31To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 13 October 1812 (Adams Papers)
My printer and my patients have kept me So busy for some Weeks past that I have fallen in Arrears to all my Correspondents. I Sit down with pleasure to discharge the first debt of that kind to my old friend of 1774. In my publication upon the diseases of the mind I have carefully avoided the Subject of the possessions in the New testament, also the Controversy about the nature of the mind. I...
32To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 26 April 1810 (Adams Papers)
In One of my letters written some time ago, I informed you that my eldest son had killed a brother officer and a friend in a duel at New Orleans. The distress and remorse which followed this event deprived him of his reason, and threw him into the marine hospital where he has been nearly ever since the duel. In the month of Feby: last he arrived in Philada in a state of deep melancholy &...
33To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 14 June 1809 (Adams Papers)
My son Richard who has been a customer for the Aurora ever since he lived at the Jersey College, after reading your last letter, brought the enclosed papers from his office, and requested me to forward them to you. I have lately met with an account of the brain of Voltaire being preserved by a Lady in a France, and showed to her friends as an object of affection and adoration. The author of...
34To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, April 1812 (Adams Papers)
In giving the history of the Controversies in which I was engaged in the military hospitals, and from which I suffered Abuse, and incurred the lasting resentment of the Character you allow you in your last letter, I neglected to mention in addition to the Change which my resignation produced in the expenses and Order of the military hospitals, that my Zeal and Sufferings in behalf of the sick...
35To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 6 August 1811 (Adams Papers)
You may tell your friend Mr Cranch that I included my Correspondent among the men who were so prominent in madness as to undertake the Cure of the madness of mankind by Appeals to their Reason. I have been a fellow labourer with you in this irrational business. But we will console ourselves with the comfortable reflection that we have aimed well. Were we to live our lives over again, and...
36To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 15 February 1813 (Adams Papers)
I am now Attending a daughter of Mr Mathew Careys. In One of my Visits to her, I mentioned your Opinions to him upon the Subjects of a Navy, and your documents upon the Subject of its Origin in the United States. He requested a Sight and Copies of your letters containing those Opinions & documents for a publication which he expects Shortly to issue from his press. I said I could not comply...
37To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 20 June 1810 (Adams Papers)
Wealth, respect and friendship! from your grateful and affectionate friend. War with the “great hammer of the whole earth” to use the words of which the prophet Jeremiah applied to the king of Babylon, is now the order of the day in Philada.— MHi : Adams Papers.
38To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 19 August 1811 (Adams Papers)
It is possible Dr Franklins estate, when sold, in Order to be divided, may not produce the Sum mentioned in my last letter. It consists chiefly of real property, purchased in same the early part of his life. The improvements in our City have given it its present immense Value. It is said the million of livres committed to him to be employed in secret Services to his Country, were divided...
39To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 10 April 1813 (Adams Papers)
I put the papers you sent me into the hands of Mr Carey. Some of them will be published in an Appendix to his history of the rise, and progress of the American Navy.—They shall all be returned to you in a few days.— I rejoice with you in the 5th: Naval Victory of our Country. The year 1812 will I hope be immortal in the history of this World for having given the first Check to the overgrown...
40To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 11 November 1811 (Adams Papers)
Alas! What a difference between your last, and former letters!—Instead of being charmed with the effusions of your vigorous highly cultivated Understanding and sportive imagination, your letter of the 2nd of Novr contains nothing but accounts of “graves & tombs” and “dust converted into paper,” and of “sorrows written with rainy eyes upon the bosom of the earth.”—It affected me in the most...