1John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 6 March 1797 (Adams Papers)
Since writing my last Letter I have received yours of the 17 th: of February. It is kind: it is amiable: it is worthy of yourself. I recognize again the temper that I love, the heart that I admire, and the mind that I esteem.— Yes—this Letter I am sure was written by my own Louisa; and its strain is too congenial with her character, and too full of delight to me, for me to believe that she...
2John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 14 March 1797 (Adams Papers)
It is nearly a fortnight since I received your letter of the 17 th: of last month. The two last Posts from Bremen have brought no English Letters, and while the wind remains in the quarter to which it has been fixed these ten days I can have no hopes of being more fortunate in hearing from you. These Easterly winds bring a clear sky and a brisk air with them.— Yet they are to me more dull and...
3John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 20 March 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have successively received your Letters of the 28 th: and 24 th: of last month, which I mention thus in inverted order because they so came to me, and the latest of date was the first here.— It must indeed be an implacable breast which such a Letter as this would not disarm of all resentment.— I have hailed and welcomed it as the pledge of uninterrupted future harmony between us. You have...
4John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 31 March 1797 (Adams Papers)
I received at once, and with the utmost pleasure your two Letters of the 7 th: and 14 th: of this month. The tenderness and affection with which you assure me that you participate in my anxieties, sheds among them a gleam of the purest consolation The American Election is decided, and has been declared in the manner which I have mentioned to you in former Letters. All my friends here...
5John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 7 April 1797 (Adams Papers)
Just after writing my last Letter I received your kind one of March 20; by which I find your departure is postponed until July. As it continues to us the opportunity of hearing frequently and regularly from each other it is an agreeable circumstance; it would be still more so, if it could secure to us the means of meeting again in Europe, which will however I apprehend be impossible. You...
6John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 13 April 1797 (Adams Papers)
The day after I sent off my last Letter, I received that of my good friend, dated the 27 th: of last month; and at the same time, a Packet from America, containing my orders to quit my station here, and proceed upon that to which I am now destined. Since then I have been occupied in taking measures preparatory to my departure, which I shall however probably not effect before the latter part of...
7John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 21 April 1797 (Adams Papers)
For I suppose you must have an explanation to keep you current with the vieux stile , now-a-days.— I have received your pleasant account from Brussels of your travels thus far. Continue to write me as often as you can, and sur tout return as speedily as possible. I have read something in Adam Smith about the wonders performed by division of labour. I know very well the effects of its...
8John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 2 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
I am very much gratified to find by your favour of the 26 th: that your Journey from Brussels was so pleasant, and that you are so well satisfied with what you had seen.— I shall request Mess rs: Moliere to extend your credit with their correspondents at Paris. There is a Danish vessel going to Lisbon from Amsterdam in the course of three weeks or a month. I shall go to Amsterdam in a few days...
9John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 6 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
Upon receiving this morning your Letter of the 21 st: of last month, I recurred to mine of the 7 th: in answer to which it was written. I was not conscious of being displeased at your reading Chesterfield’s Letters, or at your having mentioned it to me.— But in reading over my own letter again, I am not surprized at your having taken it in that light.— No, my ever dear, and valued friend, I am...
10John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 9 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
Mess rs: Moliere, will this day extend your credit with their correspondent at Paris, to the amount of 4000 livres more. This I presume will amply suffice for your occasions. I requested you by my last letter, to be here not later than the 25 th: of this month. There is to be a Ball on that day at the Hotel de Suéde. The Count desires me to tell you, that you will be very much wanted as a...
11John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 12 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
And is it possible that my charming friend should feel an uneasy sentiment a sentiment of fear in sitting down to write to me: to me, the friend of her Heart, who would rather suffer a thousand torments than give her a moment of pain?— I am really ashamed of myself for having by morose expressions chilled the feelings of a breast which was formed for the reception of none but warm and kind,...
12John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 17 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have just got your agreeable favours of 8–9— & 11— May, and as this is the last day upon which I can write to reach you at Paris, and I have but little time for the post, I shall be short. M r: Arnoux’s letter has given me great pleasure, and I wish you if you have time, to give him my grateful thanks for it; for his kind remembrance of the family, as well as his attentions to you. Madame de...
13John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 21 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
The last Letter I have received from you is dated the 11 th: of last November. I know not whether since that time the multiplicity of your own avocations or the uncertainty where your Letters would find me have prevented you from writing to me. However it be I cannot suffer a long period to pass without writing, on my part, and I feel already culpable in some degree, when I reflect, that I...
14John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 31 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have received my kind friend’s letters of 3 d , 16 th: and 19 th: of May, and am impatiently waiting to hear from you and your father again. I am going this day on a tour to Amsterdam, where I shall make the arrangements for my immediate departure; so that I shall probably not remain here long enough to receive your reply to this Letter. There are many difficulties in the way of any...
15John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 2 June 1797 (Adams Papers)
I arrived here last Evening and this morning received your cover, enclosing the Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury.— There are Letters here from America, as late as the 29 th: of April. M r: Murray had then sailed so that he may be looked for every day. I have not yet seen M r: Damen, and of course have made no arrangements. I shall make none immediately for my own departure. I feel a...
16John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 6 June 1797 (Adams Papers)
“Our difficulties ended”!— Be it so.— But Faith is not one of the articles of which I possess a remarkable store.— I wish you may never have reason to consider as the commencement of difficulties, what you now regard as their termination. We shall have the means of conveyance to Lisbon.— Such as will perfectly well suit me; and such as you are willing to take up with.— But I do not like [to...
17John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 26 June 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have not written to you, since receiving your very kind Letter of 3 d: March. though I received it almost a month ago. I have determined finally to go by the way of England; you will readily conceive that this circumstance together with the necessary attention to the preparations for my departure from this Country, and since the arrival of M r: Murray, the arrangements for introducing him to...
18John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 6 July 1797 (Adams Papers)
I am once more in the same pleasant situation as that which I described to you twenty months ago from Helvoetsluys. Nine days since, we left the Hague, and I believe you will think I have at least as much occasion for Patience and Philosophy as I had upon the former occasion. I am going to London, where I shall stay no longer than will be absolutely necessary, and from whence I intend to...
19John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 22 July 1797 (Adams Papers)
Three or four days after the date of my last Letter, which was from Maassluys, and while I was yet wind bound there, M r: Murray, informed me that by private Letters from a friend he understood that my destination was changed from Lisbon to Berlin. On the 9 th: inst t: I sailed from Maassluys, and arrived here at the Adelphi, on the 12 th: Soon after, M r: King delivered to me your Letter of...
20John Quincy Adams and Louisa Catherine Adams to Abigail Adams and John Adams, 28 July 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have now the happiness of presenting to you another daughter, worthy as I fully believe of adding one to the number of those who already endear that relation to you.— The day before yesterday united us for life. My recommendation of her to your kindness and affection I know will be unnecessary. My sentiment of her merit, will not at this moment especially boast its impartiality , but if...
21John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 29 July 1797 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you a few lines yesterday, jointly with my new partner informing you of our marriage, upon which I would once more invoke your maternal blessing.— At present I write in answer to your very kind Letters of 15. March. 15. and 23. June all of which I have received since my arrival here. Before the receipt of the latter, I was in doubt whether you were at Philadelphia, or at Quincy.— I...
22John Quincy Adams to Thomas Baker Johnson, 31 July 1797 (Adams Papers)
Though I have not hitherto enjoyed the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with you, I have long since learnt to participate in the warm affection which a most amiable and worthy family, to which you belong, bear towards you, and at this time after having formed and solemnized, the tenderest and dearest of all human connections with your beloved sister, Louisa, I am happy in deriving from it...
23John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams, 1 August 1797 (Adams Papers)
Upon my arrival at this place, about three weeks since, I received your kind letter of June 8 th: which was the first line, I have had from you these many months, and it needed not that circumstance to render it highly valuable. You do not however mention in it the receipt of several letters, which I have written you, and which I hope have not miscarried in the conveyance. Among the rest, that...
24John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 7 October 1797 (Adams Papers)
It is but a few days since I received your kind letter of 14. July, brought to Holland by Gen l: Marshall, and forwarded to me here. The pamphlets also which you have been kind enough to send me have come to hand. I value them much not only for the advantage of perusing them, but because I am endeavouring to preserve a collection of such publications. My state of continual motion is indeed...
25John Quincy Adams to Joshua Johnson, 11 October 1797 (Adams Papers)
I received your obliging letter dated in Margate Roads just before your departure. I had indeed long observed your distress and that of your family. I was not particularly acquainted with its causes, nor was it a subject upon which I thought it proper or necessary to enquire You expected that the step upon which you determined would expose you to censure; but as you observe you thought it the...
26John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 28 December 1797 (Adams Papers)
I believe it is almost three months since I wrote you last. The interval has been a disastrous and distressing period to me, and as while our misfortunes were pressing upon me, I had not the time to write even to my dearest friends, so now that as I hope they are past, I feel little inclination to give you pain by a minute recital of them. It may suffise to say that soon after the date of my...
27John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 19 January 1798 (Adams Papers)
I am still to acknowledge my dear and ever honoured mother as the most attentive and punctual of all my American correspondents, by announcing the receipt of her kind favours of December 2. and November 23, which I mention in the order, as I received them, and which by their contents I find should have been preceded by another of yet earlier date which has not come to hand.— I shall endeavour...
28John Quincy Adams to Thomas Welsh, 24 January 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received some time ago, though not until after my arrival at this place your favour of 15. July last enclosing a statement of my affairs with which you have the goodness to charge yourself, and an account, coming down to the same month of July.— For all the trouble you have taken relative to my little concerns, I feel much obligated to you.— I am happy that you concluded to abandon for sale...
29John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 5 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I had scarcely closed my last Letter to you my dear mother, acknowledging the receipt of your favours of Dec r: 2. and Nov r: 23. before I received that of Nov r: 3. written at East-Chester.— We are duly grateful for your kind congratulations upon our marriage.— You will find by some of my late Letters that we have already been brought to the trial of some unpropitious circumstances Yet much...
30John Quincy Adams to Catherine Nuth Johnson, 7 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
Your very obliging favour, written at Stromness, found its way to London, only a few days before our departure from it, and reached us in the midst of our preparations for the voyage and Journey then before us; the occasion then of much anxiety, and since, the cause of much distress as my dear wife has no doubt before this related to you.— In the hurry and constant avocations of that time, I...
31John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 7 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received a few days ago your kind letter written at East Chester Nov r: 4. and am very thankful for it. The circumstance of my not having mentioned to you my expectation of being married was merely accidental, or owing to the uncertainty as to the time when that event should take place, which continued until a few weeks before it happened. I am very sorry that it should have given you a...
32John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams, 14 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you on the 25 of October & 29 of Dec r: 1796. & on the 14 th: of May & 1 st: of August of the last year. All these letters excepting that of 14 May, related to my affairs in your hands.— I have never received any answer whatever to either of them. That of 29 Dec r: I think must have miscarried, but I have long since received answers from other persons, to letters which went by the same...
33John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 22 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
By your letter to my brother dated 3. January which he has just received I find that at the time when it was written you had received from us no advices later than the 16 th: of September, a circumstance equally surprizing and mortifying to me. After that date I wrote on the 19 th: and 21 st: of September to my father and on the 4 th: of October addressed to him some observations upon an...
34John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 4 May 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have a day or two since received your favour of 10. Feb y: by which I perceive that my last Letters from London, had reached you, though I know not what was the fate of several that preceded them, and none of those which I wrote from this place had come to hand. I have not however since my arrival here been altogether negligent, and I hope that before this time you have received the proofs...
35John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 30 May 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have received within these few days your letters of the 17 th: and 29 th: of March, together with the books and pamphlets mentioned in the former. The last was forwarded to me from England by M r: King, and at the same time one from the Secretary of State of the 10 th: ult o: — I had long been without letters, and they have now been pouring in by floods at once. I have written to you and...
36John Quincy Adams to William Cranch, 6 June 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received a few days ago with great pleasure your favour of 5 March. the perusal of which affected me with various sensations, some pleasing and others less so, but all, cordially participating in the circumstances affecting your welfare and happiness, mentioned in it. Neither the length of time nor the distance at which I have been from my Country, nor yet, any change in my own situation has...
37John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 11 June 1798 (Adams Papers)
Three more letters from you of 3. 4. and 13. April, brought to England by M r Thornton, have just this moment come to hand, together with a pamphlet or two.— The message to Congress of 3. April together with all the documents accompanying it, have been published in London, from whence I have received them as mentioned in a former letter. They were received from Philadelphia by the Directory on...
38John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 22 June 1798 (Adams Papers)
Since the date of my last I have received your favour of 8. April, with the pamphlets mentioned in it.— The communications of the American Commissioners have resounded through every part of Europe, and produced a very sensible impression in the public opinion with regard to the characters exposed in them.— An attempt at defence has been made, by a publication in the official newspaper of the...
39John Quincy Adams and Thomas Boylston Adams to Catherine Nuth Johnson, 13 July 1798 (Adams Papers)
I hope the enclosed letter from my dear Louisa, will be more fortunate in its passage than those which she wrote you from Hamburg, and upon her recovery from illness after her arrival here. Several of our Letters have failed and it gives us much pain to find that those which we wrote to you, were particularly among the unsuccessful number.— I hope however that even before this you have the...
40John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 25 July 1798 (Adams Papers)
Since my last, I have received your favours of 3 d. 26 th. 27 th. 29 th: May, and 12 th: June— By your very kind and constant attention I find myself as regularly and recently informed of the current Events in our Country, as I could expect or wish— Your pamphlets and papers too, with those which I receive from the department of State are a treasure to me— I have written to the Secretary of...
41John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams, 1 August 1798 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you on the 14 of February a letter, which I am informed you have received, but to which no answer from you has yet reached me. Nor have I since it was written received a line from you. I must again repeat the request that you would give me immediate information concerning the property which I have entrusted to you. I have also to request that you would not draw upon Mess rs: Willing of...
42John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 14 September 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received a few days ago your kind favour of 14 July, forwarded by the Secretary of State, and at the same time a letter for my wife, from M rs. Johnson.— The accounts from home continue to discover a spirit truly worthy of the American name; a spirit which I earnestly hope may support itself in all the vigour through the severe trial which it must undergo, and which if thus supported, will...
43John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams, 29 September 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have given to our brother Thomas a general power of Attorney to transact all business on my behalf within the United States. I have therefore to request you to account with him for all my property in your hands amounting to four thousand dollars, and the interest upon that sum, for more than two years, as appears by your letters to me, and by information from Doctor Welsh, that you have made...
44John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 2 October 1798 (Adams Papers)
The enclosed paper will give you an exact idea of that property belonging to me, [in the] hands of Doctor Welsh, and our brother Charles, which it is [my] wish that, you would take under your care, and management upon your arrival in America. When my library shall arrive from Lisbon, you will consult with your mother for a place of security in which to lodge it— If it should be joined to that...
45John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 8 October 1798 (Adams Papers)
My brother is no longer with me. Eight days ago he left me to take somewhat of a circuitous route to Hamburg, from whence he embarks for America, where I hope within two months from this date, he will deliver you the present Letter.— He had been for rather more than four years, (with two short intervals) my constant companion.— I had neither a thought nor a paper, upon any subject, public or...
46John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 12 October 1798 (Adams Papers)
We have received and been entertained with your letters from Dessau, Magdeburg and Brunswic.— We hope to hear from you, to day or to-morrow, at Hamburg, where upon your arrival, you must have found abundance of letters, either to, or for you. You ask for news; but you are now so much nearer the sources of all the important news, that it must rather come from you to us, than go from us to you....
47To George Washington from John Quincy Adams, 29 October 1798 (Washington Papers)
I have the honor to enclose herewith, a letter from a young Gentleman who bears your name, and who flatters himself with being (though distantly) related to you. He is by birth an Hollander, but of a family originally English, which went over from England, and settled in the United Netherlands, sometime near the beginning of the present century. At the commencement of the present War, he...
48John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 30 October 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have received your’s of the 26 th: enclosing one for M r: Welsh— I now forward those Letters for America, with which I threatened you in my last.— Of all the news which you believed or expected to believe, the only parts likely to be confirmed, are the capture of the Leander, with Captain Berry, on board, and of the two french frigates by the Colossus.— The burning of the transports in the...
49John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 13 November 1798 (Adams Papers)
I write a line in answer to your’s of the 9 th: and to send you the enclosed for J. Hall, though the wind here is easterly since yesterday, and you may have improved it, to sail upon your voyage. There are no Russian troops marching towards Pomerania— There is a new Edict here against secret Societies, of which I shall immediately forward a translation, though probably not in time to reach you...
50John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 15 January 1799 (Adams Papers)
We received your short Letter of 19. November written just as the pilot from the mouth of the Elbe was about to leave you. Since that time untill this day, we have had almost incessantly Easterly winds blowing, and we hope that you enjoyed the benefit of them, and long before this, find yourself restored to the bosom of our Country and friends. Since your departure several circumstances have...