Thomas Jefferson Papers
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John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 11 December 1814

From John Adams

Quincy December 11. 1814

Dear Sir

The Bearer of this Letter, after an Education at our Cambridge, travelled with J.Q.A. to Russia, Spent two years in looking at parts of Europe, returned to Boston, read Law with one of our first Professors in Boston, is admitted to the Bar, and now Wishes to have the honour of Seeing Montecello and paying his respects to President Jefferson. His Name is Francis C. Gray a Son of our Lt Governor Gray.

If he can explain to you the incomprehensible Politicks of New England, he can do more than I Shall or can pretend to do.

Paine Lovel and Gerry are gone and I am left alone. Gerry is happy in his Death; for what horrors of Calumny has he not escaped in the Electioneering campaigne of next Summer? But what is to be the destiny of an amiable Widow and nine Children all as amiable as they are destitute?

John Adams

RC (DLC); at foot of text: “President Jefferson”; endorsed by TJ as received 4 Feb. 1815 from “mr Gray” and so recorded in SJL. FC (Lb in MHi: Adams Papers).

j.q.a.: John Quincy Adams. Francis C. Gray had studied law with one of our first professors in boston, William Prescott (Marjorie B. Cohn, Francis Calley Gray and Art Collecting for America [1986], 38). Three of Adams’s Massachusetts colleagues at the Continental Congress had died during the preceding six months, Robert Treat paine, James Lovell (lovel), and Elbridge gerry (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ).

Index Entries

  • Adams, John; introduces F. C. Gray search
  • Adams, John; letters from search
  • Adams, John; on deaths of Revolutionary colleagues search
  • Adams, John Quincy; minister plenipotentiary to Russia search
  • education; professional search
  • Gerry, Ann Thompson (Elbridge Gerry’s wife) search
  • Gerry, Elbridge (1744–1814); death of search
  • Gerry, Elbridge (1744–1814); family of search
  • Gray, Francis Calley; education of search
  • Gray, Francis Calley; introduced to TJ search
  • Gray, Francis Calley; travels of search
  • Gray, William; as Mass. lieutenant governor search
  • Jefferson, Thomas; Correspondence; letters of introduction to search
  • Lovell, James; death of search
  • New England; politics in search
  • Paine, Robert Treat (1731–1814); death of search
  • politics; in New England search
  • Prescott, William; J. Adams on search