1From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 26 November 1816 (Adams Papers)
Last week I sent you a number of the Monthly Theological Repository, containing some Speculations of Mr Van der Kemp and Mr Jefferson—With this Letter I enclose to my Father the numbers just published of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews—Presuming that you know the History and Character of those Publications from Cobbett, you will sufficiently understand them to be in the Nature of Lawyer’s...
2From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 28 September 1816 (Adams Papers)
Our Sons John and Charles are come home from school this morning, to spend the Michaelmas Holidays, and have brought one of their schoolmates with them, to whom John has taken a great liking and who is nearly of his age. He was already here, part of the Summer Holidays, and is a very intelligent and well behaved boy. These Holidays come so often that I am not at all partial to them; but those...
3From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 23 April 1816 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you last week by Captain Bronson, and sent you a Volume of Letters from the Continent, about the Battle of Waterloo and the like, by the Poet Walter Scott—I now send you a Newspaper in which you will find certain effusions of another personage, who is not only a Poet but a Lord—He has been married little more than a year, and is already separated from his wife—Partly, as his verses...
4From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 8 March 1809 (Adams Papers)
I had heard of your illness with extreme concern, from my wife, and also through Mr: Cranch and Mrs. Quincy—The sight of your hand-writing again, has given me the purest joy, though allayed by the evident weakness in which you wrote—I believe there is in the sentence I have just written there is something which might be called a bull —But my feelings both of pleasure and pain at the idea of...
5From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 21 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
The seventy-ninth day since our departure from Boston, and not yet in Petersburg—But we are on land, within twenty miles of it, and at the end of our voyage in the ship Horace.—We have indeed had a very long passage, and it has not been without its interesting incidents, had I but the time of narrating them—But to you as well as to us, the most interesting of them is, that we are all, thanks...
6From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 20 December 1816 (Adams Papers)
I mentioned to you in a former Letter, the visit that I had received from Mr Frend, and Mr Aspland, the Minister of the Unitarian Congregation at Hackney—Since then I have dined with Mr Frend, who is a Unitarian, and Astronomer, and Actuary , of an Insurance Company. There I met again Mr Aspland, who afterwards made me a present of several of his own publications, and from Dr Disney a copy of...
7From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 28 December 1816 (Adams Papers)
General Boyd, Mr Stores, Mr Forbes, and Mr and Mrs. Everett, have all arrived in London within the week past; and by them, with many other Letters and despatches I have received your favours of 5. and of 26. November—There must be I think a Letter in arrear between the 30th. of September and the 5th. of Novr—You acknowledge the receipt of my Numbers 92 and 93—and 97 and 98. I hope the...
8From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 24 December 1814 (Adams Papers)
A Treaty of Peace between the United States and Great Britain has this day been signed by the British and American Plenipotentiaries at this place. It is to be dispatched to-morrow, by Mr Hughes the Secretary of the American Mission, who is to sail in the Transit from Bordeaux—I have not time to write a single private Letter excepting this, but I request you to inform my brother that I have...
9From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 4 November 1816 (Adams Papers)
Since I last wrote to you, I have received your kind Letters of 27. August, and of 10. June, which I mention in the order, not of their dates, but of their reception. That of June enclosed a printed Copy of Judge Story’s biographical eulogium of our late excellent friend Dexter, whose loss is a calamity to our Country, and especially to our Native State, which with all her errors and follies I...
10From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 8 February 1816 (Adams Papers)
The receipt of your favour of 2. December was acknowledged in my last, dated the 9th. of January—Three days afterwards, I received your Letter of 9. and 18. November which had been brought by Mr Tarbel—But it was forwarded, I believe from Manchester, Mr and Mrs Tarbel not having yet arrived in London. We have received no Letters of a later date from Quincy. Our Sons, after a Vacation of seven...
11From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 19 November 1816 (Adams Papers)
Last week I sent you with a Letter from my wife the Newspaper containing the Account of the Lord Mayor’s day feast at Guildhall, where you will find again some mention made of the American Minister—The singularity of the feast did not however consist in his being there; but in the Circumstance that no other Minister, either home-bred or foreign was present; and in the phenomenon still more...
12From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 12 July 1816 (Adams Papers)
Mr Tarbell informs me that he and his Lady have determined to return to the United States, and that they expect to sail next Monday for from Liverpool. I have now barely time to tell you that we are all well, and to send you a Newspaper, and the last number of the Quarterly Review—We have received Letters from my father and brother, and from you, to the 27th. of May—If the intervals between my...
13From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 6 February 1817 (Adams Papers)
Nothing further received from you, since I wrote you last week—My boys have returned to School; and to close their holidays I went with them to Drury–Lane Theatre, and saw the Tragedy of Richard the third—The part of this amiable hero, was performed by Mr Kean, who is now the reigning favourite of the Public—They have mutilated this Play so much in their manner of getting it up, that it is...
14From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 1 February 1817 (Adams Papers)
Mr J. Sergeant, arrived in London last week, and delivered to me Letters from you, my father and my brother. Your’s is of 5. December—At that time, you observe, the Season with you, had become very cold—Most fortunately for this Country, there has been no cold weather this Winter, and scarcely any Snow. The verdure of the fields in this neighborhood, is like that of May—There are several...
15From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 12 February 1817 (Adams Papers)
Scarce a day now passes without the arrival of vessels laden with flour from the United States. I am informed from Liverpool that upwards of twenty-five thousand Barrels have already been received there since the opening of the Ports. We have had several days ago accounts from New-York, down to the 18th. of last Month; and on Saturday I received your kind Letter of 8. Jany.—There is an old...
16From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 11 December 1816 (Adams Papers)
Last week I enclosed several numbers of Cobbett’s Register, as they are republished in open Sheets—Here are two additional numbers, with, an Observer where you will find an account of the late Riots in London, and an extract from a recent publication containing some interesting particulars about Napoleon at St Helena. The Ministerial daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly publications, the...
17From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 5 October 1816 (Adams Papers)
As I am not yet enabled to write the threatened long Letter to my father, I must replace it by the weekly short one to you. Last Sunday, Mr E. Brooks, Mr Bigelow, and a few others of our American Visitors, came out and dined with us—Two days afterwards Mr Brooks sent me your Letter of 2d. May enclosed, with Mr Norton’s funeral Sermon upon our venerable friend and kinsman Dr. Tufts; and a...
18From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 15 October 1816 (Adams Papers)
The quiet Season has at length arrived. For the last six weeks I have had no occasion to go into London, except upon business, and there is some relaxation of that—Almost all the Cabinet Ministers are absent upon excursions; and Lord Castlereagh is gone to Ireland to see his father . The Morning Chronicle gives a shrewd hint, that it is the sign that Parliament will be dissolved, and that his...
19From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 13 May 1816 (Adams Papers)
I have had the pleasure of receiving your kind Letters of 22. March. and 7. April; and at the same time my wife and children all received the like tokens of your affectionate remembrance. The last is to Mr J. A. Smith of 13 April.—They ought all, and I hope will answer you more at length, than it is in my power to do. For the last six weeks, besides the pressure of my correspondence, which is...
20From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 12 August 1816 (Adams Papers)
I have received Letters from you, of 22. March, 7. April, 9. and 20 May, and 29. and 30 June. every one of which, had it been possible, I would have answered by a long Letter—But even now, I can do little more than express my joy at perceiving the recovery of your health and Spirits, in the cheerfulness and gaiety returning to your Style. I had flattered myself that after the rising of...
21From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 16 August 1816 (Adams Papers)
The receipt of all your Letters to that of 30. June has been acknowledged. To answer them, I must have time to think—a privilege which I so seldom enjoy that I cannot even anticipate when I may be indulged with it—Mr Tuckerman brought your last Letter—I saw him and his Lady once. But they were only three or four days in London, and are gone upon a tour into the Country. Mr Tuckerman says his...
22From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 11 January 1817 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of 26. November, is yet the latest that I have received from you—But since my last to you, and since mine of the 3d. instant to my father, I have received one from him, more earnestly calling upon me, to ask my recall from this Mission, and return home—I have in my last Letters both to him and you, expressed my sentiments and intentions on this subject, and have alledged such...
23From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 24 August 1816 (Adams Papers)
I shall send you by the earliest opportunity the newly published numbers of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews; but unless you read Cobbett’s New-York Register, you will not have the key to the secret History of those works—There are now three very distinct parties in this Country—Tories, or the Ministerial party—Whigs—and Reformers—The Quarterly Review is the Literary instrument of the...
24From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 20 May 1816 (Adams Papers)
Mr: William Cranck Bond, a relation of ours, with whom you are no doubt acquainted has been some months in this Country; and is now upon his return to America—I shall endeavour to send you by him the last number of the Edinburgh Review; and the Newspaper now enclosed will give you a copious account of the Nuptial Drawing Room, which was almost as crowded as the Lord Mayor’s Easter Monday...
25From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 23 July 1816 (Adams Papers)
As the week comes round, the Sunday Newspaper reminds me of the despatch to be made up for Quincy; but the pressure of business and of dissipation equally indispensable has not for many weeks left me an hour, for writing to you. I have now scarcely a moment to acknowledge the receipt of your favours of 5. and of 20. May. which I have had more than a Month; and to which I hope to be at some...
26From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 25 January 1817 (Adams Papers)
Scarcely a day now passes, without the arrival of vessels from the United States; but they are principally from New York or more Southern Ports—The failure of the Harvests in this Country has much contributed to their frequency. Two years ago the British Parliament made a Law, to raise the price of Bread; having discovered that if that first necessary of life should be cheap, the Country would...
27From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 18 April 1816 (Adams Papers)
We are waiting with great anxiety to hear again from Quincy, and pray that they may bring us favourable accounts of your health—We have none later than of 19. February, which came by the New Packet, and which were received nearly a Month since. Mr and Mrs Tarbell are gone with Mr: and Mrs O. Everett, and Captain Stuart to France. We have a constant succession of our Countrymen coming and...
28From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 24 August 1815 (Adams Papers)
You will imagine that the place from which I now write you has been thus named by us; but so it was not—We found the names already settled—Ealing is a parish in the immediate neighbourhood of Brentford, that “town of mud”—immortalized in the Poetry of Pope and Swift; and the house in which we reside has been thus named by its proprietor, in honour of a kinsman of his, one Lord Boston, who has...
29From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 21 September 1813 (Adams Papers)
This day two Months have elapsed since Mr Gallatin and Mr Bayard arrived and delivered to me your favours of 5 and 23 April—Nothing later from you has yet come to hand.—Very shortly after their arrival, the ship Hannibal, belonging to Mr Astor of New-York arrived at Gothenburg—This vessel was furnished with a British licence with a permission even to bring a Cargo, and to carry one back in...
30From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 18 May 1811 (Adams Papers)
The late french Ambassador at this Court, the Duke de Vicence, has taken leave, and his succesor Count Lauriston has been received—He takes his departure this Evening or to-morrow for Paris, and I avail myself of the opportunity to enclose a line for you, under cover to Mr Russell our Chargé d’Affaires at that place—I have already sent several letters for you and for my brother to him to be...
31From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 7 April 1813 (Adams Papers)
I know not whether it was generosity, or any other virtue, or merely a disposition to receive the postage, that induced the transmission of your favour of 30. December to Mr: Williams at London; for by him it was kindly forwarded to me, and on the first day of this Month, to my inexpressible joy came to hand—It was but so short a time before that I had received your letter of 29. July!—and...
32From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 19 March 1815 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday Morning I received the first information of the ratification, by the Government of the United States of the Treaty of Peace concluded at Ghent on the 24th: of last December—The Ratification was received at London last Monday Evening the 13th: instant, and the Communication of the Event by Lord Castlereagh to the Lord Mayor was made about eleven O’Clock that Night—It was brought by...
33From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 6 June 1816 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday I went to London, to the anniversary dinner of the Society of Friends of foreigners in distress; of which Society our old friend Mr William Vaughan is Treasurer; and being in Town, I found at my Office, in Craven Street, three Letters Post-marked “Liverpool ship-Letter,” and superscribed to me, in one of the Quincy hand-writings; but on opening them I found myself accosted first as...
34From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 14 October 1810 (Adams Papers)
Captain Smith, who was the bearer of your kind letter of 7. May, has met with the same misfortune which has befallen so many others of our Countrymen—On his passage to Gottenburg he was taken by a Danish Privateer and carried into Norway—From Christiansand he enclosed his letters for me to our Consul at Copenhagen, and he forwarded them to me by Captain Bainbridge, who came with a furlough in...
35From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 23 July 1812 (Adams Papers)
I received a very few days ago, your kind favour of 1. March last, which gave me great pleasure as a token of your remembrance, and by assurance of your restoration to health.—It contains like almost every letter from America, that I have received the last eighteen Months, tidings of affliction; but we had before been informed our brother’s misfortune in the loss of his youngest child. Your...
36From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 28 July 1814 (Adams Papers)
I had the good fortune of sending a single letter from this place to England, in time to go by the Saratoga, a Cartel which sailed about the middle of this Month for New–York, and that letter was my last go to you. I hope it will reach you safely for it is the only opportunity by which I can expect that you will have heard from me, almost since the beginning of this Year—For the letters which...
37From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 30 March 1812 (Adams Papers)
As the Couriers between Paris and St: Petersburg have not yet ceased to be dispatched, by the arrival of one of them a few days ago, I had the pleasure of receiving your N. 1. of 5. January. which was not only like all your letters a balsam in itself; but was also precious by its contents, announcing your own health, that of my father, and of my children, brother and sister. I have no other...
38From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 30 June 1814 (Adams Papers)
My last Letter to you was written at Reval, and dated the 12th: of May—It was forwarded from Gothenburg by a Swedish Vessel, bound to Boston; but since Admiral Cochrane’s Blockade, it is more doubtful than ever whether it will come to your hands.—I was detained ten days after it was written, in that City and its harbour, by head winds, and by the ice floating in the gulph of Finland—We were...
39From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 21 February 1815 (Adams Papers)
My last Letter to you, was of the 31st: of January, from Bruxelles; and I enclosed it to Mr Beasley at London, requesting him to forward it by the earliest possible opportunity. By his answer he informs me that he dispatched it by the Packet which was to sail on the 15th: instant from Falmouth—Two days after it was written I left Bruxelles and came to this City where I arrived on the 4th:...
40From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 19 March 1811 (Adams Papers)
In proportion as the time lengthens since the receipt of your last Letter, which is also the last that I have received from any of my friends at Quincy, I find not only my anxiety to hear directly from you increasing with it, but also my desire and determination if possible to relieve you and my other friends with you from a similar anxiety respecting us, which you would feel in the case of so...
41From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 10 September 1814 (Adams Papers)
When I wrote you my last Letter, a press copy of which, is enclosed, I had little or no expectation that I should at this day still be here. The John Adams sailed from the Texel, with Mr Dallas on board, the 28th: of August, and has, I hope, by this time half-performed her passage—It is one of those singular incidents, which occur occasionally in real life, and which would be thought too...
42From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 11 June 1811 (Adams Papers)
Your letter of 15. Feby: which was brought by Captain Brown, of the Washington, and which I received on the 23d: of last Month, gave me the first intelligence of those afflicting Events the Death of Mrs: Hellen and Mrs: Norton—I received it early in the morning, and was thereby enabled to communicate it to my wife and her Sister, with as much preparation as the nature of the case would...
43From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 22 October 1814 (Adams Papers)
A dutch Vessel, called the Prince of Orange, which had taken out to America the Minister, Mr. Changuion, arrived on the first of this month at the Texel, from Boston, after a passage of thirty days. She brought Boston newspapers to the first of September, but very few private letters, and to my great disappointment, none for me—Mr Boyd had arrived here, a day or two sooner, with dispatches...
44From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 10 August 1812 (Adams Papers)
Just as I was closing my last Letter to you, I received your letter of 12. April, and had barely time to make a minute of it, at the bottom of the one I was sealing up for you—Since then I have not had the pleasure of hearing from you I then flattered myself that the Revocation of the British Orders in Council, of which I had just been informed, would be known in the United States, in Season...
45From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 18 February 1813 (Adams Papers)
As I shall probably not have an opportunity of dispatching letters for America, after that of which I now avail myself, at least before the expiration of the present Month, and as I am unwilling to break through the rule which I prescribed to myself of writing to you, at least once every Month, I sit down to repeat to you, what only three days since, I wrote to my father, namely, that I have...
46From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 25 July 1810 (Adams Papers)
Captain Harrod, by whom your kind favour of 20. March to me, mentions that you had written to my wife, and also sent a Box of Articles which she had requested to procure for her, has not yet arrived—Your letter of 20. March itself was brought to me, a few days past, I know not from whence; but having apparently been opened, and having suffered much from a soaking; but whether in salt or in...
47From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 25 October 1813 (Adams Papers)
If I could have omitted to welcome the return of this day, and to renew my prayers for many happy repetitions of it to my father and you, I should still have been charged with the obligation of acknowledging the receipt of your two letters of 1. and 14. July which I received last week from Gothenburg—They were brought to that City by Mr Story, who writes me that he had a long passage from...
48From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 31 January 1815 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you a few lines on the day that the Treaty of Peace was signed, which I sent by Mr Hughes the Secretary of the American Mission, who was the bearer of one copy of the Treaty. A second copy was dispatched the next day by Mr: Carroll, who had been private Secretary to Mr Clay; and by him I, wrote a long Letter to my father—Mr Hughes embarked at Bordeaux in the Transit, the dispatch...
49From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 23 November 1814 (Adams Papers)
In my Letter of 22. of last Month, I mentioned to you my disappointment at having received no Letters from Quincy or from Boston, by the Dutch vessel, which sailed on the first of September, and arrived at the Texel—I had been equally disappointed a short time before, by the arrival of Mr Boyd from Washington, having left that City the 12th: of August, and bringing no Letters from you—He gave...
50From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 7 May 1815 (Adams Papers)
I have been with my friend Charles, and spent two days with General La Fayette, at his Country Seat of La Grange, about forty miles distant from this City—He resides there with his Children and Grand Children, forming a numerous and very amiable family. His son married a Mademoiselle de Tracy and has three daughters—His eldest daughter married a Mr de la Tour Maubourg, and has also three...