51To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 27 December 1807 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 14th: instt: came to my hands just at a moment to renew and to strengthen impressions which had been weighing heavily upon my mind for near a month—The general questions relative to the powers and the process of expulsion under our Constitution had been forced upon me by the situation in which I was placed as Chairman of the Committee on the present Inquiry—My own...
52To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 15 December 1807 (Adams Papers)
An inflammation in my eyes which for several days has confined me to my house, and rendered writing difficult and painful, must be my Apology for the Shortness of this letter. I admire the Correctness of your history of the ten talents committed to the Subject of your letter. Upon the talent of his taciturnity Mr Liston gave me the following Anecdote, “that he was the only person he had ever...
53To John Adams from Robert Smith, 15 December 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have the honor of herewith transmitting to you, for your acceptance, an impression of the medal, presented, to the late Commodore Edward Preble, in pursuance of the resolution of Congress, of the 3rd March 1805. I have the honor to be, / with great respect, / sir, yr. mo. ob. st. MHi : Adams Papers.
54To John Adams from Benjamin Waterhouse, 8 December 1807 (Adams Papers)
Your letter of the 28th. instant has just come to hand, and I have stepped into the house of a friend to answer acknowledge it. I cannot sufficiently thank you & the worthy Mitchill for your friendly attention to my wishes. I called to day, for the first time, at the Custom-house, and there learnt that General Lincoln, as superintendent of the Marine-Hospital, had requested Dr Eustis to take...
55To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 30 November 1807 (Adams Papers)
I received a few days since your very kind letter which I am ashamed of answering by a few lines; but by some accident I have fallen from a state of almost total idleness into an overwhelming flood of business, which leaves me scarcely a quarter of an hour of the day or of the Night—I sent you last week a copy of a volume in the form of a bill which I reported upon the Aggression business and...
56To John Adams from Amos J. Cook, 21 November 1807 (Adams Papers)
Having the honor to be Preceptor of the Academy in this place, and feeling interested in the diffusion of science and literature in general, I am respectfully led to request the favor of your sending me by mail, or otherwise, as you may think proper, a specimen of your handwriting, to be preserved in the cabinet of curiosities, collecting in our Institution for the benefit of students.—I need...
57To John Adams from Abiel Holmes, 11 November 1807 (Adams Papers)
Mr. Holmes, presenting his respects to President Adams, takes the liberty to ask of him an account of General Oglethorpe , and particularly of what passed between the general and him in the interviews when the President was in London after the Peace of 1783. Mr. Holmes has noticed in Boswell’s Life of Johnson mention made of a MS. Memoir of Oglethorpe, and does not despair of obtaining it. He...
58To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 1 November 1807 (Adams Papers)
Much time has elapsed indeed, Since you have favoured me with your last Letters—and more, Since I dropt to you my last line—I do not plead another excuse than my particular Situation—Tho at times I was not in want of leisure, to acquit meself of an incumbent duty, but then mÿ mind was not often enough composed, and a numerous correspondence within and without this continent imposed imperiously...
59To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 31 October 1807 (Adams Papers)
I am ashamed of my long silence after the receipt of the two last letters from my kind friend and benefactor. The hurry introduced into my ordinary mass of business by the Influenza and its Consequences, must be my apollogy for my seeming inattention to your interesting favors.— You have happily distinguished between Prudence and Art . I agree with you in your history of Disinterestedness. It...
60To John Adams from Mercy Otis Warren, 27 August 1807 (Adams Papers)
At a time of life when retirement is sought for, and the release from all political attentions desired, ten long letters of accusation and reproach, of interrogation and retrospection, within the term of a few weeks, may be designed, not only to distress, but to create passions in my bosom which were never felt nor indulged. When I finished mine of August 15th, I thought I might calculate on a...
61To John Adams from Rev. John Disney, 24 August 1807 (Adams Papers)
Among the papers of my late friend Mr.mr Brand-Hollis; I have been greatly gratified by the perusal of several letters from you, and by two from Mrs. Adams addressed to him. It is probable that I may print a Memoir of my munificent friend, in which I should greatly wish to introduce these letters, in testimony of the friendship which subsisted between the parties, and from my conviction of...
62To John Adams from William Vaughan, 17 August 1807 (Adams Papers)
I feel a pleasure in forwarding to you the second part of the Transactions of the Philosophical Society for 1806 and the first part for 1807, which that Society have been pleased to transmit to you through me which I hope you will receive safe by Captain LeBosquet of the Morneo . In the same Packet, I have sent duplicates for Bowdoin College may I beg the favor of you to cause the same to be...
63To John Adams from Mercy Otis Warren, 15 August 1807 (Adams Papers)
You begin your Letter, Sir, of August 8th. with complaints of “new demonstrations of Mrs. Warren’s friendship.” Indeed, I cannot see the smallest foundation of complaint from page 229, Vol. 3d. of the Revolutionary History, to signing the Treaty with Great Britain page 232, that could give cause for the smallest umbrage, except the inadvertency of placing the names of Benjamin Franklin and...
64To John Adams from Mercy Otis Warren, 7 August 1807 (Adams Papers)
I know not how to satisfy the demands you make upon my time and patience without entering into discussions, which, at this late day, I have no wish to call up. Yet the chain of your illiberal criticisms still kept up in your subsequent letters, obliges me, however reluctantly, to pursue my remarks. I shall, therefore as leisure permits, attend to most of your paragraphs, exclusive of the...
65To John Adams from Mercy Otis Warren, 1 August 1807 (Adams Papers)
Your fourth Letter like the preceding ones, discovers a fixed determination to mis-construe every expression of mine, where-ever You, Sir, are introduced in my History of the American Revolution. I am astonished that you should discover so much resentment at a sentence in page 140, particularly at the word mortified. I did, at the time alluded to, think you in a mortified situation. I did...
66To John Adams from Mercy Otis Warren, 28 July 1807 (Adams Papers)
Before I had an opportunity to forward my reply to yours of July 11th: I received another letter under date July 20th containing twenty pages, in which so many demands are made and so many threats denounced, that a total silence might be construed dismay. My thread of existence in this evanescent state is too far spent for me again to enter on political discussion; yet, I think it my duty to...
67To John Adams from Mercy Otis Warren, 16 July 1807 (Adams Papers)
After a long suspension of a friendly literary intercourse, it was very unexpected to me this day, to receive a letter from the hand of Mr. Adams;—nor can I conceive of any thing that should occasion a resentment in his bosom, or prevent his old style of address to Mrs. Warren, or give the semblance of an “old friend being hastily converted into an enemy;”—much less could I have expected to...
68To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 9 July 1807 (Adams Papers)
I once met Alexander Cruden the Author of the Concordance of the Scriptures at Charles Dilly’s. He was then about 70 years of Age. The only thing he said while I was in his Company made an impression upon my mind which the lapse of near 40 years has not worn away. It was this. “God punishes some Crimes in this world to teach us there is a Providence, and permits Others to escape with impunity,...
69To John Adams from Esther Barrette Adams, 8 July 1807 (Adams Papers)
Having a considerable time since took the liberty of addressing you, being the Widow of your late Brother Summers, of whom I gave the particulars of, stating that by his Death I was left with three Children to maintain by my labour, which thanks be to God I have hitherto done.— Therefore Sir, having an opportunity per favor of the Bearer Captain Philip De Gruchy of this Island, who has known...
70To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 18 June 1807 (Adams Papers)
The Fire and Marine Insurance Office are now repaying the third part of their capital, to which they were authorized by an Act of the Legislature; and issuing new Certificates to the Stockholders—The old Certificates must therefore be returned into the Office—I will thank you to send me, by the earliest opportunity, your Certificate for the forty shares, which stand in my name, but of which...
71To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 9 June 1807 (Adams Papers)
Permit me to trouble you with the delivery of the enclosed letter to Dr Tufts. It contains an Account of the death of his patient Mr: Land, and a small sum of money to be sent by the Doctor to Mr: Land’s parents in new Hamshire. I sent you Mr Stevens’s pamphflet “on the dangers of the Country” a few days ago. I beg your Acceptance of it. Since the date of my last letter I have been made very...
72To John Adams from Rachel Cunningham, 8 June 1807 (Adams Papers)
tho a stranger I take the Liberty of addressing you on a subject that very much Interests me, & I hope will you—I have become acquainted with a Miss Francis Adams the Daughter of Mr. Jno. Adams, who Married a Sister of Ebenz. Oliver Esqr. of Boston—Dr. Rand—married (I believe) another Sister—this Dear Girl, is Young, & Beautiful—& a Relation of your own—She had a Brother who made a very...
73To John Adams from William Heath, 18 May 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have to acknowledge the receipt of Your highly esteemed letter, which you did me the honour to write me, under the date of the 11th. of May current. Having written many speculations (between the begining of the year 1770, and the present time,) under the signature of a military Countryman, I was fully aware, that my stile, Signature, and motto, would discover the writer, but it is from your...
74To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 17 May 1807 (Adams Papers)
You shall not expect an excuse, for mÿ dilaÿing a few days to return the inclosed. Mÿ heart was too much oppressed with grief: I took refuge to Labour to assuage its pain. My young friend Mappa brought me your Lett. in mÿ garden—first I thought to keep it unopened—till I arrived home—its unusual thickness impelled me to break its seal—I perused first Cremer’s Letter—glanced over your lines—and...
75To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 12 May 1807 (Adams Papers)
In one of your former letters you say as an excuse for your not assuming the reserve of certain public men, that you never beleived yourself to be a “great man”, and of Course did not expect that every thing you said, and did & wrote would be the subject of public Observation and Scrutiny. I consider your not preserving a Copy of your letter to your youthful friend Mr Webb as a proof of the...
76To John Adams from Nathaniel Lord, 2 May 1807 (Adams Papers)
Be pleased to accept from an obscure individual a copy of a work, which after much care and labor he has prepared for the public, under an impression that it would be agreeable to the sons of science in general, and in particular that those more immediately interested would find their curiosity more peculiarly gratified. Give me leave to trouble you with an inquiry, whether you can give me the...
77To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 22 April 1807 (Adams Papers)
I enclose you the letter I mentioned in my last, from the person whom I supposed to be your son in law. The letter from his son has been mislaid. I have neither friend, nor Correspondent in new york of the name of Wm Smith except your son in law, and having never before seen his hand writing, and supposing he had dropt Ste his middle name of Stephens, I had no doubt of the letter coming from...
78To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 3 April 1807 (Adams Papers)
The difficult and complicated labors of my professorship consisting of teaching, examining, reviewing theses &c &c being now nearly over, I sit down with great pleasure to pay my epistolary debts. You are my largest, and most lenient Creditor. The first dividend of my time of Course is due to you. I concur with you in your reflections upon the Western insurrection, but not altogether in your...
79To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 15 March 1807 (Adams Papers)
As your Letter of the 29 of Jan—afforded me a Sensible pleasure, I will procure meself another in writing you again. God be praised, that your health is unimpaired—it must continue so manÿ daÿs, if the warm wishes of your Relatives and friends obtain their accomplishments—our own interests—mÿ Dear Sir! prompts this wish. I spent this winter verÿ agreablÿ—partlÿ with mÿ old Classick friends...
80To John Adams from Joseph C. Foxcroft, 18 February 1807 (Adams Papers)
The package I had the honor of forwarding to you was from my honored Father Samuel Foxcroft of New Gloucester.—He has had the misfortune to lose his sight one year ago, be reason of an inflamation in the Same his eyes; And by reason of his never having made use of glasses, & his whole time having been spent in reading & writing; the loss has been very sensibly felt by him.—He did not know of...
81To John Adams from Abel Sawyer, 29 January 1807 (Adams Papers)
Honrble Sir I am Possesed of A paper Executed To Samel Adams Malster of Boston & others it was Executed Decembr 1718 if it concerns you it is in my Power To Do you Some Service if the late govern Samel Adams was A Relative & it be in your Power I wish you To Inform me by letter who is heirs Are & who Administered upon his Estate & where they live if it concern you A letter To me will be...
82To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 27 January 1807 (Adams Papers)
I received nearly ten days since your very kind letter, which has hitherto remained unanswered owing to the very sudden transition we made, from almost total idleness, to an excessive press of business—This transition was introduced by a question upon the building of a bridge , which has already made five days of debate, and upon which the question is not yet finally taken—Besides this Mr:...
83To John Adams from James Lenox, 24 January 1807 (Adams Papers)
I can but confess my neglect in not letting you Know that I received your Verry polite answer of the 12th. Sept: 1805. on the 16th. of the Same Month, to mine of the 6th. of the Same you must Know, Sir, that one of the greatest satisfactions to me is the Keeping up a correspondence with some of the old Sages of our Revolution, and I hope it will not be considered as flattery in me if I place...
84To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 23 January 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have been waiting like Horace’s Clown till the Stream of my business should so far lessen that I could pass over it, in order to acknowledge the receipt of your interesting letter upon the Subject of the perfectibility of human nature, but as that Stream, from adventitious currents pouring into it, rather encreases, than lessens, I have seized a few moments merely to testify my gratitude for...
85To John Adams from Thomas Theodore Cremere, 17 January 1807 (Adams Papers)
Narrowly bound in a DisInterested Friendship of Many Years, with Mr John Luzac Proffessor att Leyden Who often Confided Me the Marks of Esteem he received from you his Respected Friend, as Well as of the Immortal Washington, I Now take the Mournfull Task to Announce to you his Tresspass, in a Dreadfull Manner, by the Explosion of a barge with Gunpowder that Laid Contrary to the Laws, in the...
86To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 12 January 1807 (Adams Papers)
I spent two days as disagreable, as anÿ in mÿ life—tears bedewed my cheeks and reason and religion could not entirely assuage the pains I felt. It is my lot not to feel—not to act by halves. Saturday I heard the report of your death—and yesterday night first the Albanÿ gazette of the 8th. mention i ng not a word of this Sad event relieved me in part of excruciating pangs. Restore peace to my...
87To John Adams from Samuel Foxcroft, 10 January 1807 (Adams Papers)
I herewith send you Asmall book, which having your Name in it I suppose it to be yours. and that I borrowd it when we ware at Colledg together) tho I have littile or no rememberance of it. Why it was not then returnd, or why it has not since been returned before now, I can give but poor too poor an account, I but can say Im not sesibel there has ben any frautilant aim or design.—in the...
88To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 25 November 1806 (Adams Papers)
I have seldom been more highly gratified than by the receipt of your letter of Novr 11th. The latter part of it accords perfectly with Opinions I have long cherished. You may see a short account of those Opinions in an Oration delivered before our Philosophical Society upon “the influence of physical Causes upon the moral faculty” published in the first Volume of my Inquiries. They shocked for...
89To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 1 November 1806 (Adams Papers)
How long have I waited in answering your favour of 23th. of aug–with which you again honoured your old frend? To anÿ other I should be obliged, to make an apologÿ for my silence, during such a long interval of time—but your kindness—acquainted with mÿ circumstances, relieves me of this burden. You enjoÿ—honored and loved by all what surround you, otium cum dignitate, while I see my Labours and...
90To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 24 October 1806 (Adams Papers)
Ever since the receipt of your last letter I have passed my days like an arrow shot from a bow. At a time of life when (to use an expression in one of your letters written to me soon after your return from England) “nature sighs for repose,” I live in a Constant round of business, which employs both body and mind. Even my studies (the times for which are taken from family Society or Sleep) are...
91To John Adams from Wilhem Willink, 13 September 1806 (Adams Papers)
We had the pleasure to see here this Summer William Dandridge Peck Esqe: who delivered us your letter of 24. May 1805. this Gentleman’s Stay here was Very Short, yet We endeavored to make it as agreable and as interesting to him as possible; in Short recommanded by you he met with that Regard which every one of your Friends is entitled to.— We are Very Sensible indeed to your obliging...
92To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 22 August 1806 (Adams Papers)
You ascribe wonders to the influence of Silence and Secrecy in public men. I agree with you in their effects upon characters, and human Affairs. Dr South says the “world was made for the bold.” But they possess but only half of it,—the other half was made for the “Artful”—among whom I include nearly all silent men. I say nearly all, for we now and then meet with persons who are silent from...
93To John Adams from David Adams, 20 August 1806 (Adams Papers)
I Send you A few Lines to Enform you That I have Receivd, A letter from My Mother the 20 of May 1806 Enforming Me that All the Fammily of Your Late Deceased Brother Is Well at present And I hope that these few Lines Will find You the Same. I also Enform you that After the Death of My father I was Oblidgd to Come to this Cuntry for to Git My Living and I find it Very hard to do that here—I...
94To John Adams from Daniel Eldridge Updike, 1 August 1806 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday the Schooner Ocean Capt: Richard Barney Arrived at this Port from Barbadoes via Turks Island, in which Vessel came passenger Doctr. John Kean of Philadelphia, late Surgeon of the Ship Leander, formerly commanded by Capt. Lewis of New York, Doctor Kean informs me that on the 20th of last June he left the Son of Collo. Smith of New York on board the Leander with General Miranda at...
95To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 11 July 1806 (Adams Papers)
At the request of my Wife I called upon a friend of mine a few days ago to borrow “the secret memoirs of the Court of St: Cloud.” He said he had not a copy of it—but politely put into my hands “Cumberlands memoirs of his own life”, which I have since filled up the leisure minutes of the day in reading. It is a pleasant Work, and contains a good deal of information of men and things which would...
96To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 7 July 1806 (Adams Papers)
At lenght I take again mÿ pen, to assure you of the high respect, with which I am So fortunate to feel mÿ bosom glow for the un-appreciated blessings, which you have bestowed on a dear an ungrateful Countrÿ, for the kindness, which with you continue to honour your old frend—and what less can I return to the man, of whom a Washington declared, that none could more cordially than himself approve...
97To John Adams from John Marshall, 6 July 1806 (Adams Papers)
I have taken a liberty which may require an apology. Thinking it necessary, I have, without your permission, inserted in the life of General Washington parts of letters written by you to him at the time of his appointment to the command of the army which was to be raised in 1798. I have ventured to do this because I thought it impossible that the act could be offensive to you, & because I had...
98To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 4 July 1806 (Adams Papers)
I enclose you a letter, which I received last Monday, and by which you will learn the distressing misfortune which has befallen me—I have not communicated it to you before, from the wish that it might not come to the knowledge of my brother’s wife, at a moment when it might too much affect her—I have another letter from Washington, one day later than the one enclosed; my wife was then as well...
99To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 26 June 1806 (Adams Papers)
Herewith you will receive a small publication that contains several new Opinions in Physiology, and which admit of being applied to the cure of several diseases. If you have no inclination to read it, please to put it into the hands of your family physician. He may probably pick up something from it that may be the means of lessning the pain, or preventing the mortality of a disease in your...
100To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 10 June 1806 (Adams Papers)
My long delay in answering your last letter has arisen from two causes—an unusual share of business from an unusually sickly Spring—and the Want of Subjects for a letter that would be interesting to you. I perfectly accord with you in your opinions respecting the tendency, and issue of the present state of things in the World. Never perhaps was there a time in which there was more to fear from...