31From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 13 May 1816 (Adams Papers)
I have had the pleasure of receiving your kind Letters of 22. March. and 7. April; and at the same time my wife and children all received the like tokens of your affectionate remembrance. The last is to Mr J. A. Smith of 13 April.—They ought all, and I hope will answer you more at length, than it is in my power to do. For the last six weeks, besides the pressure of my correspondence, which is...
32From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 23 April 1816 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you last week by Captain Bronson, and sent you a Volume of Letters from the Continent, about the Battle of Waterloo and the like, by the Poet Walter Scott—I now send you a Newspaper in which you will find certain effusions of another personage, who is not only a Poet but a Lord—He has been married little more than a year, and is already separated from his wife—Partly, as his verses...
33From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 18 April 1816 (Adams Papers)
We are waiting with great anxiety to hear again from Quincy, and pray that they may bring us favourable accounts of your health—We have none later than of 19. February, which came by the New Packet, and which were received nearly a Month since. Mr and Mrs Tarbell are gone with Mr: and Mrs O. Everett, and Captain Stuart to France. We have a constant succession of our Countrymen coming and...
34From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 25 March 1816 (Adams Papers)
Since I wrote you last on the 4th. instant we have been in a continual state of anxious concern on account of your health; and it is scarcely less now that by the arrival of the New-Packet at Liverpool, I have received your kind favour of 10. February, and further accounts of you from obliging friends at Quincy and at Boston to the 19th. They all encourage hopes that you were recovering, which...
35From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 4 March 1816 (Adams Papers)
A Month has very nearly past away, since I wrote you last—It was a very short Letter, and contained a promise, to write you very soon a longer one—And thus it is that on our firm Resolves, the inaudible and noiseless foot of Time, is wont to steal.—I have since then had the pleasure of receiving your Letter of 24. December, and George has one from you, the conclusion of which was written so...
36From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 8 February 1816 (Adams Papers)
The receipt of your favour of 2. December was acknowledged in my last, dated the 9th. of January—Three days afterwards, I received your Letter of 9. and 18. November which had been brought by Mr Tarbel—But it was forwarded, I believe from Manchester, Mr and Mrs Tarbel not having yet arrived in London. We have received no Letters of a later date from Quincy. Our Sons, after a Vacation of seven...
37From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 9 January 1816 (Adams Papers)
Mr Bagot, or to speak in the style and after the fashion of this Country, the Right Honourable Charles Bagot, was immediately after my arrival in this Country, appointed by the Prince Regent, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States of America—He is a young man—I conjecture about thirty, brother of Lord Bagot, and his Lady is a daughter of Mr Wellesly-Pole, the...
38From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 27 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
My Nephew and Secretary of Legation Mr J. A. Smith, upon his arrival here on the 10th. Instant, delivered to me your kind favours of the 30th. Septbr. and 23d October, the latter enclosing copies of two Letters of recommendation upon which you suppose he obtained the appointment. My sentiments upon this subject have not been concealed from you, but as the President has thought proper to place...
39From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 5 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
The only Letters that I have had the pleasure of receiving from you since I wrote you last are those of the 6th. and 12th. of October both of which came by the Galen. The latest preceding one was dated on the 30th. of August so that I am still waiting for your Septbr. Letters. Although I have not yet entirely recovered the use of my eyes and must still write you by the hand of my Wife I have...
40From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 7 November 1815 (Adams Papers)
After I had closed my last Letter to you dated 1st. October, I received on the same day your favour of the 30th. August, and some day’s afterwards the collection of Pamphlets on the late Trinitarian controversy, they were brought as far as Liverpool by Mr. Cary, who survived the Passage across the Atlantic, but who was not destined to reach London alive. he died at Royston on the road from...
41From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 1 October 1815 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of 15. August, a few days since received informs me that even that you had received no Letters from me, later than these of March, which were sent by Mr. W. S. Smith—I know not how it happens that one of 22d. April which I gave to Mr Crawford had not reached you, so long after the arrival of the Neptune; but I have already explained to you, how it happened that the one of 7. May,...
42From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 11 September 1815 (Adams Papers)
The Opportunities for writing to you are now so frequent, that it is impossible, to avail ourselves of them all—They are indeed principally from Liverpool, through which place, I have for the last two Months and upwards sent Letters or despatches almost every week—There are however occasionally Vessels going from the Port of London, and by one of them I now write—I have determined to forward...
43From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 24 August 1815 (Adams Papers)
You will imagine that the place from which I now write you has been thus named by us; but so it was not—We found the names already settled—Ealing is a parish in the immediate neighbourhood of Brentford, that “town of mud”—immortalized in the Poetry of Pope and Swift; and the house in which we reside has been thus named by its proprietor, in honour of a kinsman of his, one Lord Boston, who has...
44From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 17 July 1815 (Adams Papers)
Your kind Letters of 20 May and 4 June have been received together with others to my wife and the children which they have answered and will answer for themselves. Hitherto since our arrival in London, I have been obliged to rely upon their punctuality in answering your Letters, as an apology for the temporary deficiency of mine. Besides the multitude of trifling but indispensable avocations...
45From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 30 June 1815 (Adams Papers)
Just after the date of my last Letter (7. May) I received orders form the Secretary of State, in consequence of which I proceeded as speedily as possible to this City—A Commission and Credential Letter to this Court had been sent here, where I was directed to come and find them. We came from Havre De Grace to Dover, where we landed on the 24th. of May, and came up the next day to London—Upon...
46From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 7 May 1815 (Adams Papers)
I have been with my friend Charles, and spent two days with General La Fayette, at his Country Seat of La Grange, about forty miles distant from this City—He resides there with his Children and Grand Children, forming a numerous and very amiable family. His son married a Mademoiselle de Tracy and has three daughters—His eldest daughter married a Mr de la Tour Maubourg, and has also three...
47From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 22 April 1815 (Adams Papers)
Mr and Mrs: Smith left Paris on the 22d: of March to embark in the Fingal at Havre for New-York—I wrote to you by them on the 19th—They sailed on the 30th with a fair wind, and having a fine ship, the most favourable season of the year for a voyage to America, I hope they are at this time near the port of their destination, Here the Easterly winds have constantly prevailed from the time of...
48From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 19 March 1815 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday Morning I received the first information of the ratification, by the Government of the United States of the Treaty of Peace concluded at Ghent on the 24th: of last December—The Ratification was received at London last Monday Evening the 13th: instant, and the Communication of the Event by Lord Castlereagh to the Lord Mayor was made about eleven O’Clock that Night—It was brought by...
49From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 21 February 1815 (Adams Papers)
My last Letter to you, was of the 31st: of January, from Bruxelles; and I enclosed it to Mr Beasley at London, requesting him to forward it by the earliest possible opportunity. By his answer he informs me that he dispatched it by the Packet which was to sail on the 15th: instant from Falmouth—Two days after it was written I left Bruxelles and came to this City where I arrived on the 4th:...
50From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 31 January 1815 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you a few lines on the day that the Treaty of Peace was signed, which I sent by Mr Hughes the Secretary of the American Mission, who was the bearer of one copy of the Treaty. A second copy was dispatched the next day by Mr: Carroll, who had been private Secretary to Mr Clay; and by him I, wrote a long Letter to my father—Mr Hughes embarked at Bordeaux in the Transit, the dispatch...
51From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 24 December 1814 (Adams Papers)
A Treaty of Peace between the United States and Great Britain has this day been signed by the British and American Plenipotentiaries at this place. It is to be dispatched to-morrow, by Mr Hughes the Secretary of the American Mission, who is to sail in the Transit from Bordeaux—I have not time to write a single private Letter excepting this, but I request you to inform my brother that I have...
52From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 23 November 1814 (Adams Papers)
In my Letter of 22. of last Month, I mentioned to you my disappointment at having received no Letters from Quincy or from Boston, by the Dutch vessel, which sailed on the first of September, and arrived at the Texel—I had been equally disappointed a short time before, by the arrival of Mr Boyd from Washington, having left that City the 12th: of August, and bringing no Letters from you—He gave...
53From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 25 October 1814 (Adams Papers)
This is the day of jubile! the fiftieth year since your marriage is completed! By the blessing of Heaven, my dear father can look back to all the succession of years since that time, with the conscious recollection that it was a happy day—The same pleasing remembrance I flatter myself is yours; and may that gracious being who has hitherto conducted you together through all the vicissitudes of...
54From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 22 October 1814 (Adams Papers)
A dutch Vessel, called the Prince of Orange, which had taken out to America the Minister, Mr. Changuion, arrived on the first of this month at the Texel, from Boston, after a passage of thirty days. She brought Boston newspapers to the first of September, but very few private letters, and to my great disappointment, none for me—Mr Boyd had arrived here, a day or two sooner, with dispatches...
55From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 10 September 1814 (Adams Papers)
When I wrote you my last Letter, a press copy of which, is enclosed, I had little or no expectation that I should at this day still be here. The John Adams sailed from the Texel, with Mr Dallas on board, the 28th: of August, and has, I hope, by this time half-performed her passage—It is one of those singular incidents, which occur occasionally in real life, and which would be thought too...
56From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 18 August 1814 (Adams Papers)
The John Adams is to sail from the Texel on the 25th: of this Month, and Mr Dallas, who is to be the bearer of our Dispatches to the Government is to leave this City on the 21st. I employ the last moments that will be left me previous to his departure, to perform they duty of writing to you, and of acknowledging the receipt of your favour of 1. May. It came by the return of the French ship...
57From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 28 July 1814 (Adams Papers)
I had the good fortune of sending a single letter from this place to England, in time to go by the Saratoga, a Cartel which sailed about the middle of this Month for New–York, and that letter was my last go to you. I hope it will reach you safely for it is the only opportunity by which I can expect that you will have heard from me, almost since the beginning of this Year—For the letters which...
58From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 30 June 1814 (Adams Papers)
My last Letter to you was written at Reval, and dated the 12th: of May—It was forwarded from Gothenburg by a Swedish Vessel, bound to Boston; but since Admiral Cochrane’s Blockade, it is more doubtful than ever whether it will come to your hands.—I was detained ten days after it was written, in that City and its harbour, by head winds, and by the ice floating in the gulph of Finland—We were...
59From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 12 May 1814 (Adams Papers)
I left St: Petersburg on the 28th. of last Month, as in the Letter of which I now enclose a press-Copy, I mentioned to you was my intention, and I arrived here on the morning of the first of May.—The ice had not then broken up in this harbour, and no vessel has yet ventured to sail from it—I have engaged a passage for Stockholm in one of the first which will depart, and I am now flattered with...
60From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 26 April 1814 (Adams Papers)
Mr: Nathl: W. Strong arrived here on the 31st. of March, and brought me an Order from the Secretary of State to go immediately to Gothenburg. I intend leaving this City the day after to–morrow, in compliance with that Instruction, and should have been gone before this, but that the passage of the gulph has been for some time impracticable. Mr Strong besides the despatches with which he was...
61From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 30 March 1814 (Adams Papers)
Since I wrote you last, 1. February I have had no opportunity of putting a Letter even on its way, to reach you, when it should please Heaven. The ordinary intercourse between this Country and England by the way of Gothenburg has been suspended from the 24th: of December untill this day, by the freezing of the Harbours, and there are now 22 Mails due, from London—The same Cause has prevented...
62From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 1 February 1814 (Adams Papers)
I have already written you once, by Mr: Gallatin, who, together with Mr Bayard left this City on the Evening of 25. January, for Amsterdam—But as Mr Harris our Consul, who was also the Secretary of Legation to the Extraordinary Mission is to follow them in a few days, and expects to overtake them at Berlin, I consider it as another opportunity for writing to you, and have prescribed it as a...
63From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 17 January 1814 (Adams Papers)
I expected that Mr: Gallatin or Mr Bayard, would have been the bearer of the last letter, that I wrote you; which was at the close of the last year. But it was taken by Mr Todd, who with Coll: Milligan, Mr Bayard’s private Secretary left this City about ten days since; bound to England by the way of Sweden. Mr: Gallatin’s intention now is to go in a week or ten days; but he takes his direction...
64From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 30 December 1813 (Adams Papers)
As the time is approaching for the departure of Mr Gallatin and Mr Bayard, and as the Month and year are drawing to a close, I avail myself now of the opportunity of writing to you by them, although it is yet uncertain when they will go, and still more uncertain how long it will be before they reach he United States. The British Government peremptorily refused negotiating for Peace with...
65From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 19 November 1813 (Adams Papers)
If my last Letter should reach you before this, my ever dear and affectionate mother, you will see by the Postscript, that before it was dispatched we had been informed through an indirect channel of the decease of my beloved Sister—This event, so distressing in itself, but for which your kind letters of 2 and 14 July, had in some measure prepared my Mind, has excited a new and additional...
66From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 25 October 1813 (Adams Papers)
If I could have omitted to welcome the return of this day, and to renew my prayers for many happy repetitions of it to my father and you, I should still have been charged with the obligation of acknowledging the receipt of your two letters of 1. and 14. July which I received last week from Gothenburg—They were brought to that City by Mr Story, who writes me that he had a long passage from...
67From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 14 October 1813 (Adams Papers)
I have just this moment returned from attending the funeral obsequies of the late general Moreau; which have been solemnized with suitable splendour at the Roman Catholic Church of this City. He died at Töplitz on the 2d. of September, of the wounds he had received before Dresden, the 17th. of August.—His Body was sent here by order of the Emperor Alexander, and has been buried with all the...
68From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 21 September 1813 (Adams Papers)
This day two Months have elapsed since Mr Gallatin and Mr Bayard arrived and delivered to me your favours of 5 and 23 April—Nothing later from you has yet come to hand.—Very shortly after their arrival, the ship Hannibal, belonging to Mr Astor of New-York arrived at Gothenburg—This vessel was furnished with a British licence with a permission even to bring a Cargo, and to carry one back in...
69From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 23 August 1813 (Adams Papers)
Mr Gallatin and Mr Bayard have been here a complete Month. They had arrived at Reval, a Port just at the entrance of the Gulph of Finland, about 250 miles from this place, at the date of my last Letter—The next day I was informed of their arrival; and the day following they reached this City—They are accompanied by a Son of Mr Dallas of Philadelphia, Mr: Milligan of Delaware, Mr. Todd, Mrs:...
70From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 19 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
Mr: Gallatin and Mr Bayard reached Gothenburg Roads, on the 20th: of June. A Russian Gentlemen who had come as passenger in the same vessel with them, and then proceeded by land to this place, brought me a letter from them dated 21 June, and arrived here, eighteen days since—They wrote me that they intended to proceed as speedily as possible upon their voyage—that they had letters for me from...
71From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 5 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
Last week I received your kind and affectionate Letter of 25. 27. February—which had been destined for France, but the vessel on board of which it was, being taken and sent into Plymouth, the Gentleman who was the bearer of your letter, (his name has not come to my knowledge) was released as a Non Combattant , and they were forwarded to me by the Mail. Your letter of previous date—25. January...
72From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 1 May 1813 (Adams Papers)
Every day that passes gives me occasion more and more to lament this unfortunate War, with which it has pleased heaven to visit us—If it could have been avoided we should now have had a free commercial intercourse with all the North of Europe, at least to Bremen inclusively, and in a few Months more with Holland—Besides the advantages which our Country would have derived from this, I should...
73From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 7 April 1813 (Adams Papers)
I know not whether it was generosity, or any other virtue, or merely a disposition to receive the postage, that induced the transmission of your favour of 30. December to Mr: Williams at London; for by him it was kindly forwarded to me, and on the first day of this Month, to my inexpressible joy came to hand—It was but so short a time before that I had received your letter of 29. July!—and...
74From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 25 March 1813 (Adams Papers)
My last letter to you, dated 27. February, acknowledged the receipt of your favour of 29. July the latest letter I have from America, and which you mention in it was to be forwarded by Mr. B. Beale junr. I have now an opportunity to write by Mr. Plummer, a young man who has been here several years, as an Agent of Coll. Thorndike—He himself belongs to Salem, and as he intends returning as...
75From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 27 February 1813 (Adams Papers)
At length, after another interval of nearly seven Months since I had been favoured with the sight of a line from any of my friends at Quincy, yours of 29. July has come to hand—It is nearly seven Months old, but is more than three Months later than your last previous letter. As it came under cover to Mr Barlow, I suppose it did not reach Paris, untill after his departure from that City— Thence...
76From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 18 February 1813 (Adams Papers)
As I shall probably not have an opportunity of dispatching letters for America, after that of which I now avail myself, at least before the expiration of the present Month, and as I am unwilling to break through the rule which I prescribed to myself of writing to you, at least once every Month, I sit down to repeat to you, what only three days since, I wrote to my father, namely, that I have...
77From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 30 January 1813 (Adams Papers)
Another month is drawing to a close, since I last wrote you, and I remain without a line from you or form any of my friends in America—The last Letters from you that I have received are dated in April of the last year. But as opportunities for writing to you, still occur, and at least as frequently as they did during the Winter Season before the War; and as the Americans who are returning home...
78From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 31 December 1812 (Adams Papers)
As another Year is closing upon time, and joining “the years beyond the flood,” I cannot employ its last moments more satisfactorily to myself, or more consistently with the duties at all times incumbent upon me, than in renewing to my dear and honoured Parents the testimonies of my gratitude, duty and affection—In repeating the assurance of my ardent desire to return to them, to my long...
79From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 30 November 1812 (Adams Papers)
I think it not improbable that on receiving the public accounts of the progress of the War in this Country for the first three months after it commenced, and especially those of the entrance of the French Emperor and his army at Moscow, with the destruction almost total of that Capital, you may have been not altogether unconcerned on our account, and considered us as not altogether secure from...
80From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 24 October 1812 (Adams Papers)
I have not received a line from the United States, public or private since I wrote you last—That letter, dated 21. September I sent by the Mr Kimball—Last week, Mr Jackson of Newbury-Port left this place, and by him I wrote to my father, brother, and both my Sons at Atkinson—The present is to go by Mr Harris, a Nephew of our Counsel here, who has resided some time with his uncle, but is now...