1From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 13 February 1805 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your Lecture on Tobacco which I received this morning and have read with much pleasure. Having been a great Offender in the Use of this Weed in some parts of my life, I may not be an unpreju di ced Judge: but I know that may be borne, without any Sensible Inconvenience. I lived many years in France and in England and after my return in America, without any Use of the Pipe or...
2From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 19 February 1805 (Adams Papers)
When I wrote you a line of Acknowledgment for your Lecture upon Tobacco, I kept no Copy of it, not expecting to ever hear any thing more of it, and I really remember very little that was in it. Tobacco, I have found by a long experience, having learned the use of it upon Ponds of Ice, when Skating with Boys at Eight years of Age, to be a very dangerous Vegetable, extremely apt to Steal upon a...
3From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 24 July 1805 (Adams Papers)
In the course of your industrious researches, in natural History have you ever given a particular attention to the generation of Shell fish? Will you be so good as to inform me in what Book this subject has been most fully treated? I suspect, but it is only a suspicion, that a great part of them are hatched by the sun, upon the Surface of the ocean; and that the proscess has been carried on,...
4From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 7 August 1805 (Adams Papers)
From early Youth I have heard it lamented among Men of Letters that We had no neither a natural History of this Country, nor any Person possessed of a Taste for such Inquiries. The Science in general was not So much desired as a particular Examination of the Beasts Birds, Fishes Trees Plants Flowers Fossills &c peculiar to North America. Mr. Hutchinson, at the close of the first volume of his...
5From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 9 August 1805 (Adams Papers)
I told you before, that I had renounced the Study of Natural Philosophy and Mathematicks for fifty Years. When in 1755 I entered on the Study of the Law, I Saw before me Such a field of natural, civil, and common Law, and in Such a Group of Men as Gridley Pratt Otis, Trowbridge Thatcher, Worthington Hawley And Putnam &c among whom I must Act a part upon the Stage not indeed to make my Way to...
6From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 11 August 1805 (Adams Papers)
Many thanks for your favour of the 9th: and the copy of your Memorial to the Corporation. I really think you have a right to take for your motto, which of Virgil’s lines you please. I was too hasty in the choice of mine. I have not been a Bee. My object has not been luxurious, like honey, but essentials of life, like Corn. I have had no sting, at least have used none. If I had I might have...
7From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 4 September 1805 (Adams Papers)
De la Marre, tells us, that in the North of Holland they make use of Fucus to support their Dikes. In other places, they employ these plants to fertilize their lands. on Several of the french Coasts of the ocean, they call "Cluys" those of these plants which the Sea casts upon the Shore; and Vraicq, those which they go and pull off from the rocks, in the months of January and February, an...
8From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 13 September 1805 (Adams Papers)
(To be added to those on Sea Weeds) If the gentleman from the Isle of Fromme mentioned in your Letter of the Eighth give you a Portugese Man of War, I beg you to keep it and not present it to me as you generously propose. I have no use for it and no incentive to preserve it. I only want to know whether it has a distinguishable animal in it. If you part with it at all I hope you will give it to...
9From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 19 September 1805 (Adams Papers)
After receiving so many trifles you will not be surprised at another. I wish you to tell me whether the Barilla is the same with the Kali or Soda! In the first Volume of the Supplement to the American Encyclopedia, p. 8 I find an Article British Barilla is the name given by Mr. James King of Newcastle upon Tyne, to a material invented by him, to Supply the place of Spanish Barilla in the...
10From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 3 October 1805 (Adams Papers)
I duly recd your favour of the 21. Sept.—I Sent you two pretty large Packetts the first of Six sheets of Paper, another of five or Six more, and have written two or three Short Letters, besides. You have acknowledged the receipt of the first Packet, but the Second large one you have not mentioned. It related to the Kali and the Medusa &c. &c. I only wish to know that you have it. I return with...
11From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 29 October 1805 (Adams Papers)
I have heard, as you insinuate, that Sterne was a wicked Man; and there are traits of a false Character, in his Writings: yet the Benevolence, Generosity, Simpathy and Humanity that fill the Eyes and bosoms of the readers of his Works, will plead forever for their immortality. Virtues and Vices Wisdom and Folly, Talents and imbecility, Services and demerits are so blended in most of the...
12From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 26 December 1805 (Adams Papers)
In a former Letter I expressed a doubt, whether the Barilla of Spain, were the Same Plant as the Soda or Kali: but have Since found that it is. In the Dictionaire Æconomique, under the Word Barille, I find it described as The herb from the Ashes of which are extracted the best Salt of Alicante, which for that reason they call "Salt of Barilla. ” "(Soude de Barille)," and which is precious for...
13From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 3 January 1806 (Adams Papers)
I have derived as much consolation in Life, from Horace as from Epictetus. I say Buvons, ecrivons, vivons, cher Horace, as well as that all our Happiness depends upon ourselves with the Stoick. I thank you for calling Horace to my Aid in your favour of Decr. 28. Alphius was Such a Philosopher as Seneca, who griped the Britons, or as Brutus who was So angry with Cicero when he was Governor of...
14From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 2 April 1806 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of March 30th I received last Evening. The Subject of it is of great importance I have been absent from my Country and my home for So great a part of the last two and thirty Years, that I have never had an opportunity to be intimately Acquainted with the Affairs of the University or the Characters of the Gentlemen who have the immediate or mediate Government of it. This I have seen...
15From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 29 June 1806 (Adams Papers)
I rejoice to find by your Letter of the 26. and by my Sons Conversation, that his commencement of a residence at Cambridge has been agreable to you and to him. He could not in his present Circumstances have been So hapily situated as he is. Two such Men as Dr Waterhouse and J. Q. Adams will find in the society of each other, and in the sciences and Litterature an inexhaustible fund of...
16From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 8 January 1807 (Adams Papers)
I received your favour of the Second of this month, yesterday. I dont do not understand your reason for calling our Forefathers Brownists. I Should call them rather, Robinsonians. But that our Forefathers resided twelve years at Leyden, and that they Worshipped in the Building, where I attended divine Service for Several months, I have no more doubt than I have of the Existence of a University...
17From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 21 January 1807 (Adams Papers)
Robinson was not only a Man of Sense and learning but Piety and Virtue but of a Catholic tolerant Spirit and remarkable humanity. He resembled the two shepards one of whom was settled at Charleston and the other at Cambridge. Neither of the three were for renouncing Communion with the Church of England Brown was for excommunicating all, who differed from him in his most rigid notions. It is...
18From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 2 February 1807 (Adams Papers)
One of the Historiographers of Johnson’s Chat, Boswell perhaps or Piozzi says that Johnson being asked which were the best sermons in the English language, answered “Bating a little Heresy, he thought Dr. Sam. Clark’s the best.” This anecdote made one suspect that Johnson had not read Barrow. I once owned Clark’s sermons for several years, and read a good deal in them before I gave them to my...