51From 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...
52From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 22 March 1811 (Adams Papers)
I dined yesterday at the French Ambassadors, at a diplomatic dinner of about sixty persons in the highest and most formal style.—I give you a description of this entertainment, which may amuse you as a specimen of the usages of the time and place, and give you an idea of what is understood to be the suitable style of entertainment by an Ambassador—The invitation was by printed Card, sent five...
I have but just received your very Sisterly Letter, by Mrs Adams, handed me this morning. I immediately sat down & wrote to my Son, urged him to adjust his affairs with his Landlady, pay if possible, & thank her for any extra—kindness he has received—& quit her House as soon as convenient—I certainly know he may obtain respectable Boarding, at good Houses, for a less price—A little unconcern,...
54From William Eustis to Abigail Smith Adams, 22 April 1811 (Adams Papers)
It is among the instances of good fortune which are now & then permitted to accompany the discharge of a public duty, that franking a Letter from the State Department in the absence of the Secretary has brought me to your recallection and attention. Judge Adams as I am informed has been requested to return to the United States as soon as circumstances will admit: and as no public vessel has...
55From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 24 April 1811 (Adams Papers)
The Russian People pass their lives in a continual and alternate succession of feasting and fasting. Every individual whether of high or low degree celebrates two days in every year; one for his birth and the other for his baptism, which is called his name day, and is kept on the day marked in the Calendar, as devoted to the Saint of the same name; for it is a religious principle that every...
56From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 2 May 1811 (Adams Papers)
The religious ceremony of which in my last Letter I gave you an account, began at Midnight and terminated between three and four in the morning.—It was accompanied by a Salute of 21. Guns fired from the Fortress, two or three times, at particular stages of the performance—This was conformable to the customary practice; which always ushers in Easter day at St: Petersburg with an expence of...
57From Hannah Phillips Cushing to Abigail Smith Adams, 16 May 1811 (Adams Papers)
Not one word have I heard from you my dear Friend since your kind letter, saying that you was but just leaving the chamber, after a long confinement. I hope & pray that you soon regained your usual health though that at best is delicate. Various circumstances have prevented my being with you ere this. Three weeks since I was called to Plymouth, to sympathize with my beloved Mrs Hammatt for the...
58From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 18 May 1811 (Adams Papers)
The late french Ambassador at this Court, the Duke de Vicence, has taken leave, and his succesor Count Lauriston has been received—He takes his departure this Evening or to-morrow for Paris, and I avail myself of the opportunity to enclose a line for you, under cover to Mr Russell our Chargé d’Affaires at that place—I have already sent several letters for you and for my brother to him to be...
With a mind sorely depressed by the late afflicting intelligence from America and the many additional circumstances which are hourly occurring to encrease the difficulties of my present situation and I feel almost incapacitated from writing even a few lines to thank you & my dear Sister Adams for the very tender and affectionate manner in which you broke to us the melancholy Tidings of our...
60From 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...
61From Hannah Phillips Cushing to Abigail Smith Adams, 20 June 1811 (Adams Papers)
I have not been unmindful of you my Dear Friend, nor of each member of your worthy family since leaving your hospitable Mansion, where christian graces adorn the possessors. My delay in writing in hopes of sending the promised Receipt has been in vain, for it has been to no purpose that I have repeatedly searched for it. However I do not regret it so much as I otherwise should do as the Root...
The very sudden change of the weather last Sabbath, when I was in a high state of persperation; caused so great opression & hoarseness upon my Lungs, as made me feel quite sick, & detained me in Town a day longer than I intended—As I had not sent to Mr Peabody, I thought best to send to Mr Parker, & go on Bag, & baggage, to our own Door in Atkinson by Wednesday Stage, which was much more...
63From William Stephens Smith to Abigail Smith Adams, 29 June 1811 (Adams Papers)
I was much gratified by the receipt of a few lines from you under date of Feby. 11th. enclosing a Letter from my Son William whose improvement I notice with pleasure— my Son John attends his dear mother and Sister on a visit to you, I proposed to attend Mrs: S. the last fall, and again pressed her to visit you in the Winter being confident both you and herself would feel more at ease than...
64From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 30 June 1811 (Adams Papers)
I have now to acknowledge the receipt of your number 6. dated 22. February, brought by the Henry Captain Harris; a vessel of which we had heard nearly a Month since, and which has at length arrived after a passage from Boston of 100 days.—The arrivals from America now crowd upon one another in multitudes which I am afraid will prove not very profitable to many of the adventurers.—From Quincy...
65From William Cranch to Abigail Smith Adams, 7 July 1811 (Adams Papers)
Upon receipt of your kind letter of the 17th. ulto. I was too deeply afflicted by the information it contained even to thank you for it, as I aught to have done. I inferr’d from it that my dear mother had gone to join the departed spirits of her mother, her father and those other friends from whom she had been so long separated by death. It was A day or two pass’d before I was undeceived; so...
I hope my Dear Sister’s Fibres are not so relaxed by the late intense heat of the weather, as not to be able to hold a Pen, & by her communications inform, comfort, & eddify her anxious Sister, & Friends—I was agreeably supprized by receiving two very kind letters from our good Brother Cranch, since my return to Atkinson—They gave me a very gratifying account of our dear Sister’s gradual...
67From 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....
Your Letter my Dear Sister, received a week since, flattered me with the pleasing Prospect of our beloved Sisters recovery— though slowly, & feeble, I trusted she might yet be of great service to her family, by her Presence, & Instruction; but your Intelligence by to Days Mail; has damped my fond Expectations—deeply shaded, & almost erased the pleasures of Hope—The sudden & voilent attack made...
69From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 12 August 1811 (Adams Papers)
On the 10th: of August 1811. we received your favour of 22. September 1810 to my wife; not quite eleven months after it was written; and the next day we received that of 8 June 1811. which has performed its voyage in a little more than two. Whether the Passage has been short or long the letter always gives pleasure, and always contains some intelligence that is new. You have repeatedly...
70From Hannah Phillips Cushing to Abigail Smith Adams, 12 August 1811 (Adams Papers)
Although I have not written since receiving your favors of July 12th., & August 2nd., yet my heart has been with you daily, knowing too well by woful experience what your anxieties must be for a beloved Sister struggling between life & death, whose society must be precious to all who have the pleasure of knowing her virtues, & how much more so must it be to her near & dear Relatives. I have a...
71From William Stephens Smith to Abigail Smith Adams, 12 August 1811 (Adams Papers)
I have received your affectionate and interesting Letter of the 23d. of July you have conversed with the Doctor, but omit to mention his name, you say it is his opinion “that no outward application should be made, and that mrs: Smith’s general state of health is so good as not to threaten any present danger , he does not pronounce it to be a cancer, tho he cannot say, but that it may terminate...
Last Tuesday the Horn blew to announce the Departure of the Mail an Hour sooner than the usual Time, which obliged me to break of abrubtly, even without any Signature—Though I suppose you would know from whom it came, by the badness of the writing, & local Circumstances—I find since my last Fall sickness that my hands tremble more than they used— Not received a Letter from you, nor my Cousin,...
73From William Cranch to Abigail Smith Adams, 1 September 1811 (Adams Papers)
I thank you most sincerely for your excellent letter of 5th. ulto. which I should have answer’d before, but for the sickness & removal of my family. The precarious state of my dear mother’s health, for some time past, has, I trust, in some measure prepared me for an event, which is certainly inevitable and which we know can not be long procrastinated. Indeed our term of existence here is so...
74From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 10 September 1811 (Adams Papers)
The first page of the enclosed Press-Copy of my last Letter is so faint that unless you should have received the original, before it comes to hand, I know not whether you will be able to read it—The second however is more plain, and contains the material information of the whole; the birth of my daughter—This information has since been repeated in letters to my father and my brother,...
Not one ray of information has reached us respecting your Family, or my Dear Mrs Cranch’s ill health, since your letter written the day after leaving here. I cannot but hope that she is convalesent, & that you my Friend with her Family & others, may yet be blessed with her society on earth a while longer. But if it should be otherwise directed by an allwise Providence, I doubt not but that you...
I received your very affectionate Letter (dated the 20th. of August, post mark 2d inst.) on Wednesday; in my Letter of August 12th. I may have expressed myself with too much Solicitude and given my opinion too decidedly in Opposition to that of professional men—they will have liberallity , enough, to excuse me—I fully agree with you that it would be best, having advised with Surgeon’s and...
77From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 2 October 1811 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of 21. June, without a number, was forwarded to me from Copenhagen by Mr. Erving, who recovered it from the Radius, which on her passage to this place, was taken by a french privateer, and is still detained in Denmark—Like almost all the letters which we have received this year it brought tidings of sickness and affliction among our friends—In the sorrow which they have so often...
I received your kind Letters yesterday by mail, & though I ought soon to have expected such an Event, yet I find it has shocked my nerves more than I should have thought—For he had so lately written to me, & his strength of mind appeared so brilliant, & so composed respecting my Sister, that I could not but please myself with the hope that his, life & usefulness might been continued, but it...
My dearly beloved, & only Sister, for the “threefold silken Cord is broken ” To what an unusual Striking, affecting Providence have you been called to witness,—such as my Eyes never beheld—Very pleasant, & lovely through a long series of years, & in Death we may say, they were not divided—Together freed, their Gentle Spirits flew, to Scenes of immortal Bliss, we humbly trust—Thought can pursue...
80From William Cranch to Abigail Smith Adams, 22 October 1811 (Adams Papers)
I received yesterday your kind letter of 17th. instant, informing me of the death of my dear and venerable father, and of the hopeless state of health of my dear Mother. I rejoice and am thankful that my father was not left to linger out a painful and solitary existence deprived of the dear partner of all his comforts. which It seems like a special interposition of the all–merciful hand. My...