11From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 1 September 1809 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for yours of Aug. 25 and the Papers enclosed. They are very high and very warm. You pretend that you have outlived your Patriotism; but you deceive yourself. Your feelings contradict your Assertions. You can never get rid of your Amor Patriæ and attachment to your Natale solum. At your age and mine it would perhaps be better for our Tranquility if we could outlive all our public...
12Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 22 September 1809 (Jefferson Papers)
I have long owed you a letter in answer to yours of May 3. an acknolegement of the reciept of the pamphlet on the use of the Omentum, & congratulations on the satisfaction you must derive from having a son, entering, under auspices so promising, the career you have run before him. I am not learned enough in these branches of science to decide on the soundness of the hypothesis maintained in...
13From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 27 September 1809 (Adams Papers)
I recd. in course yours of the 7th. Fox was a remarkable Character. I admire the Morsell of History. Pitt was another. he has left nothing but speeches taken down by stenographers. I cannot pronounce either of them wise statesmen: yet perhaps they were as wise as they could be in their Circumstances. Great Men they both were, most certainly. Pitt I think was more correct in his Knowledge of...
14From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 8 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
Bacon the great Bacon was fond of Paradoxes. What could The Old Hunks mean by Great Men having neither Ancestors nor Posterity? Was not Isaac the son and Jacob the Grand son and Joseph the Great Grandson of Abraham? Was not Julius Cæsar the Posterity of the Anchises and Eneas? Was not King William the Posterity of the Great William Prince of orange and of the still greater Admiral Coligni? Was...
15From James Madison to Benjamin Rush, 23 October 1809 (Madison Papers)
I duly recd. the two pamphlets which you were so obliging as to inclose me; and had hoped ere this to have had the pleasure of reading them. From a glance at a few pages of the one on the Judiciary subject, I perceive that is very handsomely written at least. The subject of the other I have no doubt is handled in the elegant and philosophical manner so familiar to the pen of the Author. It is...
16From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 25 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
I received yesterday your new Edition on Animal Life and Madam read it in the evening to me and all the Family, to the great delight and Edification of Us all. Whether it is all solid or not we can not say: but there are Ideas enough thrown out to excite and employ the attention and Investigation of all the Philosophers, Physicians and Surgeons. Accept of all our Thanks for this favour....
17From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 December 1809 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for the pleasing account of your Family in your favour of the 5th. As I take a lively interest in their Prosperity and Felicity, your relation of it gave me great Pleasure. We have Letters from our Colony navigating the Baltic, dated at Christiansand. They had been so far as prosperous, healthy and happy as such Traveller’s could expect to be. Pope said of my Friend General...
18From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 January 1810 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for “the light and Truth” as I used to call the Aurora, which you sent me. You may descend in a Calm, but I have lived fifty years in a storm, and shall certainly die in one. I never asked my son any questions about the Motives, Designs or Objects of his Mission to Petersbourg. If I had been weak enough to ask, He would have been wise enough to be silent; for although a more dutiful or...
19From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 11 February 1810 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for yours of the first and the two Packetts. Who are they who furnish the Aurora with Such an infinite quantity and Variety of Compositions? There must be many hands, of no small Capacity or Information. In one you Sent me before, there was an Anecdote of a Plan of Washington to attack Philadelphia which was communicated to General How by a Person in his Confidence. The Narrator affirms...
20From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 14 May 1810 (Adams Papers)
What can I say to my Friend in return for his Letter of 26th of April? My Grief for the Melancholy Fate of my Friend John is only equalled by My Sympathy with his amiable Family. In the midst of Grief remember Mercy. Richard remains to you as well as another Son, and several Daughters who do honor to their Parents and their Country. Oh that John had imitated the Example of his Father, and...