any of Solomon or Franklin. Hesiod has several. His Αθανατους μεν πρωτα θεους νομω, ως δiακεitai Τiμα . Honour the Gods established by Law. I know not how We can escape Martyrdom, without a discreet Attention to this præcept. You have Suffered, and I have Suffered more than you, for want of a strict if not a due observance of this...
100From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 19 December 1813 (Adams Papers)
Ridento dicere Verum, quid vetat. I must make you and myself merry or melancholly, by a little more Phylosophical Speculation about the formidable Subject of Aristocracy. Not long after General Dearborns return to Boston from the Army, a violent Alarm was excited and Spread in Boston and through the country, by a report at first only Secretly whispered in private circles that an Affair of Love...