21From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 13 December 1800 (Adams Papers)
Thank you for your favour of 30 Nov. No reply will be made while I am a public Man—Perhaps none will ever be made. But I make no Promises. Before this Letter reaches you, the duration of my Station, to which you apply Such Sublime Epithets that I dare not repeat them, will be ascertained to your Satisfaction as it is now to mine. If nothing flew on Eagles Wings as Said or done by me, but what...
22From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 18 December 1816 (Adams Papers)
Your kind letter of the 13th contains much truth, and nothing but the truth. I may return to it hereafter, but at present, with your leave, I will continue a few hints on the judicial character of Chief Justice Hutchinson. I pass over that scenery which he introduced, so showy & so shallow, so theatrical & so ecclesiastical, of scarlet and sable robes, of broad bands, & enormous tie wigs, more...
23From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 15 March 1791 (Adams Papers)
Thank you for yours of Feb. 27. You seem to threaten me with a Place in the Pages of some Tory Historian. If the Party “to a man supposed me the most energetic Plotter and intrepid Projector of all the Authors of the Revolution” I shall no doubt have it. The Papers signed Novanglus, and the Controversy with Brattle about the Independence of the Judges they could be no strangers to. Nor could...
24From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 10 December 1817 (Adams Papers)
I have read your discourse with pleasure, and the notes with terror. they open a field of controversy so solemn, as to intimidate the boldest champions of which race of heroes, I certainly have not the honour to be one. I may however pretend to be a humble projecter, and in that character would propose, 1st. To petition the holy league to purchase of the Turks, peaceably if they can, forcibly...
25From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 21 February 1818 (Adams Papers)
I presume you have read the elegant life of Patrick Henry by Mr. Wirt the Attorney General of the United States. If you have not you have ju a dilicious pleasure to come. Mr Wirt has accurately stated the Virginian Resolves and Mr Henrys Motion in suport of them and theory of treason that excited against him and a glorious anicdote it is. But we ought not to forget our own Massachusetts...
26From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 15 May 1817 (Adams Papers)
Mr William Smith Shaw has lent me the fourth Volume of his political pamphlets, the first tract of which is the Controversy between Governor Hutchinson, and the two Houses of the Legislature in 1773 concerning the Souvereign Authority of Parliament over the Colonies. I knew there was such a Pamphlet; but I had not seen it for more than forty Years, and I feared it was lost. I have enquired for...
27From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 1 June 1818 (Adams Papers)
No Man could have written from Memory Mr Otis’s Argument of four or five hours against The Acts of Trade as Revenue Laws Writts of Assistants, as a tyrannical Engine to execute them the next day after it was spoken. How awkward then would be an attempt to do it after a lapse of fifty seven years? Nevertheless, Some of the heads of his discourse are So indellibly imprinted on my Mind, that I...
28From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 11 January 1817 (Adams Papers)
Dr Morse having undertaken to continue Trumbul’s History: wrote urgently to me to assist him. I wrote him a few Anecdotes in a few Letters which he regularly acknowledged but my Facts were so new to him and so ill calculated to promote the Sale of his projected Book, that he soon neglected to answer me. There our Correspondence ended. You attempted to “bring the Old Gentleman out.” You have...
29From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 18 May 1817 (Adams Papers)
I pretend not to preserve any order, in my Letters to you. I give you hints, as they accidently occur to me, which, an hundred years hence, may be considered as Memoires pour Servir a l’histoire des Etas Unis.—I am about to write to you the most melancholly Letter, I ever wrote in my Life. One, which the most deeply touches my Soul with Greif.—And now, I know not where to begin, nor how to...
30From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 20 January 1801 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your favour of the 9th. You ask, if it is true that Hamilton and Burr are on an easy and friendly footing? I have heard they are. But Hamilton has written several Letters to his Correspondents in this place, (one Gentleman of high Character told me he had seen three) earnestly dissuading from the Election of Burr, and exhorting the Election of Jefferson as the least of two...