1From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 27 July 1820 (Adams Papers)
I will not envy you but congratulate you on the pleasure you have had in your excursion to Washington But I covet the like pleasure so much that if I could do it with out stirring up an uproar, & hurly burly through the Contenent—Old as I am I would get into my Gig, & bend my course thitherward to morrow morning—. I regret most grievously that you did not Visit Cedar Grove—at Fishkill...
2From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 25 December 1817 (Adams Papers)
It was not friendly in you to involve me in your domestic & family Controversies Major Pierce Butler told me that he made a voyage to England from S Carolina to ask his fathers consent to marry a Lady, whom he was determined to marry, whether his father consented, or not. And I believe you ask my advice with the same resolution I have seen Fanaticism in all its forms. the fanaticism of honour,...
3From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 19 December 1817 (Adams Papers)
Your Letter of the 13th. has touched my feelings. Deeply infected with a dangerous distemper you ask my advice as a Physician. The Faculty sometimes cure their Patients by relating facetious Anecdotes. I could give you a hundred within my own Experience and little reading but your Malady is two inveterate to be cured by Jocularity. It must be treated Seriously. I know not the Facts. Has the...
4From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 14 August 1817 (Adams Papers)
I fear I have not answered your letter of 20th of June. That of the 8th: of August, I certainly have not. I have been justly accused of Imbecility & Dotage for twenty years past. Yet I seem to be a Man of more consequence now, than I ever was before in my whole life. What a cloud of Reminiscences, has your last letter, exhailed in my old brain! Several of with whom I gazed through a telescope...
5From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 4 June 1817 (Adams Papers)
Your pathetic Letter of the 2d. has filled my heart with Sympathy and Grief. Your Son, by all that I know, or have heard of him, would have been an ornament to Society. Your Sorrow at his loss must be exquisite. I can give you no better Advice for your Consolation, than to read your favourite Dr Barrow. It is the Lot of humanity! You are not alone! If I look back for Sixty years, what a long...
6From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 12 January 1818 (Adams Papers)
In your Letter of the 21st. of October you Say that Mrs Knox said to you that “her husband was the parent of the American Navy.” It is interesting to enquire what Idea that Lady could have had in her Mind. Have you Seen Mathew Careys History of the Rise and Progress of the American Navy? If you have read it you have Seen that the American Navy was begotten and born and a System of Naval...
7From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 16 June 1820 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for Dr Ware’s letter to Dr Mc Load which I have read with pleasure, they are worthy of his Father, & his Father in Law—Mc Load’s choice of a Text is in the true Character of a Jesuitical Priest-hood whose maxim is, that it is lawful to lie for pious purposes You must at least have had a pleasant Eevening, on your return from Montezillo—And I rejoice to hear that none of your days...
8From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 30 January 1818 (Adams Papers)
As “the accurate Jefferson” has made the Revolution a Game of Billiards, I will make it a Game of Shutle Cocks. Henry might give “the first impulse to the Ball” in Virgina but Otis’s Battle Lore had Struck the Shuttle cock up in air in Massachusetts and continued to keep it up for Several Years before Henrys Ball was touched. Jefferson was but a Boy at Colledge of 15, or 16 Years of Age at...
9From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 7 September 1820 (Adams Papers)
Captain Phillips’s letter is a Volume of News to me—That he Sailed without a Commission was never known, heard, or suspected, by me—and not one word of his Conversations with Mr Stoddard, were ever communicated to me—but at this distance of time, what can I do to sooth the feelings of Mr Phillips—Till I received your letter, I have never heard one word about him since his dismission— G. W. A...
10From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 5 February 1818 (Adams Papers)
Clarks History of the Navy is the Same with Mathew Careys. Wilkinsons History I have not Seen. I believe with you that the Battle of Bunkers Hill has never been faithfully recorded. It would require an hundred Volumes in Folio to investigate the “Roost Cock” who produced the Sacred mysterious Egg, to which you allude in your Letter of 17. Jan. The Antiquity of this Egg and its Universality...