11From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 23 July 1812 (Adams Papers)
I received a very few days ago, your kind favour of 1. March last, which gave me great pleasure as a token of your remembrance, and by assurance of your restoration to health.—It contains like almost every letter from America, that I have received the last eighteen Months, tidings of affliction; but we had before been informed our brother’s misfortune in the loss of his youngest child. Your...
12From 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...
13From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 30 March 1812 (Adams Papers)
As the Couriers between Paris and St: Petersburg have not yet ceased to be dispatched, by the arrival of one of them a few days ago, I had the pleasure of receiving your N. 1. of 5. January. which was not only like all your letters a balsam in itself; but was also precious by its contents, announcing your own health, that of my father, and of my children, brother and sister. I have no other...
14From 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...
15From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 8 March 1809 (Adams Papers)
I had heard of your illness with extreme concern, from my wife, and also through Mr: Cranch and Mrs. Quincy—The sight of your hand-writing again, has given me the purest joy, though allayed by the evident weakness in which you wrote—I believe there is in the sentence I have just written there is something which might be called a bull —But my feelings both of pleasure and pain at the idea of...
16From 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:...
17From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 19 March 1811 (Adams Papers)
In proportion as the time lengthens since the receipt of your last Letter, which is also the last that I have received from any of my friends at Quincy, I find not only my anxiety to hear directly from you increasing with it, but also my desire and determination if possible to relieve you and my other friends with you from a similar anxiety respecting us, which you would feel in the case of so...
18From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 21 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
The seventy-ninth day since our departure from Boston, and not yet in Petersburg—But we are on land, within twenty miles of it, and at the end of our voyage in the ship Horace.—We have indeed had a very long passage, and it has not been without its interesting incidents, had I but the time of narrating them—But to you as well as to us, the most interesting of them is, that we are all, thanks...
19From 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...
20From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 20 December 1816 (Adams Papers)
I mentioned to you in a former Letter, the visit that I had received from Mr Frend, and Mr Aspland, the Minister of the Unitarian Congregation at Hackney—Since then I have dined with Mr Frend, who is a Unitarian, and Astronomer, and Actuary , of an Insurance Company. There I met again Mr Aspland, who afterwards made me a present of several of his own publications, and from Dr Disney a copy of...
21From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 28 December 1816 (Adams Papers)
General Boyd, Mr Stores, Mr Forbes, and Mr and Mrs. Everett, have all arrived in London within the week past; and by them, with many other Letters and despatches I have received your favours of 5. and of 26. November—There must be I think a Letter in arrear between the 30th. of September and the 5th. of Novr—You acknowledge the receipt of my Numbers 92 and 93—and 97 and 98. I hope the...
22From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 11 June 1811 (Adams Papers)
Your letter of 15. Feby: which was brought by Captain Brown, of the Washington, and which I received on the 23d: of last Month, gave me the first intelligence of those afflicting Events the Death of Mrs: Hellen and Mrs: Norton—I received it early in the morning, and was thereby enabled to communicate it to my wife and her Sister, with as much preparation as the nature of the case would...
23From 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...
24From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 10 August 1812 (Adams Papers)
Just as I was closing my last Letter to you, I received your letter of 12. April, and had barely time to make a minute of it, at the bottom of the one I was sealing up for you—Since then I have not had the pleasure of hearing from you I then flattered myself that the Revocation of the British Orders in Council, of which I had just been informed, would be known in the United States, in Season...
25From 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...
26From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 25 July 1810 (Adams Papers)
Captain Harrod, by whom your kind favour of 20. March to me, mentions that you had written to my wife, and also sent a Box of Articles which she had requested to procure for her, has not yet arrived—Your letter of 20. March itself was brought to me, a few days past, I know not from whence; but having apparently been opened, and having suffered much from a soaking; but whether in salt or in...
27From 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...
28From 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...
29From 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...
30From 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...
31From 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...
32From 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...
33From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 29 July 1811 (Adams Papers)
My last letter, of which a press-copy is enclosed, was sent by the Palafox, Captain William Welsh, since which I have received four letters from you, N. 9—dated 8. April—one of 24. April not numbered—one of 15. May, and one of 28 May—both numbered 11.—So that I have now nine of your letters since you began to number them The numbers missing are 3 and 4. between 26 Jany. and 15. Feby. and N. 8....
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, 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...
36From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 28 November 1810 (Adams Papers)
I received a few days ago, and since I wrote you last a letter from Captain William Welsh, dated at Lisbau, a Russian Port in the Baltic, to which I suppose he came, on finding that all American vessels were excluded from the Port to which he was originally destined—He enclosed to me at the same time your kind letter of 25th: July—In the obstructed state of navigation in the Baltic, I have...
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, 4 November 1816 (Adams Papers)
Since I last wrote to you, I have received your kind Letters of 27. August, and of 10. June, which I mention in the order, not of their dates, but of their reception. That of June enclosed a printed Copy of Judge Story’s biographical eulogium of our late excellent friend Dexter, whose loss is a calamity to our Country, and especially to our Native State, which with all her errors and follies I...
39From 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...
40From 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...