51To John Adams from Ward Nicholas Boylston, 31 October 1821 (Adams Papers)
Tho’ you have not indulged me with the pleasure of hearing from you, since your return to Quincy, I have been comforted with the assurances of others, who have seen you, that you thought you were benefited by your excursion and sustaind the fatigues of your journey much better than you expected—every thing that contributes to exhilarate your comforts, or pleasures, adds to mine in a decuple...
52To John Adams from Ward Nicholas Boylston, 27 March 1826 (Adams Papers)
Your kind concern for me, fills me with deep feelings of gratitude—I am as yet confined to my Room, where I been suffering varieties of pain & debility in so much that in various stages, I began to consider I shd never have the happiness of seeing you again—but after a hard conflict the violent inflamation in my lungs, yielded to a constant blistering of more than five weeks—& would have been...
53From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Adams, 19 October 1818 (Adams Papers)
To say how much I was affected at not seeing you the day I left Boston would indeed be impossible as I supposed it was owing to the Woman’s having said we were at dinner that made you leave the house so suddenly and I could not bear the idea of your being refused admittance—I thank you very much for your very affectionate Letters which gave me the greatest pleasure and arrived so as to make me...
54From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Adams, 19 October 1819 (Adams Papers)
You who know with what painful sensations I saw you depart for College, can readily imagine how much my sufferings were encreased, when this hour arrived, in which I was to bid adieu to the home which had so kindly cherished me, where I enjoyed a felicity much beyond my deserts, and which has excited in my heart a sense of gratitude difficult to express. My poor companion with whom Doctor,...
55From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Adams, 12 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
It is now I suppose nearly a vacation time with you and you will take your flight to Quincy for a fortnight where you will no doubt enjoy yourself very much in the Society of your indulgent Grandfather and the family— Do tell me are there any hopes of Mrs. Clark’s forming a second connection—Beware of getting entangled in a quarrel with her during the vacation no matter from what cause or...
56To John Adams from Hezekiah Niles, July 1817 (Adams Papers)
After revolving upon some suitable apology for intruding myself with the following statement and request, I have thought it most respectful to decline offering any, expect to observe that if ought appears to your better judgement improper in either, that you will attribute it to any thing else than a willingness on my part to act so, in any respect towards you. For six years ending with the...
57To John Adams from Bellamy Storer, 18 May 1824 (Adams Papers)
The novelty of the occasion that produced the inclosed address, may furnish some apology for its publication, and it is now respectfully submitted to you, as some slight evidence that the people of the west are not confined in their inquiries to their rivers and prairis— Our celebrated theorist Capt Symmes, had delivered several lectures on the subject of a concave sphere, and at the close of...
58To John Adams from J. H. Tiffany, 18 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
Will you be pleased to accept of the accompanying political charts of 6 tables or sheets; & may I solicit your Suggestions of improvement & correction of the plan & matter? I hope, to be enabled to furnish a more ample & correct edition in 1821. The Appendix will contain matters not susceptible of tabular exhibition; & among other things, definitions of political terms to which certain &...
59To John Adams from Jacob Engelbrecht, 2 June 1824 (Adams Papers)
On the 15th. of March last I wrote unto you, requesting the favour of a Letter in your Own Hand writing, which I wished to preserve in honour of you, and after your death, to have it framed, But having received no answer I have Since thought that the Letter was miscarried,—At all-events, I would with due deference, again intrude on your patience, and would most humbly request of you, to favour...
60To John Adams from Thomas Jefferson, 1 June 1822 (Adams Papers)
It is very long, my dear Sir, since I have written to you. my dislocated wrist is now become so stiff that I write slowly and with pain, and therefore write as little as I can. yet it is due to mutual friendship to ask once in a while how we do? the papers tell us that Genl. Starke is off at the age of 93. Charles Thomson still lives at about the same age, chearful, slender as a grasshopper,...
61To John Adams from Ann Frances Bulkeley Humphreys, 4 June 1818 (Adams Papers)
It was the wish of my lamented Husband, that after his death, small tokens of his affection & remembrance should be presented to each of his dearest & most esteemed friends… this sacred request of his, must plead my apology to the most valued & most highly venerated of his friends & Patrons, for presuming to write to him this note, & offering him a little braid of General Humphrey’s Hair, with...
62To John Adams from Charles Francis Adams, 25 December 1825 (Adams Papers)
On this day, one which in this part of the country is considered much as Thanksgiving day is in New England, I beg leave to express my wishes for your welfare & comfort during the cold weather which accompanies the Season in which the festival comes. It is not properly speaking a festival this Year with us as it comes on a Sunday, but the family dinner which for years past hast happened at my...
63To John Adams from Thomas Jefferson, 13 November 1818 (Adams Papers)
The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of Oct. 20. had given me ominous foreboding. tried myself, in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. the same trials have taught me that, for ills so...
64To John Adams from William Tudor, Jr., 29 July 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have found since I had the honour of writing to you last, a book among my Fathers papers belonging to you.—There is also a note from the printer and a corrected copy of your inaugural speech which I in close— My mother & Mrs. Stewart went a few days since to Kennebec to pass a few weeks with my eldest sister, and where I have heard of their safe arrival—The Historical Society have deputed me...
65To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 24 September 1822 (Adams Papers)
You have been made acquainted with the controversy in which I have been for some Months engaged in relation to transactions at the Negotiation of Ghent. As the subject is one in which the defence of my own character and that of two of my Colleagues was inseparably connected with principles of deep concernment to this Union, I have thought it necessary to collect in one publication the papers...
66From John Adams to John Adams, 18 November 1823 (Adams Papers)
Your account of the first part of your journey, is quite as entertaining and instructive as is that of the latter part, recorded in your former letter. The seventy persons on board the steam boat who were obliged to sleep in mats covered with a blanket, reminded me of my excellent friend and physician, Dr Holbrook’s account of the treatment of the small pox in Canada when our Revolutionary...
67To John Adams from Richard Rush, 26 February 1822 (Adams Papers)
I must insist upon it, notwithstanding the authority of your veto, that the subject is truly a noble one for the painter. A great patriarch, one of the chief founders of his country’s liberties, the steady advocate of her rights at the courts of foreign potentates as well as in all departments at home, is permitted by a kind Providence to live as it were into posterity, beholding the vast...
68To John Adams from William Tudor, Jr., 26 February 1823 (Adams Papers)
I return you my sincere thanks for the kind opinions reiterated in your letter of the 17th. inst. and also for your obliging answers to my inquiries relative to Botta. Though I felt no disposition to engage further in biography, yet any suggestion coming from you cannot fail of engaging my earnest attention. Your recommendation therefore to take the lives of Samuel Adams & Josiah Quincy I have...
69To John Adams from Henry Dearborn, 16 March 1818 (Adams Papers)
In behalf of a numerous body of Citizens of Boston, we request your consent; to set for a Bust , in Marble, to be executed by an eminent Artist, now resident in that Town, to be placed in Faneuil Hall.— In soliciting your assent, to this tribute of our high Respect & Veneration, we are particularly influenced by a desire of transmitting to our Children, the Features of the Man, whose patriotic...
70To John Adams from Sylvester T. Goss, 3 July 1819 (Adams Papers)
I take the liberty to forward to you, six copies of Novanglus, &c. as a small token of the respect which I entertain for your exalted character, and of the gratitude, which I feel for your condescension, in furnishing such invaluable materials for this publication. That you may continue many years, in health and prosperity, to behold the rising glory, and receive the grateful approbation of...
71To John Adams from Johann Friedrich Daniel Lobstein, 21 October 1822 (Adams Papers)
To address so distinguished a personage is in a stranger a liberty perhaps unpardonable, but it is from a conviction that any effort, however feeble, that has a tendency to remove the unfavourable and erroneous impressions Europeans have imbibed of this Country, will meet your approbation, and induce you to pardon the writer for transmitting you the contents of his contemplated work—A...
72To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 6 July 1819 (Adams Papers)
I will not delay to Send you a few lines—in answer to your favour of June 24th—with which I was gratified—at my return from a Short excursion to the Oneyda Lake—when I went to bid a last farewell to a friend, decaying in mind and body—He can not be long here, neither is it desirable either for him or his Children—It is mr J. Bernhard—who followed my Steps from Europe; and whose worthy Son...
73To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 9 February 1825 (Adams Papers)
The enclosed note from Mr King, will inform you of the Event of this day, upon which I can only offer you , my congratulations, and ask your blessing and prayers. Your affectionate and dutiful Son P.S. Have the goodness to cause the Note from Mr King, to be sent back to me. MHi : Adams Papers.
74To John Adams from Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 27 January 1820 (Adams Papers)
27th. Jany Remained at home all the morning in the course of which twenty cards were left—At five oclock our dinner party began to assemble—we sat down 22 under the expectation of a formal & stiff kind of meal as the company were almost almost all strangers to us—but they were very animated and cheerful and before dinner was over you would have thought we had been acquainted many years—They...
75To John Adams from Harriet Welsh, 10 July 1821 (Adams Papers)
As Louisa informs me you choose to have my request addressed directly to yourself respecting a conversation between you Mr. S. Adams and others previous to the nomination of Gen Washington by you to the command of the army, during the revolution, I shall do it very briefly, by asking to have that conversation and the debate which ensued upon the nomination took place in Congress,—recorded by...
76To John Adams from Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 10 December 1818 (Adams Papers)
December 10 Recieved a charming visit from Mr. Bagot, who sat with me an hour and chatted very agreably. Not a word about Mrs. Hay—who is giving rise to a great deal of conversation about rank and station—She has assumed a tone with the Corps Diplomatique, which places them and herself in the most unpleasant disposition situation—I have been worried with enquiries about it, but have hitherto...
77To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 27 December 1825 (Adams Papers)
It is with an inexpressible delight, that I received and perused your affectionate Letter of the first of this month after a long Silence. I cannot expect, that I Should more often receive similar favours—I Shall continue thankful, if I am permitted to See these now and then. I mentioned the name of your grand Son George, the Son of the Judge, not knowing that he was already engaged in...
78To John Adams from Henry Whiting, 6 March 1826 (Adams Papers)
It is with great reluctance I presume to intrude upon your venerable retirement; but I am desirous, in common with some of my brother officers, of being informed of a fact, which probably can now be obtained from yourself alone.—In the Journal of the Continental Congress, under date Oct—1776, we observe that a committee, on which your name (as it does upon almost all others) appears, was...
79To John Adams from Hezekiah Niles, 19 May 1817 (Adams Papers)
I gratefully return to you the little pamphlet, & send with it a copy of the Register in which I have published it. I used the license you gave me, as to your letter in full, as well for an introduction to the sketch itself, as because I thought it might be of advantage to me. Many have been much gratified in reading that sketch—& I, indeed, rejoice at having had the pleasure to disseminate...
80To John Adams from William Tudor, Sr., 30 May 1817 (Adams Papers)
Your finale on Mr. Hutchinson’s Character was duly received. If I rightly remember, the Governor soon after dissolving the Provincial Assembly, retired or rather fled to England to shelter himself from the approaching Storm, & secure his hard earned Reward. The few Years of the revolutionary War which he lived must have embittered his declining Days marked by Neglect, & Disappointment....
81To John Adams from Lucius Horatio Stockton, 25 July 1818 (Adams Papers)
I take the liberty of introducing to Your acquaintance Samuel Southard Esqr a young man who for his extraordinary personal and literary merit was advanced to the Bench of the Supreme Court of our State at the early age of 28 years. He is son of Henry Southard Esqr one of our present members of Congress. He desires the honour of calling on you and I have but a few minutes notice of his intended...
82To John Adams from Edmund Rogers, 20 November 1823 (Adams Papers)
Knowing the interest you take in every improvement of a national character however humble the subject may be, deeming nothing beneath your notice which may tend to promote economy, encourage industry, or add to the independence of our Country—I have presumed to ask your acceptance of the Box herewith, containing a small sample of my domestic Coffee. The dearness of the foreign Coffee, has...
83To John Adams from Benjamin Guild, 4 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
The peculiar appropriatness of the enclosed letter, and the wish, often expressed by my mother, that you Could see it, induced Mrs Guild to Copy it, and is my apology for the liberty I take in sending it. The hope which, brightened the affection, and chastened the affliction, of Mr Jones, is also your hope. Such testimonies of the upholding power of the Almighty, to those who put their trust...
84From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Adams, 10 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have been so unwell the whole of this week my dear John, it has not been in my power to answer your Letter as soon as I wished—I observe all you say, and only answer that when you read Books worthy of remarks I will write you as fully as I do Charles who almost always gives me a subject—The Children of the Abbey, is a pretty thing, excessively romantic, but not calculated by any means to...
85To John Adams from John Manners, 19 October 1819 (Adams Papers)
I received, with peculiar gratification, your letters, together with the volume and other documents accompanying them, and am not insensible of the obligations under which you have laid me, by the kind attention with which you have been pleased to honour me. I have read with pleasure and interest your instructing letters and am satisfied of the correctness of your opinion respecting the...
86From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Adams, 18 August 1820 (Adams Papers)
As I have already said every thing on the subject of your last which was necessary I will only make one observation which is that reputation is always proved by actions and the less we say about generally the better we guard it and preserve it— You are now verging on the Vacation. Are you likely to have a brilliant Commencement? who are the graduates of Note?—Who makes an entertainment?—. We...
87Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 13 November 1818 (Jefferson Papers)
The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of Oct. 20. had given me ominous foreboding. tried myself, in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. the same trials have taught me that, for ills so...
88To John Adams from Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 14 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
It is always painful to be the bearer of bad tidings and yet it is a duty from which we cannot fly.—I have occasionally mentioned the dreadful state in which Lieut’ Clark has laid; that you might be prepared for that change, which was to release him from a world of suffering to a state of bliss—He terminated his life at eight o clock this morning after the most dreadful sufferings, but...
89To John Adams from Ward Nicholas Boylston, 26 August 1820 (Adams Papers)
Your affectionate Letter of the 10th. Instant, was rec’d while under a second, but more painfull relapse than the first; which reduced my Strength, flesh, & spirits so low as left me but faint hopes of recovery—I am however so far convalescent again as to walk from one Room to another & if no interveneing relapse takes place hope to be able to take the air in a few days. after a confinement to...
90To John Adams from William Cranch, 6 August 1823 (Adams Papers)
Accept my thanks for your kind letter of the 10th. of March last, and for all your other Kindnesses to me, to my parents, & to my sister; and believe me most sincerely, respectfully & affectionately, your grateful & obliged nephew MHi : Adams Papers.
91To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, September 1825 (Adams Papers)
Often when I labour in my garden,—and I do so usually from sunrise till its setting—I expatiate with you and your son in your delightful mansion. Soon everything around you shall brighten, you shall revive a while, when the president your son visits you. Indeed your last days appear to me your best days. Printed Source--Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, An Autobiography, Together with Extracts from...
92To John Adams from Alden Bradford, 1 November 1821 (Adams Papers)
I cannot say positively where the paper, I lately sent you, was found—There are here some files of letters &c. which were saved from the wreck of Governor Hutchinson’s library—I am inclined to think, I found it among them—But why should he have it? Perhaps his friend, to whom it was addressed, gave him a copy—This is probably a copy—there being no signature to it—By your remarks, I perceive...
93To John Adams from Timothy M. Cooley, 9 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
Permit the undersigned most respectfully to inform you that a Gentleman in our vicinity has made a donation to establish a Library for the benefit of the youth in this Village and as an appendage to a Classical School established here; and we have also been gratified gratuitously by several Authors and Editors of periodical publications with their several productions— We now Sir have presumed...
94To John Adams from Rosseter Cotton, 9 November 1824 (Adams Papers)
William Davis Esqr. was in my Office, with the lady of the Hon: Josiah Quincy looking in the Colony records, Mr. Davis mentioned to me that you decended from Capt: Miles Standish and he thought you would be pleased to see his will, after he left the office, I directed my Clerk to copy it, I compared and certified it to be a true copy, and inclosed it in a letter to you, and gave it to Mr....
95To John Adams from Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 13 May 1820 (Adams Papers)
13 Went out to the Capitol to see the Senate with the Ladies after which we visited the Library and took another view of Trumbulls picture—This performed we next went to the Navy Yard—examined the famous Monument—took a look at the Frigate now on the Stocks and after gazing until we were satisfied returned home to dine—In the evening we all went to the French Ministers and passed a charming...
96To John Adams from Thomas Jefferson, 15 August 1820 (Adams Papers)
I am a great defaulter, my dear Sir, in our correspondence, but prostrate health rarely permits me to write; and, when it does, matters of business imperiously press their claims. I am getting better however, slowly, swelled legs being now the only serious symptom, and these, I believe, proceed from extreme debility. I can walk but little; but I ride 6. or 8. miles a day without fatigue; &...
97To John Adams from Thomas Jefferson, 15 May 1819 (Adams Papers)
your letter of Apr. 2. was recieved in due time, and I have used the permission it gave me of sending a copy of that of Mar. 2. to the editor of Tracy’s Political economy. Mr. S. A. Wells of Boston, grandson of our old friend Saml. Adams, and who proposes to write the life of his grandfather, has made some enquiries of me relative to revolutionary antiquities which are within your knolege as...
98To John Adams from Aaron Clark, 16 February 1820 (Adams Papers)
Please permit me the honor of enclosing you my prospectus for a most useful and necessary work. I have spent too much upon it and can only hope to print it without great loss. I should be very much gratified indeed by the aid of a recommendation from you: and I should be still more so, by receiving it soon. Ever your friend / indeed & very Huml. / st. P.S. If Mr. Adams should think it...
99From John Adams to John Adams, 16 October 1824 (Adams Papers)
Your frolicsome letter of the 10th of October has come to hand this morning and amidst the sinking and fainting infirmities of age has given me a temporary flash of spirits and has tirminated in the solid comfort of the arrival of your father and Mother and Miss Mary at Washington after tot et tanta discrimina rerum. The ladies must have had a severe trial your Mother is so much in the habit...
100To John Adams from George Hebb, 27 May 1824 (Adams Papers)
You may have observed by the Boston Patriot of the 18th: Inst: that Henry V. Somerville Esqr. had been selected, as an Elector as President & Vice-President, friendly to the Election of John Q. Adams Esq, for the District composed of Baltimore County—He called upon me some Days since and requested that I would furnish him with a List of the Most prominent Appointments and Acts of John Quincy...