951Abigail Adams to Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody, 13 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you on the 23 Jan’ ry. you have not received a Letter of that date, for a very good reason, that it still lies unfinishd in my desk, and now it is so much out of date that I do not think it worth sending. in it however I acknowledgd a Letter from you, and one for Mrs smith which I sent, also 2 Letters from the children all of which I forwarded to their Mamma. I have now the pleasure of...
952Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 15 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have not received a Line from Since the last of Jan’ ry Betsy is much distresst to hear from her sister and I am not a little anxious. I hoped the twesday post as usual would have given me some information. I must attribute it to the weather for my dear sister, write me a line every post if only to tell me how you all are. You will see much to your mortification, that congress have been...
953Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 21 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received your kind Letter of Feb’ ry 9th and was quite rejoic’d to hear that mrs Baxter was like to do well, when I feard to open the Letter least it should inform me of her death. I have been Confined with a cold like the influenza for several days past. I have dreaded least it should prove one of my Feb’ ry attacks. it came on with a very soar Throat and hoarsness and terminated in...
954Abigail Adams to William Smith, 28 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
We now have the appearence of some fine weather our Rivers are open, but our Roads are all like what we experienced when we came through the Jersis in April last. I begin to look towards my Native state with a wish to be early there, which I fear will not be seconded by Congress, for tho many of them are distresst at the manner this session has heitherto been wasted, yet they cannot controul...
955Abigail Adams to Catherine Nuth Johnson, 2 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday the secretary of state received Letters from mr Adams at Berlin dated Nov’ br 10 th & 17 th in which he says that he left Hamburgh on the 2d and reachd Berlin on the 7 th. he had an interveiw with the Minister. the King was informd of his arrival, and desired the Minister to express to him the extreem regreet he felt at not being able to give him Audience, as his dangerous illness...
956Abigail Adams to William Smith, 2 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
The President received your Letter this morning dated 5 Feb’ry. the Rule of the former President not to answer Letters of this nature, he has abided by. his Rule is to place all Canditates for office upon a Book kept for that purpose, and to appoint to office such persons as come best recommended for abilities integrity and industery. in your case he would be particuliarly delicate, for as he...
957Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 3 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
To communicate pleasure, is reflecting happiness. The secretary of state came smiling in my Room yesterday. I said to him, I know you have got dispatches, upon which he took from his pocket, two Letters from my dear son at Berlin. tho they were publick Letters and upon publick buisness, they informd us of his safe arrival at Berlin on the 7 th of Nov’ br , 4 days from Hamburgh— on the 10th he...
958Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 5 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received on saturday Evening the 3 d March Your kind Letter of 25 Feb’ ry. You estimate much too highly the little services I am able to render to my Friends, and you depreciate the value of your own, the benifit of which I have too often experienced to Sit lightly by them, for whilst you visit the widow the orphan, the sick, and console them by your presense, enliven them by your...
959Abigail Adams to William Smith, 5 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received your kind favour of Feb ry 25 this morning. the badness of the roads I suppose was the reason it did not reach me sooner. The Maderia I do not want to be sent here. it is for Home consumption I have no occasion for it here. there are some other articles I should wish you to secure for me immediatly half Hundred Coffe and a Hunderd & half Brown sugar; which will immediaty rise, for I...
960Abigail Adams to Hannah Phillips Cushing, 9 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I yesterday received your kind Letter of March 5 th and congratulate you and the Judge upon your safe arrival at N york. I assure you I was under serious apprehensions for your safety when I found you gone; I had sent Betsy to your Lodgings to inquire after your Health, a few moments after you were gone. I did not know how to credit it when she returnd with the News— I will not say, you took...
961Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 14 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
yesterday dispatches were received from mr King up to the 9 th Jan’ ry in a postscrip he says, I have just learnt that mr Adams has been received by the new King notwithstanding his commission was to his Father. this is civil and will enable him to proceed with business— I received a Letter from dr Tufts yesterday that allarmd me. I thought I inclosed him some Bills. I might as I wrote you the...
962Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams, 17 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
A private opportunity offering by way of Hamburgh to write to you, I eagerly embrace it, and hope it may reach you safely notwithstanding the various Chances it may run. your arrival at Berlin was made known to us from your Letters to the secretary of state of Nov’ br the 10th and 17 th . no private Letter has yet been received, nor the publick Letter which you mention having written from...
963Abigail Adams to Benjamin Franklin Bache, 17 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
Taking up your paper yesterday morning, I was shockd at the Misrepresentation a Writer in your paper has given to the nomination and appointment of J Q. Adams, to sweeden for the purpose of renewing the Treaty with that Power. I could not but reflect upon the different feelings which must actuate your Mind, and the writer of the following paragraph, written last october, upon seeing Some...
964Abigail Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 18 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
When I have written to your Brother I feel as if I had exhausted all the subjects which it is proper for me to write upon, but as your Hand writing allways gives me pleasure tho I see it only upon the superscription of a Letter, or in a few Promissory lines in the cover, I judge you will allways be gratified with a few words from me tho they contain no more than a Bullitin of our Health and...
965Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 20 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I write you a few Lines this mor’g just to inclose to you the News paper of yesterday which contains an important Message from the President; it is a very painfull thing to him that he cannot communicate to the publick dispatches in which they are so much interested, but we have not any assurance that the Envoys have left Paris and who can say that in this critical state of things their...
966Abigail Adams to William Smith Shaw, 20 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received your Letter of Jan’ry 23 d and was gratified to find your Hand writing improving. I know you are attentive to what is passing in the political World, indeed who can be an indifferent Spectator, in Times so critical, so allarming and so big with Concequences as the present? I send you a late publication under the signature of scipio, [ “ ]Reflections on Monroe’s view of the conduct...
967Abigail Adams to William Smith, 20 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I yesterday received your Letter of March 11 th it would give the President great satisfaction to communicate to the publick the dispatches of our Envoys if he could do it consistant with their safety and Security. the Portugeze minister is imprisoned now in France. we have not Certainty that ours have left Paris—and so critical are the times, that our Ministers cannot communicate...
968Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 27 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received yesterday your kind Letter of March 19 th . I expect a Letter every week if you have nothing else to say, but as Sterns observes, “how the Shadows Lengthen, as the sun declines” and this may be applied to the well as the natural System. as we descend the Hill of Life, our gay and vissonary prospect vanish, and what gilded our meridian days, our Zenith of Life, as the Shadows...
969Abigail Adams to William Smith, 30 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I fully unite with you in sentiment, that much ill Blood and warmth of Passion is excited by Town meeting Government. the Merchants who are most interested ought to be left free to Arm or not as they please. You cannot conceive what Mischief will result to our Country from the inteference of People, who can have only a partial view of subjects of this nature; I will tell you Sir, that the...
970Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 31 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I write you a few lines this morning merely to inclose a Letter which I will thank you to cover and forward to Atkinson. I have not time to write this morning to Atkinson. inclosed I sent you a specimin of the Manners Religion & politeness of one of the 44 Gentlemen, Who can come and Eat of my Bread, & drink of my Wine one whom the Virginians consider as a Paragon of politeness whom they have...
971Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams, 4 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
I embrace this opportunity by mr Thornton Secretary to mr Liston the British Minister to write too you, and to Send you two Speeches upon the Foreign intercourse Bill, one by mr Gallatin, and one in reply, by mr Harper. I wrote to you last week by Way of Hamburgh: but we are still without a line from you of a private Nature; and have only learnt of your arrival at Berlin from your Letters to...
972Abigail Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 4 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
To know that one Cannot freely say that Black, is Black; even tho it be “darkness visible,” or that white is white, tho the new fallen snow is not purer, is fettering ones faculties, as well as restraining ones pen. Yet in such perilious Times as the present, freely to discuss motives which lead to measures, or to Characterize the Actors “who fret and Strut their hour upon the stage” would not...
973Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 4 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
The eastern post will go out this morning and I take my pen to thank you for your Letters of the 20 & 26th of March. we had received intelligence of the wisdom of Roxbury & Milton, their petitions having reachd their Representitives in Congress. the reply to them may be found in the dispatches of our Envoys yesterday communicated to congress. The publick exegiency of our Country, and the real...
974Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 7 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
The senate on thursday voted to have the dispatches from our Envoys made publick, and orderd them Printed, but not the instructions. I hope however that those too, will be published; the People will then be convinced that every word Containd in the Presidents message of the 19 of march can be justified both by the instructions given, and by the dispatches received, and that what Jugartha said...
975Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 9 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you on saturday that I would forward to you the Dispatches as soon as they were out. I accordingly inclose them. they exhibit a picture of National Degradation and unparalled corruption, which presents Burks picture of the French Nation, not as the product of a heated imagination, but as real Life. “out of the Tomb of the Murdered Monarchy in France, has arrisen a vast, tremendous,...
976Abigail Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 11 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received your two letters of April 5th and 7th, yesterday, and I enclosed you two from the children, in a letter to your brother this week, receiving them on that day; and not having time to write to you, before the post went. I do not think I have so frequently written to you for a month past, as I did through the winter; and it is because I have felt less anxious for you since the Col.’s...
977Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams, 13 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
mr Thorntons stay has been protracted much beyond the time I expected, and it gives me an other opportunity of adding to what I have already written, and of sending you the Printed coppy of the instructions given to our Envoys. the liberality of them has extorted acknowledgments from the minority, that they were eaquel to their most sanguine wishes, and satisfied many who had been imposed upon...
978Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 13 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
I inclose a Letter to cousin Betsy who has been very frank with me upon the subject of her approaching connection. I hope they will live to enjoy mutual happiness— I believe I have been deficient in not mentioning to you that mr Greenleaf was liberated from Prison on saturday week. I have not seen him. mr Malcomb was present at Court and heard the examination. he returnd quite charmed with mr...
979Abigail Adams to Robert Goodloe Harper, 13 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
in Porcupines paper of last Evening I read a Letter Said to be Written by Mr Findley to his Friends in the Western Country. Is it to be wonderd at that the people are disunited in sentiment When such grose Misrepresentation are made them respecting the Veiws and designs of the Government, and its Representitives? it is rather a subject of surprize that So little Effect is produced by them. I...
980Abigail Adams to Cotton Tufts, 14 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
I sent you a pamphlet containing the instructions to our Envoys, and I now inclose the dispatches from them. no Event Since our unhappy controversey with France, has so throughly awakend the people to a sense of their danger as these dispatches; nor any imprest them with such strong conviction of the sincerity and candour, with which our Government has sought peace upon fair and honorable...