61From John Adams to John Trumbull, 25 November 1796 (Adams Papers)
Mr John Adams asks the favour of Mr Trumbulls Company for an hour this Evening at Mr David Bulls. Mr A. would not ask Such a favour on such a Snowy night, but would wait on Mr Trumbull at his house, if he was not much chilled with the cold and much fatigud with a Journey all day NjP : DeCoppet Collection.
62From John Adams to John Wentworth, October 1758 (Adams Papers)
Braintree, October? 1758. Printed: JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p. 64–65 . It is difficult to believe that this draft or retained copy was copied off and sent to Wentworth, because its first paragraph announces the same momentous personal news announced in the opening paragraph of the letter preceding, which is known...
63From John Adams to John Marshall, 10 July 1800 (Adams Papers)
Inclosed are a number of petitions for pardons of fines & imprisonments, which cannot be granted. They ought however to be filed in the office of State I am with great regard yours MHi : Adams Family Papers, Letterbooks.
64From John Adams to John M. Carter, 15 February 1814 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of Feb 1, and a copy of Mr Taylors Arator. Your draught its price, shall be honoured at sight. and I should like to pay for a copy of the second edition at the same time. I have been waiting a long time, with some impatience for the communication & publication of Mr Taylors great work upon Aristocracy. I should be glad to pay for that work handsomely but at the same...
65From John Adams to John Henri Isaac Browere, 23 November 1825 (Adams Papers)
This certifies that John H. I. Browere Esq. of the City of New York has yesterday and to-day made two portrait bust moulds on my person and made a cast of the first which has been approved of by my family. P.S. I am authorized by the Ex President to say that the moulds were made on his person without injury, pain or inconvenience. Thomas B. Adams Judge Printed Source--McClure’s Magazine.
66From John Adams to John Singleton Copley, 16 November 1792 (Adams Papers)
Your polite and obliging Favour of April the 10th I duely received at this Place and I pray you to accept of my best Thanks for your very elegant and acceptable Present of a Print of the Death of Lord Chatham, a Masterpiece of the Fine Arts which does as much honour to America which produced the Artist as it does to great Britain which produced the Statesman. Nor am I less Sensible of the...
67From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 25 July 1820 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for the promptitude with which you paid my debt to Mr Gales & Seaton—and discontinued my subscription for the national Intelligencer I beg your Pardon for not answering immediately your letter of the 24th of last Month as I ought—Not being pressed by necessity, I did not draw upon Mr Cruft—Till up he comes with his Lady to make us a very pleasant visit—And tendered me the two...
68John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 5 May 1796 (Adams Papers)
M r Richard Cooke of Mary land will tell you all the News— I expect to sign the Bills this day which were all passed Yesterday for carrying into E xn. the Treaties with Great Britain Spain Algiers and the Indians— Yesterday seemed a Day of Universal and perpetual Peace foreign & domestic. Tomorrow I go home— Congress will rise by the 20 th. There is much Talk of the Resignation of the P. a...
69From 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...
70John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 19 February 1793 (Adams Papers)
I have great Satisfaction in your Letter of the 10 th. The Breaking of the Bubble of Banks would be a Blessing if it could teach our People to beware of all other Bubbles. But I fear We shall have a Succession of them. I hope however at least they will teach you caution. “The Rivalries of our most conspicuous Characters” are such as human Nature produces under the Cultivation of such a...
71From John Adams to John Jay, 11 October 1788 (Adams Papers)
The multiplied Cares attending the Removal of a Family, from one Country to another; and beginning a new Course of Life or resuming an old one, after an interruption of fourteen years; must be my apology, if any apology is neccessary, for having omitted, till this time, to Solicit the final Settlement of my Accounts, with the United States.— As M r Barclay has, for many years, had the...
72John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 13 September 1790 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you before to day: but I forgot to say Several Things.— Have you ever attended a Town Meeting? You may there learn the Ways of Men, and penetrate Several Characters which otherwise You would not know. There are Several Objects of Enquiry, which I would point out to your consideration without making any noise or parade about them. 1. The State of Parties in Religion, Government Manners,...
73From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 30 September 1817 (Adams Papers)
Mr Jefferson has been good enough to Send me the enclosed Pamphlet An history of the restoration of Royalty in France 31, March 1814 by De Pradt. As it has Some pretentions to Authority, and as you may not have Seen it, I Send it to you: and as the owner desires me to return it, I pray you after you Shall have read it to transmit it to Monte Chello, with whose Inhabitants I hope you will have...
74From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 11 March 1815 (Adams Papers)
I have a rich Budget to send you by the next Ship. I have no time to prepare it by the Milo. I would send you some Newspapers but am told a Collection for the Months past is prepared for you Mr E. Copland Junr will present this. He is first Clerk to Degrand. You have all the Treaties and Projects of Treaties I presume but Britain and U. S. I presume from 1782 to 1815 Jays, Monroes Erskines and...
75From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 10 October 1818 (Adams Papers)
Exoterick and Esoterick Doctrine. See the American Encyclopedia Tit. Exoterick: the French, Title Exoterique; the Dictionaire de Trêvoux, the Same Title, Stephens’s Thesaurus Tit. Exotericus, Gesners Dictionary Tit. Exotericus, and Acroaticus, Fabers Thesaurus Tit. Exotericus. See Also Herodotus Diadorus Siculus, Pausanias Strabo, Plutarch, Aetius , Aristotle Cicero and Aulus Gellius. See also...
76From John Adams to John Adams Smith, 10 October 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of the 5th of August—and the Cheese by Genel Boyd—for both—which I thank you—I have been for four, or five, and thirty years entirely of your opinion—that the United states have not among any Class of Politicians in England, any sincere friends, and those Millions of People who are not politicians, neither know or care, any more about us, than they do about the...
77From John Adams to John F. Watson, 21 August 1818 (Adams Papers)
In your favour of the 12th. you Say that you had believed, “that during the War of the Revolution, many Acts of the British had been exaggerated.” This may have happened; but I know not in what instances, on the contrary I know that one half their Cruelties and brutalities had not been told, or if told has not been believed. If you Suppose, that the British were influenced, by “any Motives of...
78From John Adams to John Marshall, 26 August 1800 (Adams Papers)
I received last night your letter of the 16. I am well satisfied with all its contents. The only thing, which requires any observation from me is, the proposed instruction to Mr. King. As far as I am able to form a conjecture, five millions of dollars are more than sufficient, provided the British creditors are left at liberty to prosecute in our courts and recover all the debts, which are now...
79From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 13 January 1818 (Adams Papers)
Of Mr Wait, I know little, but that he was once introduced to me by General Knox, twice by Judge Thatcher, and Last Week by Mr Shaw, all in this House. He has always been represented And Appeared to be a modest discreet and respectable Citizen. There has been So much Huggermugger, about Secret Journals and Files of Congress and Conventions, which I always detested, that I rejoice they are now...
80From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 3 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
You made me a rich present when you allowed your son George to spend his vacation with me. He has been to me a companion and a friend. He has indulged in no dissipation, has been very constant to his studies & his reading. I cannot find it in my heart to say that he has indulged a little too much in his segars and in his flute. I see that you have the honour to be the target of all the sharp...
81John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 17 March 1780 (Adams Papers)
I have received your Letter, giving an Account of your Studies for a day. You should have dated your Letter. Making Latin, construing Cicero, Erasmus, the Appendix de Diis et Heroibus ethnicis, and Phaedrus, are all Exercises proper for the Acquisition of the Latin Tongue; you are constantly employed in learning the Meaning of Latin Words, and the Grammar, the Rhetorick and Criticism of the...
82From John Adams to John Graham, 28 February 1823 (Adams Papers)
I have rec’d and heard y’r favor of Feb 23d and the pamphlet enclosed, it is a free manly & independent argument at the bar—it is quite orthodox in liberty, humanity, & in law—at least I think so as far as the judges express’d their sentiments—“The court agrees with Dr Graham, in most of the points wh’ he has taken on the subject of examinations & confessions taken in the police office;.” A...
83From John Adams to John Adams, 31 July 1816 (Adams Papers)
I find upon my table this morning your favour of the 7. March; and I know not whether I have ever answered it. I approve of your “eating and Sleeping and living together; of your playing Football, Crickett; running, climbinge, leaping Swimming, Skateing; and have no great Objection to your play at Marbles. These are good for your Health: but what do you do for your Mind? The Mind is of more...
84From John Adams to John Murray Forbes, 6 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received in season, and with pleasure your Letter of the 12th of January I must avow that upon the first publication of Mr: Munroe’s Work, I was much hurt at that levity with which So many Americans, and among them some of respectable character, had taken an open part against the Executive authority of their own Country Government especially when that authority was exercised, by a Character...
85From John Adams to John Trumbull, 10 September 1800 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your favour of the 4th. Porcupines Gazette and Fenno’s Gazette, from the moment of the Mission to France, aided, countenanced and encouraged by Soidisant fœderalists in Boston New York and Phyladelphia, have done more to Shuffle the Cards into the hands of the Jacobin Leaders than all the Acts of Administration and all the Policy of opposition from the Commencement of the...
86From John Adams to John C. Gray, 24 July 1822 (Adams Papers)
My Friendship for your family must be my apology for neglecting so long to acknowledge the receipt of your Oration, I presume to reckon among my friends, your Grand Father Mr Chipman of Marble Head—he was a Brother barrester at law, And I spent a week with him in the year 1764 in the same house and at the same Court in Pownalborough and found him an able lawyer, and an amiable Man; though we...
87From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 10 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
My thanks are due to you, and are most joyfully given, for two copies of your Report on Weights and Measures, one of them elegantly bound. Though I cannot say and perhaps shall never be able to say that I have read it, yet I have turned over Leaves of it enough to see that it is a Mass of historical, philosophical chemical mathematical and political knowledge which no Industry in this country...
88From John Adams to John Adams Smith, 27 March 1806 (Adams Papers)
I am much pleased with the temper and spirit of your Letter of February 28th: The subjects of your future Examination, are judiciously chosen and I hope you will acquit yourself to your own satisfaction as well as that of your Instructor’s. I know of no Characteristic of a weak head a dull discernment and superficial reflection more remarkable than the opinion you mention of many young Men who...
89From John Adams to John Jay, 17 August 1782 (Adams Papers)
The States General have chosen Mr Brantzen Minister to negotiate for Peace. Yesterday he did me the honour to dine with me. He is represented to me to be a good Man and well fixed in the true System. I have very authentic Information that his Instructions will be such as France and America as well as his own Country ought to wish them. I have Letters from Boston 17 June —grand Rejoicings on...
90From John Adams to John Boylston, 5 March 1779 (Adams Papers)
I have received your Billet of the 6. Feb. and altho I am much obliged by your Care to put me on my Guard, against dangerous Men: Yet I am extreamly Sorry to find, that Slander has been So successfull, as to impose upon you, who I know have no sinister Motive, nor any Thing to byass you; in this Case from the Truth and the Interest of a Country whose Welfare you wish. The “Freres” have been...
91From John Adams to John Marshall, 31 July 1800 (Adams Papers)
In the night of the 29, your favor of the 21st was left at my house. Mr Kings letter shall be soon considered. At present I shall confine myself to the dispatches from our Envoys in France. The impression, made upon me, by these communications, is the same with that, which they appear by your letter, to have made upon you. There is not sufficient grounds, on which to form any decisive opinion...
92From 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...
93To John Jay from John Adams, 21 March 1792 (Jay Papers)
A difference of opinion having arisen among those of the Trustees of the Sinking Fund, who are now in this City, respecting the construction of their authority under the Act making provision for the Reduction of the Public Debt, by which they are equally divided, your presence here towards settling the principle which is in question, in order to the future conduct of the business, has become...
94From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 8 June 1815 (Adams Papers)
I have requested a number of Friends, to Search and Seek for information concerning the Fisheries, and they have procured me many Letters which I have Sent you. I ought to have recorded in a Book every One of those Testimonies: but you know the impossibility of it, as I have no Clerk. Some of those documents I have been obliged to Send away to you, without reading them. Inclosed is one from...
95From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 24 July 1822 (Adams Papers)
At the request of our worthy friend and excellent Neighbour Dr Amos Holbrook; I transmit you the inclosed papers, praying you to convey them to the Superintendent of the Patent Office, If I knew Dr Thornton was there I would have transmitted them to him. But I think I have heard some other Gentleman was there, and that he was in some other station—My Compliments to him, if you please— It is...
96John Adams to John Jay, 14 February 1784 (Adams Papers)
Last Evening, after mine to you of Yesterdays date, was gone to the Post office, yours of the Sixth, was sent me from thence. If I were to pray to Neptune, for Liberty of passing thro his Realm, again I should be tempted to Use the Form of a new converted American Indian, at Cape Cod, who went off in a fishing Vessell further to sea than he had ever been before, & was over taken by a storm. He...
97From John Adams to John Sevier, 6 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have received the Letter, you did me the honour to write me, on the 6th of February last. It is very certain, I have never given any orders, that will warrant or justify any proceedure, despotic or inimical to the Liberties of our Citizens but on the Contrary was entirely uninformed, untill I received your Letter, that any transaction of the kind you describe, had been practised or...
98From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 10 March 1822 (Adams Papers)
Contrary to my established habit for many years I must now become an intercessor for a candidate. You must remember a virtuous & industrious lady old lady the widow Owen who lived to be 90 odd years of age, and maintained an always an excellent character and was highly esteemed by your mother. You must remember also young Hollis her grandson who lived some time in our family and was the...
99From John Adams to John Adams Harper, 22 June 1812 (Adams Papers)
I have received the letter you did me the honor to write me on the 14th of June inclosing that of the 30th of March. As you have voluntarily assumed my name, if I have not a right to call you my Son. I have at least a right to give you my blessing: which I do most Sincerely wishing and praying that you may enjoy every comfort and prosperity in your private Life and public career. it has been...
100From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 12 October 1815 (Adams Papers)
A Gentleman, whose Name is Reynolds a Native of Boston, a Graduate at Cambridge, a Pupil in Medicine and Surgery of the late Dr Warren, a Son of a respectable Merchant, a good Scholar and an amiable Character, requests as all other young Travellers do, Letters to You. He goes, I Suppose to See the Hospitals in England Scotland France &c. I have nothing in particular to Say, but that Yesterday...
101John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 16 October 1798 (Adams Papers)
The inclosed Letter from the sec. of state will go by the Way of England. In the paragraph quoted from me I wish you not to mistake. I dont mean that I have any aversion to a Treaty with Prussia or sweeden, upon Terms consistent with your Instructions. You may agree to such a Treaty as soon as you please. But in the present State of Things, if the Neutral Powers will not go to War with France...
102From John Adams to William John Coffee, 18 November 1818 (Adams Papers)
The distress of my family must be my apology for neglecting your two letters till this time. The information in your last, is as afflictive to me, as it is new. An uninterrupted personal friendship with Mr Jefferson, notwithstanding all political conjunctions and oppositions for forty three years has endeared him to me; and your account of his danger is a great addition to my other, almost...
103From John Adams to John Adams, 18 November 1823 (Adams Papers)
Your account of the first part of your journey, is quite as entertaining and instructive as is that of the latter part, recorded in your former letter. The seventy persons on board the steam boat who were obliged to sleep in mats covered with a blanket, reminded me of my excellent friend and physician, Dr Holbrook’s account of the treatment of the small pox in Canada when our Revolutionary...
104John Adams to John Thaxter, 8 April 1777 (Adams Papers)
Your kind Favour of March 22. reached me Yesterday. I am much obliged to you for your Account of the Proceedings of the Superiour Court, and wish you to continue to give me a regular Account of their Progress. The Order, and Happiness of the State and even its Safety, depend much upon that Court, and I long to learn that they are fully employed in the Distribution of Justice, both in the civil...
105From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 18 January 1813 (Adams Papers)
It would be ridiculous in me to write you, upon public Affairs. If We have Judges as at the first; We certainly have not Counsellors or Warriors as at the beginning, except by Water. On the Ocean and on the Lakes We have no reason to blush. You have Sent a Pamphlet upon the Analogy between Russian Words and Sanscret Words. Our University and our Accademy See no importance in this Pamphlet. I...
106From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 10 August 1817 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday was one of the most uniformly happy days of my whole long life. The Morning brought Us a Letter from our Friend Crafts of your Arrival; in a few hours our Neighbour Beal brought Us a Newspaper confirming it, and the Evening presented Us your Letter to your Mother of the 6th. that you were Landed “All well”. A thousand Circumstances exalted the delight or as West used to Say upon all...
107From John Adams, 30 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
This Book, of more value than a gold Watch Sett with diamonds is presented to John Adams by his Grandfather MQA .
108From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 28 August 1815 (Adams Papers)
My perplexities are increased every day, as I fear yours have been and are still. Mine, at present are altogether on your Account. The Princes Speech, paragraphs in London and Liverpool Papers scraps of Letters from both; all convince me that you have had Severe Tryals of your Intelligence and Integrity. It is universally believed here, that a Treaty of Commerce has been Signed, but there is a...
109From John Adams to John Adams Smith, 27 April 1817 (Adams Papers)
I have received your luminous letter of 15th Feby. for which I thank you: but cannot enlarge upon it at present.— I write this to introduce to you Mr Theodore Lyman Junr. a Gentleman whose Talents Virtues and Connections deserve your Respect.—I know you can be of little Service to him, but you may be of Some—I wish you to be acquainted with him, and him with you—He is a Nephew of Mr Williams.—...
110From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 18 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
I cannot forget the loss I have sustained in the death of Dr Rush. Since your departure his correspondence has been a kind of substitute to your conversation. Had I your pen, your tongue or your fingers, I would have pronounced his Eulogium before the Academy, rejoice always in all events be thankful always for all things: is a hand precept for human nature: though in my philosophy and in my...