1From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 4 March 1809 (Adams Papers)
If I could dream as much Wit as you, I think I should wish to go to Sleep for the rest of my Life, retaining however one of Swifts Flappers to awake me once in 24 hours to dinner, for you know without a dinner one can neither dream nor Sleep. Your Dreams descend from Jove, according to Homer. Though I enjoy your Sleeping Wit and acknowledge your unequalled Ingenuity in your dreams, I cannot...
2From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 14 March 1809 (Adams Papers)
Your Anecdotes are always extreamly Aprospros and none of them more So than those in your Letter of Mar 2d The King of Spain who attempted to purify the Streets of Madrid was the Father and the Grand father of the two Animals now in Napoleons Menagerie. And the only bon mot that ever I heard of him was upon that occasion. He Said “his good People of Madrid were like Babies who having dirtied...
3From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 March 1809 (Adams Papers)
I agree with Sidney as quoted in your favour of the 13th. That civil War is preferable to Slavery and I add that foreign War and civil War together at the Same time are preferable to Slavery. We hear very often declamations on the demoralizing tendency of War, but as much as I hate War, I cannot be of the opinion, that frequent Wars are So corrupting to human Nature as long Peace. In a Peace...
4From James Madison to Benjamin Rush, 30 March 1809 (Madison Papers)
I have been prevented from acknowledging, as soon as I could have wished, your kind favor of the 13th. inst. Under the circumstances my fellow Citizens have thought proper to place me, it is particularly grateful to me, to enjoy the good wishes of the most enlightened and virtuous among them: and above all of those whose long and personal acquaintance gives peculiar value to their favorable...
5From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 12 April 1809 (Adams Papers)
Thank you for your favor of the 1st. I might have quoted Job as well as St Paul, as a Precedent: but as I mix Religion with Politicks as little as possible, I chose to confine myself to Cicero. you advise me to write my own Life. I have made Several Attempts but it is so dull an Employment that I cannot endure it. I look So much like a Small Boy in my own Eyes that with all my Vanity I cannot...
6From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 12 April 1809 (Adams Papers)
I rejoice to find that Pensilvania has returned to reason and Duty in the affair of the Miss Writtenhouses. Our Massachusetts Legislature have not gone So far as yours did: but they have gone too far. I rejoice too at the Honourable Acquittal of your worthy Brother, but lament the Allarming Attack upon the choicest Institution of Liberty the Tryal by Jury. Without this there can be no legal...
7From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 7 June 1809 (Adams Papers)
Your Letters are not apt to lie a month unacknowledged. That of May 5th. is before me since which I have recd. an Aurora under your envellope. I thank you for both. Thanks too for your sons inaugural Dissertation. I wish him success in his studies Travels and Practice. May he become as eminent, as skilful, as humane, as virtuous and as successful as his father. I rejoice that your son Richard...
8From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 22 June 1809 (Adams Papers)
A thousand thanks to Richard for his Auroras and ten thousand to you for your Letter of the 14th. I am not subject to low spirits, but if I was one of your Letters would cure me at any time for a Month. Voltaires Brain I shall never get out of mine. It will make me laugh whenever I think of it. The Jews and Nonotte have pickled his Brain in a more durable Manner and kept it in a more perfect...
9From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 7 August 1809 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your favour of July 26 and its Enclosures. You have frequently, in a most friendly manner advised me to write my own Life.—I Shall never have Resolution or Time to accomplish Such a Work: but having been called before the Publick most undesignedly and unexpectedly, and excessively reproached with one of the wisest most virtuous most successfull and most important Actions of my...
10From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 31 August 1809 (Adams Papers)
If I were not as disinterested as a Patriot, I should answer every Line from you as soon as recd. in order to get another. Your favour of Aug. 14 is yet, to my Grief unacknowledged. Neither Colonel Duane nor any other Newspaper will follow me through the long Journey I have undertaken. I am not certain that the Patriot will have Patience and Perseverance enough. In short I shall be so tedious...
11From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 1 September 1809 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for yours of Aug. 25 and the Papers enclosed. They are very high and very warm. You pretend that you have outlived your Patriotism; but you deceive yourself. Your feelings contradict your Assertions. You can never get rid of your Amor Patriæ and attachment to your Natale solum. At your age and mine it would perhaps be better for our Tranquility if we could outlive all our public...
12Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 22 September 1809 (Jefferson Papers)
I have long owed you a letter in answer to yours of May 3. an acknolegement of the reciept of the pamphlet on the use of the Omentum, & congratulations on the satisfaction you must derive from having a son, entering, under auspices so promising, the career you have run before him. I am not learned enough in these branches of science to decide on the soundness of the hypothesis maintained in...
13From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 27 September 1809 (Adams Papers)
I recd. in course yours of the 7th. Fox was a remarkable Character. I admire the Morsell of History. Pitt was another. he has left nothing but speeches taken down by stenographers. I cannot pronounce either of them wise statesmen: yet perhaps they were as wise as they could be in their Circumstances. Great Men they both were, most certainly. Pitt I think was more correct in his Knowledge of...
14From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 8 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
Bacon the great Bacon was fond of Paradoxes. What could The Old Hunks mean by Great Men having neither Ancestors nor Posterity? Was not Isaac the son and Jacob the Grand son and Joseph the Great Grandson of Abraham? Was not Julius Cæsar the Posterity of the Anchises and Eneas? Was not King William the Posterity of the Great William Prince of orange and of the still greater Admiral Coligni? Was...
15From James Madison to Benjamin Rush, 23 October 1809 (Madison Papers)
I duly recd. the two pamphlets which you were so obliging as to inclose me; and had hoped ere this to have had the pleasure of reading them. From a glance at a few pages of the one on the Judiciary subject, I perceive that is very handsomely written at least. The subject of the other I have no doubt is handled in the elegant and philosophical manner so familiar to the pen of the Author. It is...
16From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 25 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
I received yesterday your new Edition on Animal Life and Madam read it in the evening to me and all the Family, to the great delight and Edification of Us all. Whether it is all solid or not we can not say: but there are Ideas enough thrown out to excite and employ the attention and Investigation of all the Philosophers, Physicians and Surgeons. Accept of all our Thanks for this favour....
17From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 December 1809 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for the pleasing account of your Family in your favour of the 5th. As I take a lively interest in their Prosperity and Felicity, your relation of it gave me great Pleasure. We have Letters from our Colony navigating the Baltic, dated at Christiansand. They had been so far as prosperous, healthy and happy as such Traveller’s could expect to be. Pope said of my Friend General...
18From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 January 1810 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for “the light and Truth” as I used to call the Aurora, which you sent me. You may descend in a Calm, but I have lived fifty years in a storm, and shall certainly die in one. I never asked my son any questions about the Motives, Designs or Objects of his Mission to Petersbourg. If I had been weak enough to ask, He would have been wise enough to be silent; for although a more dutiful or...
19From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 11 February 1810 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for yours of the first and the two Packetts. Who are they who furnish the Aurora with Such an infinite quantity and Variety of Compositions? There must be many hands, of no small Capacity or Information. In one you Sent me before, there was an Anecdote of a Plan of Washington to attack Philadelphia which was communicated to General How by a Person in his Confidence. The Narrator affirms...
20From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 14 May 1810 (Adams Papers)
What can I say to my Friend in return for his Letter of 26th of April? My Grief for the Melancholy Fate of my Friend John is only equalled by My Sympathy with his amiable Family. In the midst of Grief remember Mercy. Richard remains to you as well as another Son, and several Daughters who do honor to their Parents and their Country. Oh that John had imitated the Example of his Father, and...
21From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 28 June 1810 (Adams Papers)
I acknowledge my fault in neglecting to answer two or three of your last favours. I now thank you for the Letters and the “Light and Truth” as I ought used to call the Aurora. What are We to think of all these Adventurers? Tom Paine, Cobbet Duane Carpenter, Walsh, Bristed? with twenty &cas. Are they all Sent out here, by Administration or opposition, French or English, Scotch or Irish? Our...
22From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 6 August 1810 (Adams Papers)
Your Exhortation to Punctuallity and your Tic doulourouse had scarcely been read to my Family before a Lady Mrs. Quincy came in and took them away. This Lady, one of the best and wisest, had a Relation Mrs Sturgis afflicted with this tormenting Tic, to whom She carried your Pamphlet, who has circulated it in Boston, till I am told every Physician in Boston has read it. I have heard of two...
23From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 1 September 1810 (Adams Papers)
I have been entertained and diverted with the humour and the Wit of my Old Friend O Brian as you call him. The Jackass and the Cow, are most excellent Animals in their place and in their own sphere. None more useful. But neither is very well qualified for Legislators or Politicians: or to pursue the figure and hunt down the Allegory. Neither would make a figure at the new Markett Races, or in...
24From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 16 September 1810 (Adams Papers)
I am much obliged by your favour of the 8th. Oh how I wish, I had time to write, and you Patience to read The Anecdots I could dictate concerning “Chapmans” in New England! all “able bodied Men.” I deceived you a little by an Inference of my own from what The Edinborough Reviewers had written. I know not that they have mentioned you by Name or your Works by their Titles: but I read in them “If...
25From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 13 October 1810 (Adams Papers)
Mrs Adams Says She is willing you Should discredit Greek and Latin, because it will destroy the foundation of all the Pretensions of the Gentlemen to Superiority over the Ladies, and restore Liberty, Equality and Fraternity between the Sexes. What does Mrs Rush think of this? Hobbes calumniated the Classicks, because they filled young Mens heads with Ideas of Liberty, and excited them to...
26From James Madison to Benjamin Rush, 29 October 1810 (Madison Papers)
The Bearer, Alfred Madison, a son of my brother, labours under a complaint, which being thought to require the best advice, has produced a resort to yours. You will best understand the nature of it from his own explanations, and your examination of it. His friends take the greater interest in his case, as he join⟨s⟩ to a capacity, beyond the ordinary rate in the opinion of his tutors, very...
27From James Madison to Benjamin Rush, 6 November 1810 (Madison Papers)
I thank you for the “Report” on the African Trade, accompanying your favor of the 29th. We have been for some time aware of the evasions of the Act of Congs. on this subject; by means of foreign flags &c procured by our Citizens. But it is very difficult to bring the offenders to justice here; and the foreign Govts. with which the task lies, have not employed their authority for the purpose....
28From James Madison to Benjamin Rush, 18 December 1810 (Madison Papers)
Letter not found. 18 December 1810, Washington. Offered for sale in Parke-Bernet Catalogue No. 484, “The Alexander Biddle Papers” (1943), pt. 2, item 202, which notes that the one-page letter of about one hundred words “regards his nephew who was ill, and is consoled that he is receiving the attention of Dr. Rush and Dr. Physick.”
29From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 27 December 1810 (Adams Papers)
It was but yesterday that I was able to obtain the inclosed Review of Works of Mr Ames, which you or rather your Son wished to See. You and I, are So much better employed that I presume Political Pamphlets are Beneath your Notice as well as mine. You are employed in healing the sick and extending the Empire of Science and Humanity. I, in reading Romances in which I take incredible Delight. I...
30From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 27 December 1810 (Adams Papers)
I Sent my Wife to the Post Office this morning with a Letter to you inclosing a Review of Fisher Ames, and as she brought me back yours of the 21, you will receive this by the Same mail. I am well and my good Madam is well at the present Hour but She is a Weather Glass. I am afraid your Prejudices are too fixed to be removed by any Arguments: but I do not find that you make many Proselytes. In...