Mr Gurney having called on me yesterday, to give notice that he should quit your house next quarter day, and that he wished to settle with you as soon as possible, I have thought it best to write you my beloved friend, he having expressed a desire to leave it immediately, which I did not think you would approved; he mention’d not having it in his power to pay you at present, but will give you...
2From Abigail Smith Adams to John Quincy Adams, February 1809 (Adams Papers)
The Saturday after you left Boston, I went to Town, and brought up George. he went the next week to his uncle Cranch’s, and goes daily to school to mr Whitney. he appears well pleased, and learns to the Satisfaction of mr Whitney as I hear, who has put him into Lattin, which George Says is not so hard as French, in his French Bible his Aunt hears him daily. he is a Good Boy, save now and then,...
I intended to have written to you when at your own house or Office in Boston, but was prevented by the intense severity of the weather , added to the general ill health of both your & my family, during the whole time we sojourned under your Roof, which, by the assiduity of your wife & Catharine and the faithful attendance of their domesticks was made, in every respect, our own house . My...
Percieving from your last letter my beloved friend that you suffer great anxiety concerning Charles; I can with pleasure assure you, that he is very fat, very handsome, and apparently very well; though he still has the Cough which is sometimes very troublesome. Your Mother is recovering slowly and all the rest of our family are in good health— Your father was in Town yesterday and brought...
Your favour of the 9th my best friend which is the first letter I have recieved from you since you left me found the Family nearly recover’d restored to usual health excepting Charles whose Cough still afflicts him and whose eyes are again very much affected which renders me a little apprehensive of another attack this symptom having generally been a of a threatning nature however I hope for...
I hasten to answer the few lines I recieved from you this Morning to assure you that we are all rappidly recovering from the different indispositions which I mention’d in my last and I am regaining my strength I mention’d that my illness was owing to a kick but I find it is the opinion of the Dr. & Nurse that the injury which was very evident in the Child must have been done by a fall which I...
Your very Kind letter was sent to me yesterday Morning from Quincy and h as added to the anxiety of my mind from a conviction that the rappidity with which you travel’d has contributed very much Towards encreasing your cold of which I hope you will now take every possible care for my sake if not for your own— Our family are still invalids and Kitty does not recover as fast as I could wish your...
8From James Madison to John Quincy Adams, 10 February 1809 (Madison Papers)
Mr. Madison requests the pleasure of Mr. Adam’s company to dinner on Tuesday next at half past 3 o’clock. MHi .
Assured that a few lines from me will be acceptable to my best beloved friend on his arrival I seize the earliest opportunity of enquiring after his health and giving the pleasing information of the return to health of our darling Children Poor Kitty is suffers severely for her imprudence she has a large Blister on her side and though not absolutely confined to her Bed it almost amounts to it...
10From Orchard Cook to John Quincy Adams, 1 January 1809 (Adams Papers)
Mr. & Mrs. Cook ask leave to present to Mr. & Mrs. Adams the Compts. of the Season— Your Letters do much good, are treated with very great respect indeed —I think you have now more influence than when here—not mere opinions in which you deal very sparingly but the excellent Arguments & reasons you give for every conclusion— As I flatter myself with the Hope of more of your Favours embracing an...
11From Abigail Smith Adams to John Quincy Adams, 1808 (Adams Papers)
Those of the family who could not attend yesterday at Cambridge yesterday as well as those who did, are very desirious of reading the lecture. if you will be so good as to let William take it, to day, I will return it on Monday. I wish a few of the Reviews if you can spair them. I carried to Town yesterday your Shirt overalls & waistcoat & handkerchiefs which you left here. as mrs Adams was...
12From Samuel Allyne Otis to John Quincy Adams, 21 November 1808 (Adams Papers)
I enclose you certain communications from the Register Treay which I presume will meet your wishes in respect to settlement. Any farther attentions in my power you need make no reserves in commanding. Mr Hillhouse moved a few days past for repeal of embargo laws. The day was occupied by him & Mr Lloyd, in favr of repeal, & by Gen. Smith aga inst it. You can be at no loss to know how the...
13From Abigail Smith Adams to John Quincy Adams, April 1808 (Adams Papers)
A1tho I have not so frequently written to you It has not been oweing to Your having been less frequently in my Thoughts than formerly; I found it so difficult to determine from a partial view, what were the wisest and best measures for the government to pursue, in a day so dark, and in times so perilious, that Silence was best for me, after having once given my opinion upon a subject where we...
14From William Smith Shaw to John Quincy Adams, 15 April 1808 (Adams Papers)
I do myself the honour to send you with this Parson Gardners sermon—also a few more copies of your letter—There have been five thousand of them published here for circulation and five thousand more ordered from Salem— Mr. Atherton formerly of the house Cram Poor Atherton has requested me to mention his name to you for a n commission in the army if the selection should be left to the Senate as...
15From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 12 April 1808 (Adams Papers)
In your favour of March 25th. you express a hope that nothing like a distribution of Money, among the Principal Leaders of our Parties, has occurred or will occur, among Us. I agree with you in this hope and I will add that I Still entertain this belief. At least there is no one, on whom I can fasten even a Suspicion. But that foreign Money has been received by Sebastian, has been adjudged:...
16From Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 10 April 1808 (Adams Papers)
I received your favor of the 30th: ult. on the 7th: current and also the pamphlet containing the documents respecting the Chesapeake. I have read the whole with attention, and am particularly impressed with the concluding letter of Mr: Madison, which is universally admitted to be a very luminous and correct State paper. That it could not be answered or refuted, is very apparent from the...
17From William Smith Shaw to John Quincy Adams, 9 April 1808 (Adams Papers)
I had the honour to receive your letter to Mr Otis on Thursday evening last, and have attended to its publication, with as much expedition as possible—The printers have published an edition of a thousand copies and the sale of them commenced this morning and the whole are now disposed of. Oliver & Munroe are now printing a second edition of a thousand more on their own account and have...
18From Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 24 March 1808 (Adams Papers)
Although I have recently written you a letter of some length, I will not therefore refrain from a prompt acknowledgment of your favour of March 12th: which particularly deserves my thanks for the variety of intelligence it contains, of a nature not to be derived from any other source. The detail you have given of the various intrigues supposed to be in operation at head quarters and elsewhere...
19From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 18 March 1808 (Adams Papers)
Your luminous Letter of the 27th of Feb. and 6. March are is before me. Was this an homogenious Nation under a consolidated Government, the Provision in the Constitution of Massachusetts would be Sufficient. But in a Confederation like ours there is danger. In Holland they have thought unanimity necessary in all most every Thing. Under our old Confederation, a Concurrence of nine States out of...
20From Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 15 March 1808 (Adams Papers)
I have received from Messrs: Curtis & Adams to whom I sold your Wood near the Mill pond, the amount of price agreed for; viz $160.0. for forty Cords which it turned out on measurement. I am now some what perplexed with your farm, as well as my own. My Tenant says I must consider him this year, since times & prospects are so dull and no market for produce, and I expect the greater part of your...
21From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 5 March 1808 (Adams Papers)
Livy in his 42. Book and chapters 29 and thirty, as an introduction of his History of the War between the Romans and Perseus King of Macedonia, says that all the Kings and States of Europe and Asia had their Attention fixed upon those two powerfull Nations upon the Point of engaging in War. He first explains the Views of the Kings Eumenes, Prusias, Ariarathes, Antiochus, Ptolomy, Massinissa,...
22From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 19 February 1808 (Adams Papers)
In Answer to your Letter of the 27 of January I request you to make Provision for Advancing me, by Mr Shaw one thousand one hundred and twenty five dollars and fifty Cents, or thereabout, which is the amount of an Obligation I owe to Miss Thaxter, or if you choose and I think there is but one remaining due to that Family. Your Mother has written you on the Subject of Caucus’s. I am not of her...
23From Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 19 February 1808 (Adams Papers)
I received, Yesterday your favor of the 6th instant, for which I thank you. The letter, which upon mature consideration, I burnt, as I informed you in the cover of a letter from my Mother, sent a few days ago, was on the subject of the proposed alteration of the Constitution, as to the tenure of judicial Offices; but my ideas upon paper Suited me less than when they were revolving in my mind,...
24From Abigail Smith Adams to John Quincy Adams, 15 February 1808 (Adams Papers)
I take it for granted that you will neither in public or private Life do any thing which you are unwilling to own, or to affix your Name. I write to ask you if uninvited you attended the Caucus at Washington of which mr Bradley was President? It is not the scandalous publication in Jacksons Register at Philadelphia, which has induced me to ask this question, but because I have considerd it as...
25From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 12 February 1808 (Adams Papers)
Since you will not allow me the whole of Parson Nelsons Epithets for his Son I will insist upon retaining the better half of them. Nothing was farther from my intention than to underrate the Character of Admiral Nelson. I can Subscribe to all that you Say in his praise: yet I would not exchange Sons with the Parson, though the Admiral were still living with all his Wealth, Virtues, Titles and...
26From Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 24 January 1808 (Adams Papers)
You have been lately gratified with such copious communications from this quarter, that I have been the more remiss in mine, not wishing to encumber you with too much matter at once. We have read your Report to the Senate in the case of Mr: Smith, and the printed documents together with Mr: Smith’s vindication; but the volume of evidence communicated by the President I have not seen, and am...
27From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 17 January 1808 (Adams Papers)
As I know you hold a higher Rank in the intellectual Scale and a more estimable Situation in the moral Gradations of the Universe than Admiral Nelson, I know of no reason why I should not borrow his Fathers Epithets and for once or twice bestow them upon you. I, who perhaps ought to be indifferent to all Things in this World, and certainly Should conscientiously resign all Men Measures and...
Mr Peabody, & your Aunt, were much gratified last Fall, by a visit from your venerable Parents, who presented me with a Letter from you, requesting our parental care & attention to your eldest Son. With heartfelt pleasure, I received the precious Charge, considering it as a pledge of your regard, & former affection; & of the Opinion you still entertain of my Integrity, in discharging the...
29From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 8 January 1808 (Adams Papers)
The distance between Us, the total retirement in which I live and the Want of Facts, render a Correspondence between Us, upon public affairs of very little use to you, though it is a great pleasure to me. The Storm that has agitated the Elements for twenty Years in Europe must be drawing towards a Conclusion, and the last blasts may be the fiercest of all. We have been favoured by Providence...
30From Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 27 December 1807 (Adams Papers)
I returned from Dedham on Friday morning, and found your letter of the 14th. The Court of Common Pleas dispatched business rather faster than usual, on account of Christmas; but there was business enough left unfinished to have occupied a day or two more. I am glad to find you are satisfied with my sale of your wood—I believe, no body has done better since, though sundry lots have been...