51From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 8 February 1816 (Adams Papers)
The receipt of your favour of 2. December was acknowledged in my last, dated the 9th. of January—Three days afterwards, I received your Letter of 9. and 18. November which had been brought by Mr Tarbel—But it was forwarded, I believe from Manchester, Mr and Mrs Tarbel not having yet arrived in London. We have received no Letters of a later date from Quincy. Our Sons, after a Vacation of seven...
52From John Quincy Adams to John Adams Smith, 15 January 1816 (Adams Papers)
The above note to Lord Castlereagh & the enclosed Letters are to be copied into the Book. The note itself I have sent by the coachman. If an answer should come to the office this day send it to me by the coachman If tomorrow morning keep it as I propose to come into Town. The letters to Mr Maury are press copies. I send the originals directly by the Post to him. The Letter for Mr Cornelissen...
53From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 9 January 1816 (Adams Papers)
Mr Bagot, or to speak in the style and after the fashion of this Country, the Right Honourable Charles Bagot, was immediately after my arrival in this Country, appointed by the Prince Regent, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States of America—He is a young man—I conjecture about thirty, brother of Lord Bagot, and his Lady is a daughter of Mr Wellesly-Pole, the...
54From John Quincy Adams to Stapleton,, 6 January 1816 (Adams Papers)
Mr & mrs Adams return their Compliments to Col. Stapleton with many thanks for his obliging offer to take their commands for the United States—They avail themselves of his kindness to request him to take charge of the inclosed letter & pray him to accept the assurance of their best wishes that he may have a pleasant & prosperous passage— MHi : Adams Family Papers, Letterbooks.
55To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 5 January 1816 (Adams Papers)
I plainly perceive that you are not to be converted, even by the eloquence of Massillon, to the Athanasian Creed—But when you recommend to me Carlostad and Scheffmacher; and Priestly, and Waterland, and Clark, and Beausobre—Mercy! Mercy! what can a blind man do to be saved by unitarianism; if he must read all this to understand his Bible? I went last Christmas day to Ealing church, and heard...
56To James Madison from John Quincy Adams, 29 December 1815 (Madison Papers)
Mr. Frederic Pursh a naturalized citizen of the United States & author of a Flora of North America lately published being upon his return to that Country with the object of contributing further to the improvement of Agriculture & the advancement of science by means which will require the assistance and encouragement of persons of influence in different parts of our country I have taken the...
57From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 27 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
My Nephew and Secretary of Legation Mr J. A. Smith, upon his arrival here on the 10th. Instant, delivered to me your kind favours of the 30th. Septbr. and 23d October, the latter enclosing copies of two Letters of recommendation upon which you suppose he obtained the appointment. My sentiments upon this subject have not been concealed from you, but as the President has thought proper to place...
58To James Madison from John Quincy Adams, 24 December 1815 (Madison Papers)
The Pamphlet which I do myself the honour of transmitting to you with this Letter was some time since sent me by its author, with the request that I would forward it to you. This Gentleman who resides at Berlin and is Librarian to the King of Prussia is by birth a Spaniard. His Father was formerly in high diplomatic Office as Minister of Spain successively at several European Courts. Nearly...
59To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 16 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
Mr. J. A. Smith, Secretary to the Legation of the United States at the Court of Great Britain, arrived here last week and delivered to me your favour of 22d Octr: I sincerely wish that he may find his new situation as agreeable and as profitable to himself as he anticipated. The construction which the British Court put upon the Treaties, as they relate to the Fisheries will be well known to...
60From John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 16 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
Your Mama, and I, consent that you shall ask Doctor Nicholes’s permission to come home for the Holidays, on Tuesday; upon Condition that you will return to School after the Holidays, as cheerfully, as you now come from it. Your affectionate Father. MHi : Adams Papers.
61From John Quincy Adams to John Adams Smith, 16 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
The enclosed letter to the Secretary of the Treasury is to be copied into the letter Book—After which it is to be sent together with a copy of the minutes of Stock refered to in it the original of which as received from the French Ambassador I send you herewith. I suppose however you will not be able to have the dispatch prepared before Monday when I propose to be in town. yours sincerely MHi...
62From John Quincy Adams to John Adams Smith, 14 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
The three Letters enclosed are to be copied into the book immediately after your Commission. This letter also, and all those I shall write to you hereafter, are to be copied into the same book. The letter to the Secretary of State is to be forwarded with the packet of Newspapers which I left at the office on tuesday. Mr Grubb will inform you of the manner. The Letter for Mr. Maury may be...
63From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 5 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
The only Letters that I have had the pleasure of receiving from you since I wrote you last are those of the 6th. and 12th. of October both of which came by the Galen. The latest preceding one was dated on the 30th. of August so that I am still waiting for your Septbr. Letters. Although I have not yet entirely recovered the use of my eyes and must still write you by the hand of my Wife I have...
64From John Quincy Adams to Isaac Smith, Jr., 1 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
Your obliging favor of the 2 Sepr. was forwarded to me from Liverpool by Mr. Cary the mournful anticipations of whose friends were unhappily very soon afterwards realized; He died at Royston on the way from Liverpool to London on the 22nd of October; His Lady is now residing with her friends at Islington, and as I learn purposes to return to the U:S: accompanied by her Brother the Ensuing...
65To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 24 November 1815 (Adams Papers)
Col. Aspinwall who arrived here a few days since, and delivered to me your two kind favours of October 13th informs me that he had the pleasure of seeing you at that time and that you were then suffering with an inflamation of the eyes. Nearly at the same time my own eyes which have long been very weak were afflicted with so violent an inflamation as to threaten little less than a total...
66From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 7 November 1815 (Adams Papers)
After I had closed my last Letter to you dated 1st. October, I received on the same day your favour of the 30th. August, and some day’s afterwards the collection of Pamphlets on the late Trinitarian controversy, they were brought as far as Liverpool by Mr. Cary, who survived the Passage across the Atlantic, but who was not destined to reach London alive. he died at Royston on the road from...
67To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 9 October 1815 (Adams Papers)
Your favours of 27. 28 and 30 August were all received together—They, as well as your preceding Letters express so much uneasiness for me and on my account, that I wish it were in my power to tranquilize your feelings—Aware as I am of the heavy responsibility of my present situation, and diffident as I ought to be of my own fitness for it, I have certainly seen times, and gone through...
68From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 1 October 1815 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of 15. August, a few days since received informs me that even that you had received no Letters from me, later than these of March, which were sent by Mr. W. S. Smith—I know not how it happens that one of 22d. April which I gave to Mr Crawford had not reached you, so long after the arrival of the Neptune; but I have already explained to you, how it happened that the one of 7. May,...
69To James Madison from John Quincy Adams, 27 September 1815 (Madison Papers)
The bearer of this Letter, has been made the medium of a communication to the Government of the United States, which may be useful to the important purpose of preserving and rendering permanent the Peace, between them and Great Britain. The British navy is at this moment undergoing the process of reduction to a Peace Establishment. At the same time the army is rather increasing than...
70To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 20 September 1815 (Adams Papers)
Since I have got settled here in the Country, eight miles distant, from Hyde Park Corner, I can find or make leisure about once a week to write a Letter, short or long, to you, to my mother or to my brother, and to enclose with it to you a weekly Newspaper—They will not reach you with equal regularity, for winds and waves will always be capricious—And thus after having received in three months...
71From John Quincy Adams to Josiah, III Quincy, 13 September 1815 (Adams Papers)
On my arrival in this Country, I received your favour of 23. March last, accompanying a packet containing several copies of the Third Volume of the Memoirs of the American Academy, addressed to various literary and Scientific Institutions in London, and one to a similar Society at Bath—They were all delivered at the dwelling-houses of the Secretaries or principal members of the several...
72From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 11 September 1815 (Adams Papers)
The Opportunities for writing to you are now so frequent, that it is impossible, to avail ourselves of them all—They are indeed principally from Liverpool, through which place, I have for the last two Months and upwards sent Letters or despatches almost every week—There are however occasionally Vessels going from the Port of London, and by one of them I now write—I have determined to forward...
73To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 31 August 1815 (Adams Papers)
My last Letter to you I am ashamed to say was written on the 19th: of June—I have however since then written three Letters to my Mother, and in the last of them have given her a detailed account of my occupations, which will I hope serve as some excuse for the long intermission between my between my last and present number, to yourself—In the meantime I have enjoined it upon George to write...
74From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 24 August 1815 (Adams Papers)
You will imagine that the place from which I now write you has been thus named by us; but so it was not—We found the names already settled—Ealing is a parish in the immediate neighbourhood of Brentford, that “town of mud”—immortalized in the Poetry of Pope and Swift; and the house in which we reside has been thus named by its proprietor, in honour of a kinsman of his, one Lord Boston, who has...
75From John Quincy Adams to William Smith, 24 August 1815 (Adams Papers)
On my arrival in this Country, I received your favour of 3. April last, enclosing a copy of the Sermon, and other religious performances, at the Ordination of Mr Frothingham, for which I beg you to accept my thanks—I have not the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with that Gentleman; but he fills the place of two of the most valued and respected friends that it has been my lot to meet in...
76From John Quincy Adams to John Adams Smith, 22 July 1815 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of the 13 May, and assure you that it would give me great satisfaction to contribute in any suitable manner in my power to promote your views of laudable ambition—I am precluded however by several insuperable considerations, from the possibility of complying with your request that I would recommend your appointment, as Secretary of Legation to this Court.—The first...
77From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 17 July 1815 (Adams Papers)
Your kind Letters of 20 May and 4 June have been received together with others to my wife and the children which they have answered and will answer for themselves. Hitherto since our arrival in London, I have been obliged to rely upon their punctuality in answering your Letters, as an apology for the temporary deficiency of mine. Besides the multitude of trifling but indispensable avocations...
78From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 30 June 1815 (Adams Papers)
Just after the date of my last Letter (7. May) I received orders form the Secretary of State, in consequence of which I proceeded as speedily as possible to this City—A Commission and Credential Letter to this Court had been sent here, where I was directed to come and find them. We came from Havre De Grace to Dover, where we landed on the 24th. of May, and came up the next day to London—Upon...
79To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 19 June 1815 (Adams Papers)
On my arrival here I received from my Sons George and John, several important Letters from you. Others have since been delivered to me, the latest of them dated 1. May. The multiplicity of occupations great and small which still absorb my time make it impossible for me to answer them at present—I shall not forget them hereafter. Mr John Gore and his Lady, are returning to America in the...
80From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 7 May 1815 (Adams Papers)
I have been with my friend Charles, and spent two days with General La Fayette, at his Country Seat of La Grange, about forty miles distant from this City—He resides there with his Children and Grand Children, forming a numerous and very amiable family. His son married a Mademoiselle de Tracy and has three daughters—His eldest daughter married a Mr de la Tour Maubourg, and has also three...
81To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 24 April 1815 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you by Mr Storrow, and by Mr Smith who left this City, with the intention of embarking in different vessels for the United States, by who both actually went in the Firgal from Havre. I sent you by them a regular file of the Journal des Débats, from the time of my arrival here, until it was metamorphosed into the Journal de l’Empire—Mr Crawford is now going to England, intending to...
82From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 22 April 1815 (Adams Papers)
Mr and Mrs: Smith left Paris on the 22d: of March to embark in the Fingal at Havre for New-York—I wrote to you by them on the 19th—They sailed on the 30th with a fair wind, and having a fine ship, the most favourable season of the year for a voyage to America, I hope they are at this time near the port of their destination, Here the Easterly winds have constantly prevailed from the time of...
83From John Quincy Adams, 14 April 1815 (Adams Papers)
It appears that Samuel Adams had a grant of lands made to him, by the town of Chelmsford, A.D. 1656, in consideration of his erecting the first mills in said town, and that he married his wife from Cambridge by the name of Sparhawk A.D. 1662; who deceased A.D. 1688 leaving a son by the name of Joseph, born A.D. 1672, who deceased A.D. 1717. Joseph had three sons, viz. Joseph, Jonas and...
84To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 21 March 1815 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you a short Letter by Mr. Storrow, who left this City to embark at Havre for the United States at the end of the last Month, and I enclosed with it a file of the Journal des Débats from the time of my arrival at Paris until then—A fortnight afterwards I received a line from Mr Storrow at Havre mentioning that he was still detained there, and offering to take any further dispatches or...
85From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 19 March 1815 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday Morning I received the first information of the ratification, by the Government of the United States of the Treaty of Peace concluded at Ghent on the 24th: of last December—The Ratification was received at London last Monday Evening the 13th: instant, and the Communication of the Event by Lord Castlereagh to the Lord Mayor was made about eleven O’Clock that Night—It was brought by...
In the course of four days I received your last Letter from St: Petersburg of 12 Feby. That from Riga and of 17 and 20. Feby. and that from Berlin of the 5th: of this Month—I had addressed a Letter to you at Konigsberg on the 19th: of February, and one at Berlin on the first of March, both of which must have arrived after you had passed through those places—I had requested you to inform me by...
Your Letter N. 8. dated 31. January, which I received on Sunday last has explained the mistake in the date of the preceding number—If you left St Petersburg so soon as 5. February, it is doubtful whether my last, dated the 19th: of last Month and enclosed to Messrs: Schwenk and Koch at Königsberg, will reach that place in time to meet you there; or whether the present will find you at...
88From John Quincy Adams to Walter Hellen, 28 February 1815 (Adams Papers)
Since I wrote you in July last, I have had the pleasure of receiving your favour of 6. August, by Mr Boyd—As there was at the time when I received it scarcely the most distant prospect that the Negotiation then pending would terminate in Peace; I felt a repugnance at writing to you information which from the tenour of your Letters. I perceived would be so unwelcome to you— The prospect...
89To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 27 February 1815 (Adams Papers)
Since my arrival in this City I have received your kind favour of 16. October—I have now been here upwards of three weeks, waiting for the decision of the Government of the United States upon the Treaty of Peace submitted to them—This decision will I trust be known here in the course of the ensuing Month, and I shall be released from the state of suspense in which since the conclusion of the...
90From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 21 February 1815 (Adams Papers)
My last Letter to you, was of the 31st: of January, from Bruxelles; and I enclosed it to Mr Beasley at London, requesting him to forward it by the earliest possible opportunity. By his answer he informs me that he dispatched it by the Packet which was to sail on the 15th: instant from Falmouth—Two days after it was written I left Bruxelles and came to this City where I arrived on the 4th:...
After informing you by my last Letter of my arrival in this City, and of the Hotel where I had taken up my abode, I have suspended my Communications to you, under the expectation and the hope that you will have left St: Petersburg, before any further Letters from me could reach you there by the Post—Even that Letter may have to travel back after you as far as Riga, if you take your departure...
92From John Quincy Adams to William Steuben Smith, 13 February 1815 (Adams Papers)
I received only last friday your letter of the 5 Instant and have been since then endeavouring to find lodgings for you I have finally taken chambers in this Hotel for you one week at 80 francs—If you stay longer you will without difficulty procure in other parts of the city apartments at a more moderate price; but as it would have been necessary to engage them immediately had I taken them...
Paris. Hotel du Nord, Rue de Richelieu—Saturday 4. Feby: 1815. I arrived here at one O’Clock this afternoon, having left Bruxelles on Thursday Morning between five and six. It has been a solitary journey, and the roads, which are paved the whole way, as bad as they could be—If it were not for the pavement they would be nearly impassable—There was here and there a remnant of snow, at the sides...
94From John Quincy Adams to William Steuben Smith, 1 February 1815 (Adams Papers)
I send you back, by Mr Bauwens, the first Volume of Madame de Stael’s Book which was brought with me from Ghent by mistake—At the same time I enclose a French Post-Book which you requested me to procure for you. On leaving Ghent, I forgot to make two small payments, besides that which I mentioned to you of a postage-bill to Mr Hughes—One of them was to Mr Cornelissen for six copies of a Latin...
95From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 31 January 1815 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you a few lines on the day that the Treaty of Peace was signed, which I sent by Mr Hughes the Secretary of the American Mission, who was the bearer of one copy of the Treaty. A second copy was dispatched the next day by Mr: Carroll, who had been private Secretary to Mr Clay; and by him I, wrote a long Letter to my father—Mr Hughes embarked at Bordeaux in the Transit, the dispatch...
From all that I have yet seen of Bruxelles, I find it so agreeable that I almost regret not having determined to stay and wait for your arrival here; without going to Paris at-all; or at least not without having your company—But the impulse of motion being given, the power of inertness operates upon me so forcibly that I find myself uneasy almost without knowing why; and have determined to...
Me voici, at length out of Ghent; though I believe it had not been for the shame of fixing so many times a day for departure, and still postponing the act I should have stayed there a fortnight longer—The natural philosophers say that inertness is one of the properties of matter—By which they understand the aptitude of remaining in whatever situation it is, whether in motion or at rest—Thus...
Although I have been since I wrote you last Friday constantly engaged in preparing for my departure, I have not been able to get away this day as I had intended, and it is possible that I may not go before the last of the week; beyond that time I do not see the prospect of being detained, and indeed my present intention is to start the day after to-morrow—If I pass Friday I shall write you...
I received yesterday Morning your’s of 27. December number 54—and readily excuse the omission of a Letter on the Birth-day in the satisfaction of reflecting that you were at that time partaking in the celebration of a day memorable in the annals of Russia, as it will henceforth be memorable in those of our Country, and particularly memorable in the days of my life—It is yet for my Country to...
Since the departure of Mr Gallatin, I am left here the only remnant of what was called the Congress of Ghent—Instead of the continual succession of Americans coming and going, I am now reduced to the Society of the hospitable Inhabitants of this City, and of Mr and Mrs: Smith—Instead of the painful suspense and expectation of irritating Notes, alternating with the anxious labours of replying...