51Thomas Boylston Adams to John Read, 2 May 1795 (Adams Papers)
It has long been my intention to commence the Correspondence, which I had the pleasure to propose to you by letter a few days previous to my departure from America, but like many other good resolutions; which suffer by procrastination, I have never before proceeded to the execution. I can promise you but little entertainment however, & though I should make frequent drafts of this kind upon...
52Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 8 May 1795 (Adams Papers)
Your favor of the 11 th: Feb y reached me on the 29 th: ult o: ; being the first direct communication from you since my residence in Europe, the receipt of it was peculiarly acceptable; it also had another merit, that of giving the latest intelligence from our Country and friends. M r Wilcocks has not yet visited this Country; when he does I shall certainly pay him every attention, which his...
53Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 12 July 1795 (Adams Papers)
The four Letters which your last favor of April 23. mentions to have been written to me, have been received in their regular order, though some of them were nearly five months old when they came to hand. Accept my best acknowledgements for your kindness in writing so often; to solicit a continuance of it from you, is useless, because I know you will omit no occasion of affording to your sons,...
54Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 13 July 1795 (Adams Papers)
The flattering reception which my Letters have met with from you, and the expressions of commendation you have been pleased to use respecting them, would excite sensations of vanity, if I could consider them in any other light, than as the effusions of parental partiality, & paternal indulgence. As a tribute of affectionate approbation, I shall cherish it with fondness, & rember it with...
55Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 5 August 1795 (Adams Papers)
Though it is but a few days since I had the pleasure of writing you, I cannot omit a direct occasion, especially as they occur so seldom, were it merely to repeat the information that no material alteration has taken place in my health or spirits since my last. Indeed I usually find little else to remark, which can be called original after copying three or four sheets of politic’s, the...
56Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 1 December 1795 (Adams Papers)
I had the pleasure to write you a few lines by the Betsey Capt n: Clarke, which sailed from Rotterdam last week; another occasion now offers by the Ann. Captain Lord, the same which brought your favor of the 8 th: October to my Brother, in little more than a month. I have forwarded your letter to him. He arrived in England on the 10 th: ult o: and I hear by a letter from London of the 13 th:...
57Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 14 December 1795 (Adams Papers)
I owe you a volume, & the certainty that I have not time to compile it at present is more terrifying to me than the weight of the debt. Your two kind letters of June 29 & August 25. though some time since received have never before been acknowledged; but my gratitude for these precious testimonials of Parental affection has not I trust diminished in force by having remained thus long in...
58Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 23 December 1795 (Adams Papers)
It has been announced in the Dutch Gazettes as an extract from those of London, that you had delivered Credentials to his Majesty as Envoy from the United States. The article somewhat terrifies me, from the apprehension, that your visit will be protracted, beyond the term of our first expectations. M r: Pinckney is probably in England by this time, as he was some weeks since said to be at...
59Thomas Boylston Adams to Joseph Pitcairn, 21 January 1796 (Adams Papers)
Your favor from Paris of the 9 th. Instant has been some days in hand. I thank you sincerely for the intelligence both public & private contained in it. The florishing state of our American Commerce is a sufficient indication of our growing prosperity; it is if possible, perhaps too rapid for our benefit, though it might be difficult to inspire our Countrymen with such a belief. Upon the...
60Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 17 April 1796 (Adams Papers)
Your favor of the 13 ult. came to hand the 31 st: and that of the 24 th: on the 3 d: cur t: I have to thank you kindly for your prompt execution of my Several Commissions, all the articles of which have been received. It is certainly an erroneous idea, which some of our American friends have expressed, that I am to be charged with a Commission rather than you. I have been long convinced of the...
61Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 23 April 1796 (Adams Papers)
On the 19 th: inst: the packets entrusted by you to the care of Erving, were handed me by M r: Skinner. The letter for Mess rs: Willink was sent them the day following, at which time I made application for a Bill in your favor as desired. The enclosed letter for Mess rs: John & Francis Baring & C o will be equally efficacious as a Bill; & the reason why this mode is prefered will readily...
62Thomas Boylston Adams to Joseph Pitcairn, 17 May 1796 (Adams Papers)
Your favor of the 10 th: curr t: has just come to hand, and as I find a vacant moment, it cannot be better employed than in renewing my thanks for your kind attention to the Commission relative to my Books. I have requested M r: Bourne to refund the Cash paid by you on my account, as the prospect of my seeing him before you, is perhaps greatest. In my letter of the 4 th: inst t: I gave you...
63Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 24 June 1796 (Adams Papers)
Upon my file of unacknowledged letters, I find three from you, the last of which is of the 7 th: April and came to hand on the 21 st: inst t . The other two are of the 19 September and 13 December of the past year; and were received at a time when the state of my health rendered both mental and bodily exertion almost impossible to me. From the beginning of the last winter until very late in...
64Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 29 June 1796 (Adams Papers)
Four precious letters from you have come to the hand of your apostate Son Thomas, without any other acknowledgment on his part, than silent gratitude. Such a return neither merits, nor I fear will it receive a repetition of your favors. The dates of those received are the 17. & 18. September 30 November and 12 March. I shall reply to them in their order so far as respects the several...
65Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 6 August 1796 (Adams Papers)
Since the date of my last letter, (June 24 th: ) I am favored with your’s of May 19. which gives the comfortable assurance of your safe return to Quincy. After the fatigues, vexations and anxiety, which a lengthy session of Congress always produces, I easily conceive the luxury of your enjoyment upon returning to your farm. There you meet the reward of your labors, by the appearance of...
66Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 27 August 1796 (Adams Papers)
In discharge of my promise to write you a letter , which has been given you in two covers enclosing letters from my brother, I commence before the expiration of a second month since the date of my last, by an acknowledgment of your favor of June 10 th: which came to hand on the 6 th: curr t: together with several other’s for JQA. If to the countless instances of your affection and tenderness,...
67Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 5 October 1796 (Adams Papers)
My last letter to you was dated the 27 th: of August, and went by “the Gen l Green” for Rhode Island. I hope ere this it has made more than half the passage. A direct opportunity offers for Boston from Rotterdam and another from the Capital, by the latter of which, I am informed, in a letter from Mess rs: Willink just received, will be sent the table linnen & ca: which was ordered by you last...
68Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 26 November 1796 (Adams Papers)
Two days since I had the pleasure to receive your kind favors of the 9 th: June and 8 th: of August, which came by the way of England with one of the 16 th: August from my mother. I find by these, that my letter’s to you and my mother of the last of June, had not then been received, but they must have come to hand soon after, as I have an answer to a letter, which I wrote my brother at...
69Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 21 December 1796 (Adams Papers)
Towards the close of last month I had the pleasure to receive your kind letter of August 16 th: . I have been so much occupied since then, that it has been impossible for me to thank you sooner for the agreeable domestic intelligence it contains. I am led to suppose however that at the time it was written, your own health was considerably impaired, especially when you tell me, that at “this...
70Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 17 March 1797 (Adams Papers)
Your kind favors of October 28. & November 11. of the past year, have been some weeks in my possession. I am not, nor can I conveniently be, so good a correspondent as my brother, whose frequent and copious communications exhaust most of the subjects upon which I should feel disposed to write you myself, I think it is my duty nevertheless not to suffer any considerable period to pass, without...
71Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 7 April 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have already acknowledged the receipt of your kind favors of Sept r: 25 th: & Nov r: 8 th: which were the last I have from you, and that notorious thief of time, procrastination, has devoured a long interval since I made the promise to write you in a few days. I delight in receiving letters from you, but I have an almost inconquerable aversion to writing in my turn, nor can I account for a...
72Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 19 April 1797 (Adams Papers)
I arrived here last night after a pleasant journey from Antwerp, where I lodged on Monday. Upon enquiry here I found no Diligence going to day, so that it has given me an opportunity of seeing a great part of the City, which I find surpasses much in point of situation the idea I had of it. The quarter of the park is delightful, and the prospect from the Ramparts is such as brings to mind some...
73Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 26 April 1797 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you from Brussels on the 19 th: inst t: and acquainted you with the progress of my journey to that place. I left it on the 20 th: with the Diligence, and reached Valenciennes in safety at an early hour of the evening. There I was deserted by my fellow travellers whom I met on the banks of the Mease, but in the course of the day I had become tolerably acquainted with my new companions...
74Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 8 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have written you three letters since my arrival here; this is the fourth, which I mention only for the sake of knowing whether you received them in order. It is very well known that I am here and some people might think it worth while to discover what I write to others I have hitherto only one letter from you, and had not expected to have another until the last post, supposing you to have...
75Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 24 July 1797 (Adams Papers)
The journey which I made to Paris, towards the last of April was performed so hastily, that it was out of my power to give you any satisfactory account of it from thence, and since my return, preparation for departure from Holland has engrossed most of my leisure hours, so that I have only found time to give an imperfect sketch to my Father of the most material occurrences of that tour. The...
76Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 17 August 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have at length made up my mind to accompany my brother and his lady to Berlin. In justification of this resolution I shall only observe, that it was formed after full and mature consideration, in which both sides of the question, to go or not to go, were deliberately examined, but I may also add, that compliance with the earnest desires of my brother, had a greater share in producing this...
77Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 10 September 1797 (Adams Papers)
M r: Fitch Hall being about to embark for New York I have entrusted to his care a trifling present, which I beg you to accept from me. I intended to have sent you a profile of myself by M rs: Johnson, but was prevented by the suddenness of her departure, which took place a week sooner than it had been previously fixed. The whole family left this place yesterday morning with the intention of...
78Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 3 October 1797 (Adams Papers)
Since I came to this Country, two of your kind letters have reached me; one dated in June & the other in July; the latter came by Gen l: Marshall, but by some accident was not forwarded at the same time with your letter to my brother of the same date. It has only this day come to hand. Contrary to your expectation, as well as my own, your letters find me still in Europe, and about to embark in...
79Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 12 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
Your kind favor of November 7 th: written at East Chester came to hand on the 24 th: ult o: and I have now to acknowledge the receipt, on this day, of your more recent communication, dated the 3 d: ult o: at Philadelphia. I have written to you but once since our arrival here, but my brother has been so frequent & copious in his letters both to you and my father, that I derive a sort of excuse...
80Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 4 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
Since my residence at this place I have received your kind letter of October 25 th: written at East Chester, a few weeks previous to your return to the seat of Government, from your nothern excursion. I have been highly delighted by the accounts which reached us from various quarters of the cordial & dignified reception given by the people to their chief magistrate, both in his going from &...
81Thomas Boylston Adams to Joseph Pitcairn, 12 June 1798 (Adams Papers)
In one of your last letters to my brother you ask for my dispositions of a certain box addressed to me, supposed to contain segars for smoaking— In the first place, then I beg of you to use & dispose of them as of your own property, if you are yourself addicted to smoaking and, if not, secondly to keep them in your possession until I call for them which, if my calculations do not fail, will be...
82Thomas Boylston Adams to Joseph Pitcairn, 9 July 1798 (Adams Papers)
Your favor of the 6 th: curr t. is at hand. It is true, that I mistook the statement in your preceding, respecting the exchange, but now comprehend it better. I agree with you also in opinion as to the propriety of drawing now rather than at a future day. Money in Holland will probably find less opportunity of improvement than hitherto. As it respects myself however, security is all I want for...
83John Quincy Adams and Thomas Boylston Adams to Catherine Nuth Johnson, 13 July 1798 (Adams Papers)
I hope the enclosed letter from my dear Louisa, will be more fortunate in its passage than those which she wrote you from Hamburg, and upon her recovery from illness after her arrival here. Several of our Letters have failed and it gives us much pain to find that those which we wrote to you, were particularly among the unsuccessful number.— I hope however that even before this you have the...
84Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 26 July 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have already acknowledged your favors of March 18. April 4. since when, at different intervals I have received your kind letters of May 1. & 7.— My brother has one from you of June 12. in which the receipt of my letter of March 4 th: to my father is mentioned, and in a manner calculated to call forth all my gratitude, if not to excite some little emotion of self-applause. I have given way to...
85Thomas Boylston Adams to Joseph Pitcairn, 10 August 1798 (Adams Papers)
Upon my return from a short excursion to Pottsdam, where we passed three very pleasant days, I received your obliging letter of the 4 th: curr t and thank you for the detail respecting the Hamburger’s accommodations. My voyage I rather think now, will be deferred until after the autumnal equinox say commencement of October or last of September, because possibly by that time a person may arrive...
86Thomas Boylston Adams to Louisa Catherine Adams, 17 August 1798 (Adams Papers)
After 44 hours constant journeying we arrived here about 7 o’Clock on Wednesday morning. My companion M r: C— hearing that a party of his acquaintance had set off about an hour before for Fryburg a place 24 english miles distant from this—ordered fresh horses, invited me to join him & upon my pleading fatigue, was off himself alone in order as he observed to cause an agreeable surprise to his...
87Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 24 August 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have this morning received your letter of the 18 th: with the enclosure from M r: Pitcairn. My letter to M rs: Adams of the 17 th: under cover to you, must have reached you in course— By the last post I sent her some little sketches or drawings of the neighbourhood of this place, but I can now assure her that the originals are incomparably finer than the copies. Since you condescend to ask...
88Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 14 September 1798 (Adams Papers)
Your kind favor of July 19 th. was transmitted from Hamburg by our cousin Welsh & came to hand last evening. He had a pleasant passage of 38 days and will come on here as soon as he is a little recruited. We had already received your letter of the 14 th: informing of his intended embarkment in a short time, and I have made my arrangements in consequence to be off as soon as the Elizabeth...
89Thomas Boylston Adams to Joseph Pitcairn, 17 September 1798 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 14 th: inst. came to hand last night a little time after my letter to you had gone to the post; its contents however may serve to regulate you as to engaging my passage, but I will add further, that as the season is so far advanced it would be imprudent to defer my passage for the sake of having accommodations quite to my liking—if therefore a clever Captain & good vessel...
90Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 27 October 1798 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you soon after my arrival here that I expected to take passage with Captain Jenkins of the Ship America, bound to Newburypor[t.] I had in fact engaged to go with him, but as he said much to me of the uncomfortableness of his vessel and refused any compensation for taking me as a passenger, I thought best to look out for another opportunity, and upon the recommendation of Capt n:...
91Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 12 January 1799 (Adams Papers)
I arrived at this place yesterday afternoon, in the Ship Alexander Hamilton, after a passage of 46 days— The Season of the year will best explain what kind of weather we have experienced. I thank God that I tread once more the land of my Fathers. I shall wait only for my baggage to come on shore and then set out for Philadelphia—where I hope—to meet you in health. It gives me pain that I...
92Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 22 January 1799 (Adams Papers)
I have had the pleasure of seeing and perusing two or three letters from you to my Father and M r Shaw since my arrival here, and have learnt with joy that your health is better than it has been for some time past. Do not be impatient for my coming on, for I shall certainly make no unnecessary delay, and unless I should take a run to George town for a moment, I shall set off for Boston on...
93Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 28 January 1799 (Adams Papers)
I received your favor of Nov r: 13 th: with an enclosure for J Hall, yesterday, by the New York mail. It came by a vessel, which left Hamburg only one day later than myself and was enclosed by M r: Pitcairn in hopes it might reach me before I got out of the River. I will begin by acquainting you and Mrs: A— with the health of all your friends. Our good mother, from whom I have not yet heard...
94Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 1 February 1799 (Adams Papers)
The morning I left Philadelphia I had not an opportunity of making the necessary arrangement with the Secretary of State for the payment of my Brother’s salary, which the Secretary of the Treasury had promised to advance. I should be sorry that this circumstance should defeat my intention of subscribing to the Loan on behalf of my Brother, the sum of 4000 D ls: which each person who...
95Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 14 February 1799 (Adams Papers)
I arrived at Boston on Monday evening after a prosperous journey, and came out to this place the following afternoon in the Quincy Stage. I had the happiness to find my Mother in tolerable health, and shall be highly rejoyced, if my presence, should in any degree contribute to the continuance of that blessing. The rest of our friends are well, excepting Uncle Adams, who suffers much from a...
96Thomas Boylston Adams to William Cranch, 14 February 1799 (Adams Papers)
Your kind favor of the 26 th: ult o: was delivered to me by my Mother on my arrival, the 12 th: inst t: at this place. I thank you very much for it, and your friendly congratulations upon my safe return. I had before the receipt of your letter, learnt from M r: & M rs: Johnson that yourself & family were well, and I doubted not but a short time would bring me a confirmation of it from your own...
97Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 1 March 1799 (Adams Papers)
My time has been so occupied between going to Boston to get my dinner and coming back to Quincy again, that I have written to you but once since my arrival. I should have considered these frequent visits as time lost to improvement, but that they have enabled me to attend the Session of the Supreme Court, which commenced on the 19 th: ult o. . Having now complied with all the necessary forms...
98Thomas Boylston Adams to William Smith Shaw, 1 March 1799 (Adams Papers)
I am now and then regaled with a few words from your store house, spread over as many lines , which brings to my mind very forcibly the words of Pope. “The weighty bullion” & ca: you know the rest. As yet however I have nothing directly from your hand. I have been playing truant ever since I arrived, and begin to think it high time to attend my office more punctually. We have had Balls and...
99Thomas Boylston Adams to Joseph Pitcairn, 2 March 1799 (Adams Papers)
That I have hitherto given you no account of my voyage since my arrival, is imputable to the unsettled state in which I have been from the time it took place to the present moment. I have made a visit to Philadelphia to see my father, have passed nearly 10 days at New York and for this last fortnight have been here with my Mother, whose state of health, though far better than it was during the...
100Thomas Boylston Adams to Joseph Dennie Jr., 16 March 1799 (Adams Papers)
Since I invited you to a correspondence, and you have not declined it, I should think repentance in the very threshold of the undertaking an unfair desertion from a cause in which I embarked as a volunteer. The offer to contribute by some occasional communications to the supply of the farmers Museum was rather an evidence of my zeal for its success, than of any ability to afford the...