1From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 2 January 1818 (Adams Papers)
I have received your Letter of the 26th. of December 1817 inclosing a Postnote upon the Branch Bank of The United States at Boston for nine hundred and one dollars and Ninety five Cents, being the Amount of the dividend of five per Cent upon the debt proved under the Commission of Bankruptcy of Robert Bird and Co. at New York. I am your affectionate Father MHi : Adams Papers.
2From John Adams to John Binns, 20 September 1819 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for the Copy of your Declaration, which I have just received and will return by the first Opportunity. I pray you to save yourself the trouble and expence of sending any other Copy to Sir your / humble Servant MHi : Adams Family Papers, Letterbooks.
3From 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.
4From John Adams to John Lowell, 15 November 1818 (Adams Papers)
In the distresses and confusions of my family I saw not your address from yourself till yesterday I had read it on its first publication. It is full of information instructive to the Farmers of this Country elegantly written and perfectly adapted to the occasion on which it was delivered. Accept the sincere of your obliged / humble Servant MHi : Adams Family Papers, Letterbooks.
5From John Adams to John Rhea, 31 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have received with great pleasure, your favour of March 9th. with the inclosed of Copy of a Speech, and of a circular Letter The speech is to me both in point of eloquence and information at least, as satisfactory as anything I have read upon the Subject—The Letter is a Concise comprehensive and marsterly compendium of the state of the Government and the prosperous circumstances of the...
6From John Adams to John Jay, 4 July 1823 (Adams Papers)
The excellent president, governor, ambassador and chief justice, John Jay, whose name, by accident, was not subscribed on the declaration of independence , as it ought to have been, for he was one of its ablest and faithfulest supporters. A splendid star just setting below the horizon. Printed Source--Niles’ Register..
7From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 30 January 1826 (Adams Papers)
I herewith inclose to you a letter addressed to me from Mr Shaw written at my request. I can only add that I entirely coincide with him in his opinion I am &ca. your affectionate / Father DLC : John Quincy Adams Papers.
8From John Adams to John Pickering, 29 January 1819 (Adams Papers)
I am ashamed to have delayed so long and at last to be obliged to Borrow a hand to acknowledge the receipt of your learned and ingenious essay on the pronunciation of the Greek language. I rejoice to see that men of letters are rising up to investigate such subjects with an extent of learning and a reach of sagacity that would do honor to any of the learned men in Europe. Accept my thanks for...
9From John Adams to John Marshall, 17 August 1825 (Adams Papers)
The extreme imbecility of old age must be my apology for neglecting to write, and thank you for your valuable Book, It has not been for want of esteem or respect, or admiration that I have not written frequently to you—There is no part of my Life that I look back upon with more pleasure, than the short time I spent with you—And it is the pride of my life that I have given to this nation a...
10From 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...
11From John Adams to John Trumbull, 12 January 1818 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of 26 of Decr and request you to insert my Name among the Subscribers for your Print of the declaration of Independence. In great / haste I am your Friend PWcS .
12From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 30 January 1826 (Adams Papers)
I herewith inclose to you a letter addressed to me from Mr. Shaw written at my request—I can only add that I entirely coincide with him in his opinion I am &ca. your affectionate / Father NN : William Smith Papers.
13From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 24 July 1824 (Adams Papers)
Mr Benjamin Parker Richardson, a Grandson of my old friend Mr Brackett, who is advancing with me far in our eighty ninth year, is desirous of an introduction to you. I hope your family will receive him with kindness. He seems to have a passion for seeing conspicuous characters, and I hope he will be gratified. He can inform you how faint and feeble I am, and how ardently I wish to see you and...
14From John Adams to John Thornton Kirkland, 17 February 1823 (Adams Papers)
I have received the honor of your Circular of February 1823. The System of regulations contained in it has my most cordial approbation. It appears to me to be admirably calculated to preserve the morals and secure the Studies of those young Men who are to be the future Masters of the World. The Corporation may be assured of my higest respects and my zealous co-operation as far as respects my...
15From 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.
16From 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...
17From 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...
18From 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...
19From 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...
20From 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...
21From 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...
22From 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...
23From 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...
24From 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...
25From 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...
26From 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...
27From 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...
28From 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...
29From 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...
30From 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...