201From John Adams to David Sewall, 8 February 1823 (Adams Papers)
Though I cannot, read, nor write, I can feel as sensibly as ever, a friendship of seventy years of age. Your letters always give me pleasure; The difficulties arrising in your State, are nothing at all, they will be nothing but an amusement to you for a few years to come; what is a penitentiary, or a seat of Government, they will occasion a little squib scribbling and sparring for a few years,...
202From John Adams to Thomas Herttell, 7 February 1823 (Adams Papers)
I have received your letter of 30th. with the pamphlet, and thank you for both. Your remarks on the Law of imprisonment for debt are written with much ability and patient thinking. I am not able to answer it, or any part of it. The evils of such imprisonments are very great, distressing and oppressive, they are neither good for creditor, or debtor; yet a total abolition of them, would produce...
203From John Adams to Smith Thompson, 4 February 1823 (Adams Papers)
Judge Thatcher, of Maine, who married a daughter of General Knox, has requested me to write to the Navy Department, in favour of his son Henry Knox Thacher, who is now a Cadet in West Point Academy. The young gentleman’s character is represented to me in a very favourable light, and my early, long, and late friendship for his Grandfather, and knowing him to have been, one of the earliest and...
204From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 4 February 1823 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for the renewed testimony of your friendship in your kind letter of the 20th.— If JQ. or any of my Posterity, do not recognise the obligations of this Country to Holland It will prove in them an ignorance, inattention, and ingratitude unworthy of their name.—You ask the history of my seal, I had it cut immediately after the peace of 83. It was a proud, perhaps a vain exultation, at the...
205From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 3 February 1823 (Adams Papers)
yours of the 26th. January is received. I pray you to attend as much as possible, to every Court, and every scene in which law questions are discussed or mooted. Observe patiently and critically the conduct of Judges Counsellors, Jurors parties, Witnesses and spectators. And by no means fail to provide yourself with an ample apparatus for writing, a pocket ink horn, plenty of ink, good pens...
206From John Adams to William Tudor, Jr., 1 February 1823 (Adams Papers)
From the moment when I received the your Life of James Otis, I have held in requisition my readers till they have finished the Volume, I am afraid to trust myself to express my opinion of it, or my feelings in hearing it, I could wish to read the North American review of it, before I say anything myself that I might shelter myself in some degree under their authority, but I cannot wait; And...
207From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 1 February 1823 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for the renewed testimony of your letter of the 20th frindship and your kind letter of the 20th If JQ—or any of my posterity, do not recognise the obligations of this Country to Holland, It will prove in them an ignorance, inattention, and ingratitude, unworthy of their Name, You ask the history of my seal I had it cut immediately after the peace of 83. It was a proud, perhaps a vain,...
208From John Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 1 February 1823 (Adams Papers)
I have received your last Journal, and thank you for it. When the Lady asked you which you prefered, the Illiad, or Paradise lost, you should have answered her as we New-England people do, by asking her another question, pray Madam do you read the Illiad in Greek, or in Pope. I wonder not that you threw your arms round your husband upon reading his answer to General Smyth, I would have done...
209From John Adams to Aaron Bancroft, 24 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your kind letter of December 13th. And above all for the gift of a precious volume. It is a chain of diamonds set in links of Gold I have never read, nor heard read, a volume of Sermons better calculated and adapted to the age and country in which it was written. How different from the Sermons I heard, and read, in the Town and County of Worcester; from the years, one thousand...
210From John Adams to Aaron Bancroft, 21 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your kind Letter of Decr. 30 and above all for the gift of a precious vol—It is a chain of diamonds set in links of Gold—I have never heard or read a volume of sermons better calculated or adapted to the age and country in which it was written—How different from the sermons I heard and read in the town of Worcester from the year 1755 to 1758 As my destiny in life has been some...
211From John Adams to Alexander Bryan Johnson, 21 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for your favour of the 15th. and the Pamphlet inclosed. Lord Bollingbrook says and every body knows that nobility in China ascends when a Man is ennobled, he ennobles all his Ancestors but none of his Posterity and his Lordship pronounces this law a wise institution, and I believe it is, and much wiser than to ennoble a long list of puppies, and Butterflies to all future ages. In this...
212From John Adams to John Farmer, 16 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
my apology for neglecting so long to acknowledge the receipt of your Historical Collections, is that eighty seven years is a heavy load to carry, or in the more expressive and more elegant language of one of my Farmers, the eightyeith year of a Mans life, is a hard outside roe of corn to hoe, but I am weary of alledging age and infirmity as excuses for procrastination.— You have sent me a very...
213From John Adams to Timothy M. Cooley, 14 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
I am honoured with your letter of January 9th. 1823. It would give me great pleasure, to send you any Books for the use of your Classical school but I have already given my Library to a Classical School in Quincy, excepting a very few, which are a necessary of Life to me, I send you the second and third Volume of my Defence, of the first volume I have but one Copy—Of the Discourse’s on Davila...
214From John Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 14 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
Wonderful Woman, wife of a wonderful Man, How it is possible for you with your delicate Constitution and tender Health, to go through such a hurry of Visits, Dinners, and parties, Converse with such a variety, of Characters, masculine, and Feminine, and at the same time keep so particular a Journal. Yours of the 14th of December, up to the 30th. has arrived this Morning. your journal is a kind...
215From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 12 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of the 5th. instant full of wise reflections philosophical and moral. I am glad you think so much and so prudently. You must be very happy all of you together I wish I could be one of your family circle during the vacations notwithstanding all the silly trécasseries of the times. Your Fathers notice of General Smyth was brought to me last night and read to me by Mr....
216From John Adams to Daniel Coney, 11 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of the 7th. upon a very grave, serious, and important subject—You enquire how I get on this cold weather; I will tell you in few words—I have a bottle of hot water quart Bottl filled with boiling water, laid between the sheet at the foot of my Bed, and it defuses its heat through the whole Bed, and keeps me as warm as an egge under a setting hen— Your machinery is...
217From John Adams to Charles Thomson, 6 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
Col: Pickering has sent me in your name your Synopsis of the four Evangelists, The whole of which has been read to me, except the notes, I cannot delay to express my gratitude for your Rememberance of me, and for this rich present, It is much more intelligable to me than King James translation— I know of no Man who has spent the last thirty years of a long life in so much serenity, industry...
218From John Adams to John Coffin, 4 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
Better late than never, to acknowledge your discourse on Medical Education, which I read in the Season of it, with great pleasure. and intended to have immediately to have acknowledged my obligation for it—It is as elegant and instructive a Composition as any I have read of the kind; but in the confusion of my papers an it has slipped my memory for which I ask you pardon, And I pray you to...
219From John Adams to Alexander Bryan Johnson, 4 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
Your letter of the 26th. December just now received, has thrown me into a kind of froliksome mixture of gaiety and gravity, which has raised my Spirits. I am glad you are so fond of Swift; I know of no Man who has exhibited stronger proofs of a sound rational mind, and profound information on one hand, or of wanton fun, on the other; even his indecent drollery is instructive, and even moral....
220From John Adams to Thomas Loring, Jr., 3 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
I thank you kindly for your present of Dr. Gays Sermon. Such has been my veneration for that Revnd. and Venerable Patriarch, from my earliest Infancy, to the present hour, that in reading his Sermon I seem to see him in the Pulpit, to discern the motion of his lips, and to hear the sound of his voice. I recollect the conversations I have had with him, the cheerfulness and vivacity of his Wit...
221From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 3 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
A friend in need, is a friend indeed; you must certainly have read Shakespear, and have learnt from him, when you have once made a friend, to grapple him to your Soul with hooks of Steeal. You have been constantly grappling me for more than forty years—The newspapers have brought to me your correspondence with Mr. Yates, and that has introduced a correspondence between him and me And what is...
222From John Adams to John V. N. Yates, 1 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
I have received the letter you did me honor to write me on the 24th. December. And I pray you to accept my thanks for the kind expressions and benevolent sentiments of it,—The Greeks I believe have been alternately excited and encouraged in their resistance to the Turks by Russia, Austria England and France for a course of years past, and now I fear they are to be abandoned to their fate by...
223From John Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 1822 (Adams Papers)
Received Quincy April 3d 1822 of Thomas B Adams Esqr— the sum of Seventy-two Dollars in full for a semiannual dividend on my shares in the Massachusetts Bank— Also Twenty-Dollars as a dividend on my shares in the Boston Bank— 72 20 92 MHi : Cutts-Madison Collection.
224From John Adams to Elkanah Watson, 31 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have recieved your Letter of the 26h: with my blind eyes, and palsied hand tantas componere liter non possium I am with usual regards &c N : Elkanah Watson Papers.
225From John Adams to John V. N. Yates, 31 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
I am honored this Morning with your favour of the 23d.—That Dr. Frankline while in England corresponded with Mr. Dumas, I very well know from an intimate acquaintance with both of them; that he reccommended a Dutch loan before he left England is improbable because at that time there was no Government or body of Men or individual in America to whom the loan could be named. When Dr. Frankline...
226From John Adams to Elkanah Watson, 29 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of the 17 Dec You may do what you please with my letter of 20 Dec The Mr. Troop you mention is the gentleman I presume whose eloquent speeches I read in the vol of transactions of the convention for reforming the constitution. It would give me pleasure to peruse all your publications and to correspond with you on the subject of them but I can read nothing and...
227From John Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 29 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received your last Journal and found it entertaining though you seem to think so little of it; I have infinitely less to write to you, Though you seem to think your journal infinitely little, nevertheless as our friend Shaw is with me, and willing to write for me, I will gossip with you a little.— The Newspapers of this part of the World are blazing with republications of Mr. Adams’s...
228From John Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 25 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
Your Journal beginning the third of the month has given me great pleasure. You are much to be envied and much to be pitied; such a variety of good Company is very desirable, but so much cerimoney and such fatigues must be rather burdensome.— We have received this morning the annunciation of Mr. Clays “GREAT UNKNOWN VOLUME OF GHENTISH HISTORY ” It will appear I presume at least as soon as the...
229From John Adams to Ellen Wayles Randolph Coolidge, 24 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
You cannot imagin how much pleasure I have received from your kind letter of the 15th. It is perfectly beautiful, and I have given it to my Grand Daughters as a model of literary composition.— Your account of your G. F. activity and energey almost excites my envy, who have neither a manageable horse, nor capacity to mount him, if I had one. It is delightful to me to see and hear so many proofs...
230From John Adams to Elkanah Watson, 23 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have recieved, and heard read Collo. Troups letter to Judge Livingston of the 23d Jan. 1822. You need not wish for a More rigorous, a more able, or a more spirited vindication of your claim to the first suggestion of the Canal policy in New York; and of Genl. Schuylers sagacious patriotism, in adopting, and supporting your Ideas in the Ligeslature. You have both great merit but still I think...
231From John Adams to Elkanah Watson, 20 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received and heard Mr Troups letter to Judge Livingston of the 23d of January 1822. you need not wish for a more ingenius, a more able or a more spirited vindication of your claim to the first suggestion of Canal Policy in New York, or of Genll. Schuylers sagacious patriotism in adapting and supporting your ideas in the legislature you have both great merit but still I think Mr Clinton...
232From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 17 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
yours of the 9th. is received, you do not give me any account of your Studies as formerly—Mr. Smith and your Aunt have been very fortunate in escaping the Plague at Pensacola, please to give my love to them. I hope the Mexican Ambassador and his eight Gentlemen companions have brought with them plenty of Milled dollars, and Mexican Bullion, and after teaching our Merchants and Manufacturers...
233From John Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 17 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
With high spirits I received the hand writing and the journal of the 1st. of this Month. I opened gay hopes before me for the Winter I rejoice in the recovery of you health, and to hear of the good health of you all— Mr. Adams, his Lady and Son appear to enjoy a serene and patient tranquility under the pelting of this pitiless Storm of political hail the thunder is not loud, and the Lightning...
234From John Adams to Alexander Bryan Johnson, 16 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favor of the 7th. If I agree with you, that human knowledge ceases where Metaphysics commence, I must acknowledge that I am indebted to Metaphysics for the knowledge of this truth, After reading Lock and Malbranch, Clarke and Leibnitz, Berckley and Hume, Condilac and Baxter, Stuart & Brown have produced a pritty clear conviction of it. Your propensity to writing perhaps...
235From John Adams to John V. N. Yates, 15 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received the letter you did me the honour to write me Nov 1822 which has excited emotions too strong for faculties so enfeebled as mine to endure. Every humane christian & philosophical mind must appro ve the fine feelings and magnanimous sentiments which produced the assembly at Albany. Every lover of pathetic eloquence must be delighted with the speeches pronounced on that occasion....
236From John Adams to Alexander Bryan Johnson, 14 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favor of the 7th. instant. If I agree with you that human knowledge ceases, where Metaphysics commence I must acknowledge that I am indebted to Metaphysics for the knowledge of this Truth after reading Lock and Malbranche Clark & Leibnitz Berckley & Hume, Condilac & Baxter Stuart & Brown have produced a pretty clear conviction of it—Your propensity to writing perhaps...
237From John Adams to John V. N. Yates, 13 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received this Morning from the Post Office by an unknown hand a slip of an Albany newspaper containing your letter to Dr Vander Kemp I highly esteem the candid impartial & honorable spirit of it, I cannot dictate the remarks that occur to me upon the subject at present—but shall confine myself to one observation—It is most true that I did love and venerate the character of the Dutch—And...
238From John Adams to Elkanah Watson, 10 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your kind letter of the 4th: Instant. I wish that time may bring forth as able a vindicator of the merits of your useful life, as Mr VanderKemp, has proved in defence of my reputation with posterity, for some little usefulness in Holland—This testimony of Mr VanderKemp was as unexpected to me as if Luzac, De Geislaer, Van Berkel, Father Dumas, Cerisier or VanderCapellen de Pol,...
239From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 2 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have been deeply afflicted with the account of your accident—At first your Leg was broke—I shuddered, I feared that I should have no more letters from Montecello—Next came the account that it was only a small bone in the Arm—My hopes revived the difference between the leg and the Arm was immense. To illustrate this difference, and for your consolation and amusement; I will give you an...
240To Thomas Jefferson from John Adams, 2 December 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
I have been deeply afflicted with the account of your accident—At first your leg was broke—I shuddered, I feared that I should have no more letters from Monticello—Next came the account that it was only a small bone in the Arm. My hopes revived the difference between the leg and the Arm was immense. To illustrate this difference, and for your consolation and amusement; I will give you an...
241From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 1 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received your letter of the 18th. November—your comparison of the horse race with the presidential race is happy. I believe that the partisans, of the cavalry are more zealous than those of the presidency. I rejoice that the discussion has begun so early. Characters will now be sifted, and the decision will show the national character” Know thyself ought to be the motto of this nation....
242From John Adams to Alexander Bryan Johnson, 30 November 1822 (Adams Papers)
A paroxism of ill health, which has confined me to my Chamber for several days, has prevented me from sooner acknowledging your favour of the 11th Instant. I sincerely wish it were in my power to comply with your request, by sending you copies of all my writings, which have been printed—They have been so dull that they have fallen abortive from the press and have never made much fortune in the...
243From John Adams to Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn, 20 November 1822 (Adams Papers)
I pray you to accept my cordial thanks for the rich present of your Memoir, on the Commerce and Navigation of the Black Sea &ca. This work had been read to me throughout, three years ago, and I had long since purchased it if I had known where to find it. It is now the more acceptable to me as the it is a present from the Author. I know of no Monument that has ever yet been erected in America,...
244From John Adams to Robert Waln, Jr., 19 November 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received your obliging favour of the 15th. Instant. It relates to a Subject, dear to my memory and my heart. The Honble: Roger Sherman was one of the most cordial friends which I ever had in my life. Destitute of all literary and scientifick education but such as he acquired by his own exertions, he was one of the most sensible men in the World. The clearest head and the steadiest...
245From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 15 November 1822 (Adams Papers)
I received the letter you did me the honor to write me, on the 7th. of this month. Inclosing a copy of an additional return of the Census of Alabama in virtue of an act of Congress of the 7. of March 1822 / and salute you with the respect and affection / of your obid: & very humble Servant MHi : Adams Family Papers, Letterbooks.
246From John Adams to Mathew Carey, 29 October 1822 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for the new edition of your works on our state & prospects, you are deserving well of your country for your indefatigable exertions to preserve & improve her liberties her comforts her wealth prosperity honor & glory. Your ideas of political economy, are so conformable to my own that I always hear your works read with peculiar pleasure, but my faculties of mind & body are so...
247From John Adams to Johann Friedrich Daniel Lobstein, 29 October 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received the letter you did me the honor to write on the 21st. of October, for which I pray you to accept my thanks. The work which you propose to publish will be very pleasing I doubt not to this Country, and to none of its Citizens more than to me. Britain has made too very formidable attempts to Conquer America in Arms; but instead of acquiring glory she has come off with disgrace...
248From John Adams to John Adams, 25 October 1822 (Adams Papers)
In the reign of Charles 1st of England, Henry Adams came to America from Devonshire and settled at Mount Wollaston with eight sons, one of whom returned to England. Four removed to Medfield, Medway, Bellingham and the neighbouring towns—two to Chelmsford Thomas and Samuel by name; Joseph only, my great grandfather, and the great grandfather of Samuel Adams of Boston, remained in this place...
249To John Adams from John Adams, 21 October 1822 (Adams Papers)
In compliance with your request in your condescending favr. of the 30th. Ulto. that I should transmit the Pedigree of my family. I applied to my Father, who had taken some pains to inform himself respecting his Ancestry—being incited thereto, very much by the important circumstance, that One of the name had risen to the highest honours of our Country; and others, to very distinguished honours...
250From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 15 October 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have long entertained scruples about writing this letter, upon a subject of some delicacy. But old age has over-come at last. You remember the four Ships, ordered by Congress to be built, and the four Captains appointed by Washington—Talbot & Truxton & Barry & ca. to carry an Ambassador to Algiers and protect our Commerce in the Mediterranean. I have always imputed this measure to you; for...