1From John Adams to Thomas Brand Hollis, 5 September 1787 (Adams Papers)
I have received with much Pleasure your Letter without a date— nothing can ever give me more satisfaction than the reflection that I may have been instrumental of doing Justice in any degree to injured Innocence, especially in the Case of a friend— The 2 persons you allude to were once friendly to me, as I most certainly ever was to them, & I have no reason to think that either of them was...
2From John Adams to Thomas Brand Hollis, 18 October 1787 (Adams Papers)
Let me thank you kindly and cordially for your Letter of the fifteenth. Such is the melancholly Lot of Humanity, that I cannot pretend to promise Immortality to Liberty or to Virtue in any nation or Country of great numbers and large Extent from any Constitution of Government within human Contrivance.— All I can say is that it appears plain to me that every great Nation must have three...
3From John Adams to Thomas Brand Hollis, 4 January 1788 (Adams Papers)
I am in your debt for several very friendly letters, all of which shall be answered hereafter. I have had a great cold, which brought with it some fever, and has disabled me from every thing for three weeks. Your kind invitation for Wednesday the 9th, is accepted with pleasure, by Mr. Smith as well as myself. And now, sir, for other matters. Our new constitution does not expressly say that...
4From John Adams to Thomas Brand Hollis, 3 December 1788 (Adams Papers)
If I had been told at my first arrival that five months would pass, before I should write a Line to M r: Brand Hollis, I should not have believed it. I found my Estate in Consequence of a total neglect and inattention on my Part for fourteen years, was fallen to decay; and in so much disorder, as to require my whole attention to repair it. I have a great Mind to essay a description of it— It...