From John Adams to James Searle, 15 May 1789
To James Searle
New York, May 15. 1789
Dear Sir
I received your friendly Letter last Evening,1 and thank you for your kind Remembrance, of your Old Friend.
To hear of your Success and Prosperity in Business; the Independence of your Circumstances, and the Contentment of your heart,2 gives me a Pleasure, the more exquisite, as it is so rare.— It is almost the Single Instance, that I have received Since my Return to America. My Correspondence has Served to little other purpose than to pour out before me the Griefs Complaints and Distresses of my Friends and the Friends of their Country, whose Ruin has been accomplished in Part by the turn of Affairs at the Revolution and in part by the bad Policy of our Country, Since the Peace.
The friendly disposition, which dictated your desire to come to New York, is very obliging: but I beg you would not come, till I have an house to receive you, and a dinner and a little Wine to share with you;3 for at present I have neither at my Command: so great a Thing is it to be one, who is, Sir, your most obedient and / most humble servant: not without hopes / however of better times.
John Adams
RC (NHi:Gilder Lehrman Coll., on deposit); internal address: “The Hon. James Searle Esqr.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 115.
1. Searle’s letter was of 11 May, above.
2. In the LbC, this word was rendered as “mind.”
3. By mid-May JA had rented Richmond Hill, a prominent house on the city’s west side facing the Hudson River (now the southern part of Greenwich Village), so that AA and their family could join him. JA described it in a 13 May letter to AA as “about a mile out of the City, in a fine situation, a good Stable, Coach House, Garden, about 30 Acres of Land.” At JA’s request, AA sent along trunks filled with carpets, bedding, and linen, which arrived on 30 May but without any keys to unlock them. At a cost of £33, WSS arranged for Capt. Thomas Barnard, New York Packet, to carry the rest of the Adamses’ furniture on his sloop, and on 20 June he delivered the household goods to within 100 yards of JA’s new home. On 12 July AA sent her sister Mary Smith Cranch a description of Richmond Hill: “the House is convenient for one family, but much too small for more, you enter under a Piazza into a Hall & turning to the right Hand assend a stair case which lands you in an other of equal dimensions of which I make a drawing Room. it has a Glass door which opens into a gallery the whole Front of the house which is exceeding pleasant. the Chambers are on each side. the House is not in good repair, wants much done to it, and if we continue here I hope it will be done” (, 8:xv–xvi, 351, 354, 356–358, 364, 369, 375, 391).