John Adams to Abigail Adams, 30 April 1794

John Adams to Abigail Adams

Philadelphia April 30. 1794

My dearest Friend

Your favours of 18th. and 19th instant are so full of your Plans and Labours in Agriculture, that I begin to be jealous you will acquire a Reputation as a Farmer that will quite eclypse my own.

I rejoice at length that all Tenants are dispossessed and that Land stock and Utensils are now at our own Disposal.— I am glad you have bought a Yoke of oxen and hope you will buy a farm horse.

Our Thomas is fitted off with Horses saddle Bridle and Saddle Bags and on Monday last sett off upon the Circuit with Mr Ingersol— He will be absent Six Weeks. He goes to Chester Lancaster York Carlisle &c

Mr Trumbull our Friend the Painter goes with Mr Jay as his private Secretary.1

I send you an illiberal Party Pamphlet or two2 and am tenderly

John Adams

Has Mr Cranch opend his Post office?3

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A.”

1. John Jay particularly requested that artist John Trumbull serve as his private secretary on Jay’s mission to Britain. He believed that Trumbull’s “acquaintance with the characters and things of London” would be of greater use to him than the skills of a lawyer or trained clerk. They sailed together in May (Stahr, John Jay, description begins Walter Stahr, John Jay: Founding Father, New York, 2005. description ends p. 317–319).

2. The pamphlets have not been found but were possibly John Taylor, A Definition of Parties; or, The Political Effects of the Paper System Considered, Phila., 1794, Evans, description begins Charles Evans and others, American Bibliography: A Chronological Dictionary of All Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Publications Printed in the United States of America [1639–1800], Chicago and Worcester, 1903–1959; 14 vols. description ends No. 26861; and William Findley, A Review of the Revenue System Adopted by the First Congress under the Federal Constitution … In Thirteen Letters to a Friend, Phila. 1794, Evans, description begins Charles Evans and others, American Bibliography: A Chronological Dictionary of All Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Publications Printed in the United States of America [1639–1800], Chicago and Worcester, 1903–1959; 14 vols. description ends No. 26973; see AA to JA, 10 May, below.

3. Richard Cranch was appointed the first postmaster for the town of Quincy in 1793 (Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, description begins John Langdon Sibley, Clifford K. Shipton, Conrad Edick Wright, Edward W. Hanson, and others, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge and Boston, 1873– . description ends 11:374).

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Source Project: Adams Papers
Title: John Adams to Abigail Adams, 30 April 1794
Author: Adams, John
Recipient: Adams, Abigail
Date: 30 April 1794

Reference

Cite as: “John Adams to Abigail Adams, 30 April 1794,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-10-02-0092. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 10, January 1794 – June 1795, ed. Margaret A. Hogan, C. James Taylor, Sara Martin, Hobson Woodward, Sara B. Sikes, Gregg L. Lint, and Sara Georgini. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011, p. 158.]

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