1John Quincy Adams and Louisa Catherine Adams to Abigail Adams and John Adams, 28 July 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have now the happiness of presenting to you another daughter, worthy as I fully believe of adding one to the number of those who already endear that relation to you.— The day before yesterday united us for life. My recommendation of her to your kindness and affection I know will be unnecessary. My sentiment of her merit, will not at this moment especially boast its impartiality , but if...
2John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 7 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received a few days ago your kind letter written at East Chester Nov r: 4. and am very thankful for it. The circumstance of my not having mentioned to you my expectation of being married was merely accidental, or owing to the uncertainty as to the time when that event should take place, which continued until a few weeks before it happened. I am very sorry that it should have given you a...
3John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 12 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
And is it possible that my charming friend should feel an uneasy sentiment a sentiment of fear in sitting down to write to me: to me, the friend of her Heart, who would rather suffer a thousand torments than give her a moment of pain?— I am really ashamed of myself for having by morose expressions chilled the feelings of a breast which was formed for the reception of none but warm and kind,...
4John Quincy Adams to Joshua Johnson, 11 October 1797 (Adams Papers)
I received your obliging letter dated in Margate Roads just before your departure. I had indeed long observed your distress and that of your family. I was not particularly acquainted with its causes, nor was it a subject upon which I thought it proper or necessary to enquire You expected that the step upon which you determined would expose you to censure; but as you observe you thought it the...
5John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 14 February 1801 (Adams Papers)
I last week informed you that I had withdrawn from Amsterdam all the stocks I held there, and had remitted to M r: King, in London fourteen hundred pounds sterling, for which I authorised you to draw, and requested you to place the proceeds in the most advantageous manner; but not in any institution or fund depending upon our national Union; for the generality of our Countrymen are so far from...
6John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams, 1 August 1798 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you on the 14 of February a letter, which I am informed you have received, but to which no answer from you has yet reached me. Nor have I since it was written received a line from you. I must again repeat the request that you would give me immediate information concerning the property which I have entrusted to you. I have also to request that you would not draw upon Mess rs: Willing of...
7John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 31 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have received my kind friend’s letters of 3 d , 16 th: and 19 th: of May, and am impatiently waiting to hear from you and your father again. I am going this day on a tour to Amsterdam, where I shall make the arrangements for my immediate departure; so that I shall probably not remain here long enough to receive your reply to this Letter. There are many difficulties in the way of any...
8John Quincy Adams to Catherine Nuth Johnson, 28 May 1799 (Adams Papers)
I received some time ago your favour of 29 January which I did not immediately answer, from an apprehension that a letter from me without one at the same time from my Louisa, or at least without some satisfactory information concerning the state of her health would give you more concern than pleasure— She was then unwell, and a few days after, met again with a misfortune which had already...
9John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 2 June 1797 (Adams Papers)
I arrived here last Evening and this morning received your cover, enclosing the Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury.— There are Letters here from America, as late as the 29 th: of April. M r: Murray had then sailed so that he may be looked for every day. I have not yet seen M r: Damen, and of course have made no arrangements. I shall make none immediately for my own departure. I feel a...
10John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 16 July 1800 (Adams Papers)
I cannot send you a duplicate without adding a line to it; for there is a pleasure in knowing that our distant friends are well, though but one day later than we have already heard from them We have been spending several days at Charlottenburg with D r Brown’s family, and Louisa’s health which never fails to droop at Berlin in the summer, has derived benefit from it— To morrow morning we set...
11John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 6 June 1797 (Adams Papers)
“Our difficulties ended”!— Be it so.— But Faith is not one of the articles of which I possess a remarkable store.— I wish you may never have reason to consider as the commencement of difficulties, what you now regard as their termination. We shall have the means of conveyance to Lisbon.— Such as will perfectly well suit me; and such as you are willing to take up with.— But I do not like [to...
12To George Washington from John Quincy Adams, 29 October 1798 (Washington Papers)
I have the honor to enclose herewith, a letter from a young Gentleman who bears your name, and who flatters himself with being (though distantly) related to you. He is by birth an Hollander, but of a family originally English, which went over from England, and settled in the United Netherlands, sometime near the beginning of the present century. At the commencement of the present War, he...
13John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams, 29 September 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have given to our brother Thomas a general power of Attorney to transact all business on my behalf within the United States. I have therefore to request you to account with him for all my property in your hands amounting to four thousand dollars, and the interest upon that sum, for more than two years, as appears by your letters to me, and by information from Doctor Welsh, that you have made...
14John Quincy Adams to Thomas Baker Johnson, 31 July 1797 (Adams Papers)
Though I have not hitherto enjoyed the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with you, I have long since learnt to participate in the warm affection which a most amiable and worthy family, to which you belong, bear towards you, and at this time after having formed and solemnized, the tenderest and dearest of all human connections with your beloved sister, Louisa, I am happy in deriving from it...
15John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 2 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
I am very much gratified to find by your favour of the 26 th: that your Journey from Brussels was so pleasant, and that you are so well satisfied with what you had seen.— I shall request Mess rs: Moliere to extend your credit with their correspondents at Paris. There is a Danish vessel going to Lisbon from Amsterdam in the course of three weeks or a month. I shall go to Amsterdam in a few days...
16John Quincy Adams and Thomas Boylston Adams to Catherine Nuth Johnson, 13 July 1798 (Adams Papers)
I hope the enclosed letter from my dear Louisa, will be more fortunate in its passage than those which she wrote you from Hamburg, and upon her recovery from illness after her arrival here. Several of our Letters have failed and it gives us much pain to find that those which we wrote to you, were particularly among the unsuccessful number.— I hope however that even before this you have the...
17John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 9 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
Mess rs: Moliere, will this day extend your credit with their correspondent at Paris, to the amount of 4000 livres more. This I presume will amply suffice for your occasions. I requested you by my last letter, to be here not later than the 25 th: of this month. There is to be a Ball on that day at the Hotel de Suéde. The Count desires me to tell you, that you will be very much wanted as a...
18John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams, 14 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you on the 25 of October & 29 of Dec r: 1796. & on the 14 th: of May & 1 st: of August of the last year. All these letters excepting that of 14 May, related to my affairs in your hands.— I have never received any answer whatever to either of them. That of 29 Dec r: I think must have miscarried, but I have long since received answers from other persons, to letters which went by the same...
19John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 19 June 1800 (Adams Papers)
Your letter by M r: Paleske of 28 Feb y: though short gave me great pleasure as it was so long since I had enjoyed that of seeing your hand-writing— I have indeed no right to expect that you should have leisure to write me at large upon any subject, and know that a free communication of your sentiments cannot be indulged, upon public topics.— With regard to private concerns it more properly...
20John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 22 July 1797 (Adams Papers)
Three or four days after the date of my last Letter, which was from Maassluys, and while I was yet wind bound there, M r: Murray, informed me that by private Letters from a friend he understood that my destination was changed from Lisbon to Berlin. On the 9 th: inst t: I sailed from Maassluys, and arrived here at the Adelphi, on the 12 th: Soon after, M r: King delivered to me your Letter of...
21John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 25 November 1800 (Adams Papers)
Many months have pass’d since I received a line from you, or from my dear mother. From my brother Thomas I have no letter of a later date than July, and from the department of State I have but one dated since last February.— Perhaps I am to impute the greater part of this seeming oblivion of my american correspondents to my own remissness during the last winter— For six months however I have...
22John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1799 (Adams Papers)
I received not untill last Evening your kind favour of Feb y: 10. which however is the latest date that I have from you, and this circumstance is of itself sufficient to give me great concern respecting the state of your health— The Boston Newspapers in April, mention likewise that you were again ill; but I have some comfort in hearing by a letter from D r: Welsh to his son, that you were...
23John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams, 1 August 1797 (Adams Papers)
Upon my arrival at this place, about three weeks since, I received your kind letter of June 8 th: which was the first line, I have had from you these many months, and it needed not that circumstance to render it highly valuable. You do not however mention in it the receipt of several letters, which I have written you, and which I hope have not miscarried in the conveyance. Among the rest, that...
24John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 30 October 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have received your’s of the 26 th: enclosing one for M r: Welsh— I now forward those Letters for America, with which I threatened you in my last.— Of all the news which you believed or expected to believe, the only parts likely to be confirmed, are the capture of the Leander, with Captain Berry, on board, and of the two french frigates by the Colossus.— The burning of the transports in the...
25John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 6 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
Upon receiving this morning your Letter of the 21 st: of last month, I recurred to mine of the 7 th: in answer to which it was written. I was not conscious of being displeased at your reading Chesterfield’s Letters, or at your having mentioned it to me.— But in reading over my own letter again, I am not surprized at your having taken it in that light.— No, my ever dear, and valued friend, I am...
26John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 25 May 1800 (Adams Papers)
The latest letters I have had the pleasure of receiving from you are of January 5. and Feb y: 8. But M r: Paleske has arrived at London on his way hither, and I expect to see him here in the course of a few days— He informs me that he has letters for me from you. A longer time has elapsed since I wrote you last than I can apologize for with propriety; it is possible that at some future day I...
27John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 26 June 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have not written to you, since receiving your very kind Letter of 3 d: March. though I received it almost a month ago. I have determined finally to go by the way of England; you will readily conceive that this circumstance together with the necessary attention to the preparations for my departure from this Country, and since the arrival of M r: Murray, the arrangements for introducing him to...
28John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 3 December 1800 (Adams Papers)
I had been almost three months without receiving a line from you, or from any other of my correspondents in America; and although upon coolly considering circumstances I was sensible that this was the natural fruit of my own neglect of writing during the last Winter, yet as one’s feelings never make the allowances which sober reason requires, I began to think it strange to be so long without...
29John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 26 July 1800 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday morning early we took our departure from Freystadt, & came to this place; a distance of eight german miles; five of which are in single stage from Sprotau here— The face of the country has visibly & greatly improved as we came along; & although we still had to wade through miles of sands more, or less deep, we were frequently relieved by patches of good roads, & by beautiful fields...
30John Quincy Adams to Joshua Johnson, 10 December 1800 (Adams Papers)
It is so long since I did myself the pleasure of writing to you, that I scarcely know how to apologize for the omission; and unfortunately for me, my remissness has appeared to you greater and more culpable than it really was, as the letters which I have repeatedly written to you, have failed to reach you, from what cause I am altogether ignorant.— Being so distant even from every sea-port...
31John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 22 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
By your letter to my brother dated 3. January which he has just received I find that at the time when it was written you had received from us no advices later than the 16 th: of September, a circumstance equally surprizing and mortifying to me. After that date I wrote on the 19 th: and 21 st: of September to my father and on the 4 th: of October addressed to him some observations upon an...
32John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 6 July 1797 (Adams Papers)
I am once more in the same pleasant situation as that which I described to you twenty months ago from Helvoetsluys. Nine days since, we left the Hague, and I believe you will think I have at least as much occasion for Patience and Philosophy as I had upon the former occasion. I am going to London, where I shall stay no longer than will be absolutely necessary, and from whence I intend to...
33John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 7 August 1800 (Adams Papers)
The reason, which induces travellers, who purpose a visit to the Riesenkoppe, to pass the night before at the Hempel’s baude is, that they may ascend the mountain in the morning early enough to see the sun rise, from its summit— Such was our own intention; but when we rose at two o’clock in the morning, Louisa, found herself suffering so severe a headache, that she was obliged to give up the...
34John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 17 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have just got your agreeable favours of 8–9— & 11— May, and as this is the last day upon which I can write to reach you at Paris, and I have but little time for the post, I shall be short. M r: Arnoux’s letter has given me great pleasure, and I wish you if you have time, to give him my grateful thanks for it; for his kind remembrance of the family, as well as his attentions to you. Madame de...
35John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 17 April 1799 (Adams Papers)
Somewhat more than a month ago I received the very welcome intelligence that the vessel on board of which you were a passenger had arrived at New-York. Some days later, a letter from M r: Murray mentioned that he had seen your arrival announced in a Philadelphia newspaper of the 15 th: of January.— Soon after, I received from our ever dear and honoured mother a letter of 1. Feb y: fully...
36John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 7 April 1797 (Adams Papers)
Just after writing my last Letter I received your kind one of March 20; by which I find your departure is postponed until July. As it continues to us the opportunity of hearing frequently and regularly from each other it is an agreeable circumstance; it would be still more so, if it could secure to us the means of meeting again in Europe, which will however I apprehend be impossible. You...
37John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 16 August 1800 (Adams Papers)
From the cloister at Grussau (the day before yesterday) we returned to dine with M r Ruck at Landeshut— It was a formal dinner of thirty persons according to the fashion of the country; we sat down soon after one, & rose from table just before six. The whole of this time is employed in eating; for the ladies & gentlemen rose together, & there was little wine drunk. But as only one dish is...
38John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 20 December 1800 (Adams Papers)
I suppose you flatter yourself, that having more than three months ago got safely out of Silesia, you are to hear nothing further about it; but indeed I shall not let you off so cheap. There still remains a very short geographical, statistical, & historical account of this interesting province, which I feel it my duty to write— Whether you will conceive it your’s to read it, I need not...
39John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 21 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
The last Letter I have received from you is dated the 11 th: of last November. I know not whether since that time the multiplicity of your own avocations or the uncertainty where your Letters would find me have prevented you from writing to me. However it be I cannot suffer a long period to pass without writing, on my part, and I feel already culpable in some degree, when I reflect, that I...
40John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 6 March 1797 (Adams Papers)
Since writing my last Letter I have received yours of the 17 th: of February. It is kind: it is amiable: it is worthy of yourself. I recognize again the temper that I love, the heart that I admire, and the mind that I esteem.— Yes—this Letter I am sure was written by my own Louisa; and its strain is too congenial with her character, and too full of delight to me, for me to believe that she...
41John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 7 October 1797 (Adams Papers)
It is but a few days since I received your kind letter of 14. July, brought to Holland by Gen l: Marshall, and forwarded to me here. The pamphlets also which you have been kind enough to send me have come to hand. I value them much not only for the advantage of perusing them, but because I am endeavouring to preserve a collection of such publications. My state of continual motion is indeed...
42John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 13 April 1797 (Adams Papers)
The day after I sent off my last Letter, I received that of my good friend, dated the 27 th: of last month; and at the same time, a Packet from America, containing my orders to quit my station here, and proceed upon that to which I am now destined. Since then I have been occupied in taking measures preparatory to my departure, which I shall however probably not effect before the latter part of...
43John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 28 December 1797 (Adams Papers)
I believe it is almost three months since I wrote you last. The interval has been a disastrous and distressing period to me, and as while our misfortunes were pressing upon me, I had not the time to write even to my dearest friends, so now that as I hope they are past, I feel little inclination to give you pain by a minute recital of them. It may suffise to say that soon after the date of my...
44John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 30 May 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have received within these few days your letters of the 17 th: and 29 th: of March, together with the books and pamphlets mentioned in the former. The last was forwarded to me from England by M r: King, and at the same time one from the Secretary of State of the 10 th: ult o: — I had long been without letters, and they have now been pouring in by floods at once. I have written to you and...
45John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 21 September 1799 (Adams Papers)
I received at Töplitz, on the 3 d: of last month, your kind favour of 12. June, which I did not immediately answer, because I was then in bed, with a fever, which however confined me, only for about ten days, and since then my health has again been very good.— The principal motive of our Journey to Töplitz, I wrote you before I left Berlin. It was on account of my wife’s health, and with the...
46John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 14 March 1797 (Adams Papers)
It is nearly a fortnight since I received your letter of the 17 th: of last month. The two last Posts from Bremen have brought no English Letters, and while the wind remains in the quarter to which it has been fixed these ten days I can have no hopes of being more fortunate in hearing from you. These Easterly winds bring a clear sky and a brisk air with them.— Yet they are to me more dull and...
47John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 1 July 1799 (Adams Papers)
My last letter to you upon private affairs was of April 29. since which I have received none from you, untill last evening, when your’s of 4. to 12. March, from Quincy, and of 11. May from Baltimore, both came to hand.— In the last, you mention having written me, at full length, the week before by the way of London; but this letter I have not received. Your account of the administration of...
48John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 29 July 1797 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you a few lines yesterday, jointly with my new partner informing you of our marriage, upon which I would once more invoke your maternal blessing.— At present I write in answer to your very kind Letters of 15. March. 15. and 23. June all of which I have received since my arrival here. Before the receipt of the latter, I was in doubt whether you were at Philadelphia, or at Quincy.— I...
49John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 12 October 1798 (Adams Papers)
We have received and been entertained with your letters from Dessau, Magdeburg and Brunswic.— We hope to hear from you, to day or to-morrow, at Hamburg, where upon your arrival, you must have found abundance of letters, either to, or for you. You ask for news; but you are now so much nearer the sources of all the important news, that it must rather come from you to us, than go from us to you....
50John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 5 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I had scarcely closed my last Letter to you my dear mother, acknowledging the receipt of your favours of Dec r: 2. and Nov r: 23. before I received that of Nov r: 3. written at East-Chester.— We are duly grateful for your kind congratulations upon our marriage.— You will find by some of my late Letters that we have already been brought to the trial of some unpropitious circumstances Yet much...