Adams Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-13-02-0178

John Adams to Abigail Adams, 13 January 1799

John Adams to Abigail Adams

Phyladelphia Jan. 13. 1799

My Dearest Friend

I thank God, it is now in my power to give you the pleasure you desired of receiving from me a chearful Letter. This Moment they brought me from the Post Office a Letter from our dear Thomas dated the 12 informing me of his Arrival at New York. He will come on to Phyladelphia and only laments that he cannot have the pleasure of embracing both his Parents at once. His Passage has not been uncommonly long tho the Weather must have been turbulent enough. From the bottom of my heart I rejoice at this happy Event, which has dissipated a gloom which hung over and surrounded me. Both the N. York News papers announce his arrival in a pleasing Style, for which I give them credit.1 You must be patient and not be too much in Haste to embrace him. He must stay with me, sometime. We will write you all our Plans and Speculations. We have had a thaw and long rains for many days which must have injured the Roads so that I cannot foresee when he will arrive but I hope it will be soon enough to dance at the Ball, which will be on Wednesday night the 16th.2

At a time when I am necessarily deprived of the Company of all the rest of my Family I consider this Arrival as a Choice Blessing and a great Consolation.

You will have recd a Letter from him no doubt before this will reach you,—think of Us and rejoice with Us.

I dont wonder that Mr Cranch is disposed to see his Interpretation of the Prophecies confirmed. The twelve hundred and thirteenth or fourteenth Year of the Hegira approches near the End of the 1260 days— Less than half a Century has Mahomet to be believed a Prophet, according to Mr Cranch.3 But I have not time. Yours / with unabated Affection

J. A

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A”; endorsed: “J A Jan’ry 13 / 1799.”

1The New-York Gazette and the New York Daily Advertiser, 12 Jan., reported TBA’s arrival; the latter added, “We give him a cordial welcome to his native shores, and we congratulate our country on the return of one of her most promising Sons.”

2A ball in honor of JA was held on 16 Jan. at the New Theatre in Philadelphia. The theater was elaborately decorated for the occasion, with a temporary floor built over the orchestra pit to accommodate several hundred attendees. Upon JA’s arrival the band played the “President’s March,” and toasts were offered to “the Government and its supporters,” to the city of Philadelphia, and to the military, among others (Philadelphia Gazette, 17 Jan.; Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 17 Jan.).

3In a 4 Jan. letter to JA (Adams Papers), AA wrote that Richard Cranch’s “whole system is about to be fullfilld in Spight of Pater Wests predictions.” Rev. Samuel West believed that biblical prophecies pointed to the end of the pope’s reign in 1813. However, others calculated that the end of 1,260 years of rule by the Roman Catholic Church would occur at the end of the eighteenth century, and they believed that view was vindicated by the French victory over Rome and the exile of Pope Pius VI in Feb. 1798. JA was also referencing the Islamic year of 1213 and the belief that Islam would also fall in its 1,260th year (Sprague, Annals Amer. Pulpit description begins William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit; or, Commemorative Notices of Distinguished American Clergymen of Various Denominations, New York, 1857–1869; 9 vols. description ends , 8:43; Michael Lienesch, “The Role of Political Millennialism in Early American Nationalism,” Western Political Quarterly, 36:446–452 [Sept. 1983]; Cambridge Modern Hist. description begins The Cambridge Modern History, Cambridge, Eng., 1902–1911; repr. New York, 1969; 13 vols. description ends , 8:637–638; George Stanley Faber, A Dissertation on the Prophecies … Relative to the Great Period of 1260 Years, 2 vols., London, 1806, 1:iii–iv).

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