31From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 23 December 1813 (Adams Papers)
With more joy than I can express I have recd your kind Letter of the 18th. of August. Your Mother has been Seized with a pulmonary Fever attended with very threatening Symptoms and a violent Cough which has confined her for some Weaks: but We have now the consolation of confident Assurences from Dr Holbrook that she is so much better as to be past all danger I can easily conceive of your...
32From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 24 December 1813 (Adams Papers)
If you were in any spot between New Orleans and Passamaquoddy I should write you every day, if I could. But the communication now is so uncertain and so dangerous that I never write without fear of hurting you or the Public. You, almost from your Cradle, and I from 16 years of Age have been Heluones Librorum. We have hunted Books in Boston, in Bourdeaux in Paris in Nantes L’Orient and Brest;...
33From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 17 January 1814 (Adams Papers)
Mr Gibson, within this hour, called upon me for a Moment and gave me your Letter to your Mother of the day of July, and another to Mr J. A. Smith from his Brother as I suppose Dispatches for Government if he had any, The Captain would not allow him to take. He was taken and complains of ill treatment &c Our Govt. has agreed to treat at Gottenburg. I have lived upon hopes of embracing you last...
34From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 8 March 1814 (Adams Papers)
I will not afflict you with lamentations over the Confinement of your Parents during the greater part of the Winter. Your Mother is restored to her usual health. I am better but feeble. My Eyes have suffered, and the quivering of my Fingers renders Writing painful, at a Time when The Hon. Mr Taylor of Virginia has published an immense Volume the lucubrations of Twenty years upon my obsolete...
35From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 12 June 1814 (Adams Papers)
I have received your number 27. 15 October, 13. The large quarto Pamphlet entitled “Principes de Chronologie pour les temps anterieurs aux Olympiades,” by Count John Potocki I never received. It has miscarried. That the Count may have seen me, in London in France or Holland, is not improbable. I also have “plunged into the abyss of Antiquity” and have been “hunting for the books of the wars of...
36From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 16 October 1814 (Adams Papers)
I am happy to have recd. your No. 30. No. 33. and No. 34. It is impossible to express the pleasure I have felt in reading these Letters, those to your Mother Sons and Brother, or the pain from the consciousness of my physical as well as Spiritual Inability to answer them as they deserve. Last night Mr T. Greenleaf Sent his Son, to read to me your Dispatches by Mr Dallas, ten thousand Copies of...
37From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 20 February 1815 (Adams Papers)
I have recd. your Letter of Oct. 27. 1814. and that of 26. of November. I congrtulate you on the harmony between you and your Colleagues an inexpressible Felicity of which I have not always been So fortunate as to enjoy the Sweets. I congratulate you also on the Peace and the glorious moment in which the News of it arrived. The Raptures of Joy I leave the Newspapers to describe. It is my...
38From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 25 February 1815 (Adams Papers)
I have received your Letter of October. 27. 1814. and that of 26 of November. I congratulate you on the harmony between you and your Colleagues, an inexpressible Felicity of which I have not always been so fortunate as to enjoy the Sweets. I congratulate you also on the Peace and the glorious moment in which the News of it arrived. The Raptures of Joy I leave the Newspapers to describe. It is...
39From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 10 March 1815 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you on the 25th of February on our American Title to all the Rights and Liberties of Englishmen in all the Fisheries, which We derive not from any Grant Gift Cession or Concession or Conveyance from the Government or People of Great Britain, but from the impartial Benevolence and Bounty and Benevolence of the Author of Nature and Father of Mankind, who has given the Ocean and all its...
40From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 11 March 1815 (Adams Papers)
I have a rich Budget to send you by the next Ship. I have no time to prepare it by the Milo. I would send you some Newspapers but am told a Collection for the Months past is prepared for you Mr E. Copland Junr will present this. He is first Clerk to Degrand. You have all the Treaties and Projects of Treaties I presume but Britain and U. S. I presume from 1782 to 1815 Jays, Monroes Erskines and...
41From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 18 March 1815 (Adams Papers)
If Parson Nelson could call that Composition of Alexander, Petrarch and Werter, The Admiral, “ Great and good , Surely it may be excusable in me, to make free with the Same Epithets. But away with Badinage. Be it known to you that I am in Correspondence, with your Rival; your victorious Rival; and what is more marvelous, a friendly correspondence. One of his Letters is inclosed, copied by your...
42From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 24 March 1815 (Adams Papers)
I know not whether you are acquainted with the Bearer of this Letter Samuel G. Perkins Esqr, or his Lady a Daughter of the aged and Honourable Stephen Higginson Esqr. Mr Perkins was one of my Associates in the Board of Trustees and Visitors. We have thought it, a fortunate Opportunity, Politicks apart, to Send your Sons with Mr and Mrs. Perkins, and their Son about Johns age, and especially as...
43From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 24 March 1815 (Adams Papers)
Mr Ticknor will go with your Sons. Let me introduce him to you. His Reputation is that of one of the first Schollars. W. Shaw will tell you how many Languages he reads. His Politicks are of little consequence to me, and I know them not. Probably of the Boston Fashion. My Son! You are now in the most difficult and dangerous Situation that you ever was in. You will be courted by Dissenters by...
44From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 1 April 1815 (Adams Papers)
We live in dayly, hourly hopes of Letters from you at Paris. I wrote you by the Milo Capt Glover, and have written by the New Packett Captain Bronson, who is to carry your Sons under the care of Mr Samuel G. Perkins and his Lady. Two of our belle Esprits, the Greek Professor and Mr Ticknor, go in the Same Ship. The opportunity is favourable for our young Gentlemen, as far as We can judge. The...
45From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 8 April 1815 (Adams Papers)
I inclose a Slip with an Essay in it, Signed Richlieu The Editor has poisoned it, with a Silly introduction; but that will not hurt it with you, ‘tho’ it Spoils it here. Who this Connecticut Gentleman is, I cannot conjecture. I did not believe, and cannot yet believe, that there is Brains enough, united with Courage and application enough, in that State to produce Such a paper. Trumbul?...
46From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 13 April 1815 (Adams Papers)
Inclosed I Send by your Sons, a little Information concerning the Fisheries. In tears for the loss of your Aunt Peabody; in too much Apprehension for tears at the Embarkation of your Sons which is to be next Sunday, and almost in tears of Indignation, at the Ignorance, and Insensibility of my dear New England, I Send you the inclosed Papers relative to the Fisheries. I will continue to collect...
47From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 15 April 1815 (Adams Papers)
Kealing marred Hannah Storer. Look at the seal of this Letter, and send me from London a new One exactly like it, with this Motto Piscemur, Venemur ut Olim and I will the Price to your Brother, / No more MHi : Adams Papers.
48From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 1 May 1815 (Adams Papers)
We are at our Wits ends for News from you. We know not whether you are at Ghent, gone to Paris, returned to Petersburg, or where you are. We are equally anxious for your Lady and your Son. We know not whether they are to remove from Petersburg by Land or by Water, to Ghent to Paris or to England. Gallia, the too faithful Alemick of Britain, “changeful as a Child at play Now calls in Princes...
49From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 14 May 1815 (Adams Papers)
I seem to be rambling with you, to the Hotell de Valois, the hotel du Roi &c &c but you have not yet visited Passy Chaillot, Auteuil, or Versailles, nor Mont Martyr nor Mount Calvaire. What has become of these Spots, where I have Taken so many anxious and Solitary Walks. Where is the Bois de Boulange? I envy you the Society of La Fayette and de Stael. The latter is more than her Father or...
50From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 16 May 1815 (Adams Papers)
Last night I recd the 3 Volumes D’Argens’s Ocellus, Timeus and Julian, and the Journal des debats and the Journal de L’Empire, to 22 Mars 1815. What curiosities, all? Tacitus, Quintillian, Jacques le Fataliste, what would you Say? Would you Still doubt? You ought not. The Lord God omnipotent reigneth, in Wisdom and benevolence beyond all our conceptions, let the Earth rejoice. You have heard...
51From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 4 June 1815 (Adams Papers)
Mr Bray a Son in Law of Samuel Eliot Esquire, the putative Father of the Greek Professorship at H.C. will I hope have the honor to deliver this to you in the Bosom of all your Family. You probably know the political Connections of Mr Elliot and Mr Bray: but no considerations of this kind should interupt the Intercourse of Politeness hospitality and Civility. If my Eyes and hands could endure...
52From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 7 June 1815 (Adams Papers)
Inclosed is a Letter from Judah Alden of Duxbury, a fifty fifth Cousin of yours, on the Fisheries. And another from Freeman Atwood. I have not time to read these Papers but I believe you may depend upon them. I think I have Sent you proofs enough of the importance of the Fisheries to your Country. And my Advice is to demand your recall and refuse Your Signature to any compact which shall...
53From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 8 June 1815 (Adams Papers)
I have requested a number of Friends, to Search and Seek for information concerning the Fisheries, and they have procured me many Letters which I have Sent you. I ought to have recorded in a Book every One of those Testimonies: but you know the impossibility of it, as I have no Clerk. Some of those documents I have been obliged to Send away to you, without reading them. Inclosed is one from...
54From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 13 June 1815 (Adams Papers)
The Wars of the Reformation Still go on; and produce very curious researches. The day before yesterday was put into my hand, by W. S. Shaw “Rapport a l’Institut national, Par A. G. Camus Pluviose An XI. In page 55 and Onwards you will find some Account of the Bollandists and the Acta Sanctorum I am not enough acquainted, with the present Generation of Men to conjecture, whether this is...
55From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 26 June 1815 (Adams Papers)
To Shew the pretty, little, easy task you have undertaken, let me give you a Schematic Picture of the publick and private Courses in a German University, for Six months. 1. Encylopedy, and Method of Studies. An encyclopedick course of general Litterature, of the divisions and Subdivisions, and of the relations of Sciences among themselves. A course on the method to be pursued, in Academick...
56From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 30 June 1815 (Adams Papers)
Where Shall the Begining, the Middle or the End of an oration be when the orator has nothing to Say? We are distracted for News from You, your Lady and your Children God bless you all. When I was young I read Hobbes and his Antagonists. A terrible Pother was made about his Doctrine, That the State of Nature is a State of War. That it is so, however till every One knows his place, all Nature...
57From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 27 August 1815 (Adams Papers)
By Mr Gore in the Galen I received your favour of the 19th of June with the Seal: and yesterday from Washington your Letters in April with the Packetts of New Papers, these are all We have recd from you since the 21 of March. By the Gallen We had Letters from all your Sons and delightful indeed they were to Us. You must not let them be homesick nor be so yourself til you are all ready to...
58From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 28 August 1815 (Adams Papers)
My perplexities are increased every day, as I fear yours have been and are still. Mine, at present are altogether on your Account. The Princes Speech, paragraphs in London and Liverpool Papers scraps of Letters from both; all convince me that you have had Severe Tryals of your Intelligence and Integrity. It is universally believed here, that a Treaty of Commerce has been Signed, but there is a...
59From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 30 August 1815 (Adams Papers)
I feel so uneasy, on your account, that I want to write to you, every hour. But I am become so great a Coward, that I dare not write any thing to you. I never take my Pen, but with the utmost Anxiety, last I should hurt your Feelings, embarrass your Employments, give you unnecesary solicitude for your Country or excite a useless gloom on the prospect before Mankind. Shall I give you a History...
60From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 2 September 1815 (Adams Papers)
Though you may think the inclosed Letter from Mr Sears to Mr Marston, out of date; I inclose it to shew you the importance of the Object in View. The little Town of Chatham, is but one among many in Massachusetts Rhode Island Connecticut and New York who have used the Fisheries to advantage. I conjecture the difficulties you have had to encounter. The Fisheries in their utmost extent,...