121From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 12 August 1811 (Adams Papers)
On the 10th: of August 1811. we received your favour of 22. September 1810 to my wife; not quite eleven months after it was written; and the next day we received that of 8 June 1811. which has performed its voyage in a little more than two. Whether the Passage has been short or long the letter always gives pleasure, and always contains some intelligence that is new. You have repeatedly...
122From Hannah Phillips Cushing to Abigail Smith Adams, 12 August 1811 (Adams Papers)
Although I have not written since receiving your favors of July 12th., & August 2nd., yet my heart has been with you daily, knowing too well by woful experience what your anxieties must be for a beloved Sister struggling between life & death, whose society must be precious to all who have the pleasure of knowing her virtues, & how much more so must it be to her near & dear Relatives. I have a...
123From William Stephens Smith to Abigail Smith Adams, 12 August 1811 (Adams Papers)
I have received your affectionate and interesting Letter of the 23d. of July you have conversed with the Doctor, but omit to mention his name, you say it is his opinion “that no outward application should be made, and that mrs: Smith’s general state of health is so good as not to threaten any present danger , he does not pronounce it to be a cancer, tho he cannot say, but that it may terminate...
124From Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody to Abigail Smith Adams, 20 August 1811 (Adams Papers)
Last Tuesday the Horn blew to announce the Departure of the Mail an Hour sooner than the usual Time, which obliged me to break of abrubtly, even without any Signature—Though I suppose you would know from whom it came, by the badness of the writing, & local Circumstances—I find since my last Fall sickness that my hands tremble more than they used— Not received a Letter from you, nor my Cousin,...
125From William Cranch to Abigail Smith Adams, 1 September 1811 (Adams Papers)
I thank you most sincerely for your excellent letter of 5th. ulto. which I should have answer’d before, but for the sickness & removal of my family. The precarious state of my dear mother’s health, for some time past, has, I trust, in some measure prepared me for an event, which is certainly inevitable and which we know can not be long procrastinated. Indeed our term of existence here is so...
126From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 10 September 1811 (Adams Papers)
The first page of the enclosed Press-Copy of my last Letter is so faint that unless you should have received the original, before it comes to hand, I know not whether you will be able to read it—The second however is more plain, and contains the material information of the whole; the birth of my daughter—This information has since been repeated in letters to my father and my brother,...
127From Hannah Phillips Cushing to Abigail Smith Adams, 11 September 1811 (Adams Papers)
Not one ray of information has reached us respecting your Family, or my Dear Mrs Cranch’s ill health, since your letter written the day after leaving here. I cannot but hope that she is convalesent, & that you my Friend with her Family & others, may yet be blessed with her society on earth a while longer. But if it should be otherwise directed by an allwise Providence, I doubt not but that you...
128From William Stephens Smith to Abigail Smith Adams, 15 September 1811 (Adams Papers)
I received your very affectionate Letter (dated the 20th. of August, post mark 2d inst.) on Wednesday; in my Letter of August 12th. I may have expressed myself with too much Solicitude and given my opinion too decidedly in Opposition to that of professional men—they will have liberallity , enough, to excuse me—I fully agree with you that it would be best, having advised with Surgeon’s and...
129From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 2 October 1811 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of 21. June, without a number, was forwarded to me from Copenhagen by Mr. Erving, who recovered it from the Radius, which on her passage to this place, was taken by a french privateer, and is still detained in Denmark—Like almost all the letters which we have received this year it brought tidings of sickness and affliction among our friends—In the sorrow which they have so often...
I received your kind Letters yesterday by mail, & though I ought soon to have expected such an Event, yet I find it has shocked my nerves more than I should have thought—For he had so lately written to me, & his strength of mind appeared so brilliant, & so composed respecting my Sister, that I could not but please myself with the hope that his, life & usefulness might been continued, but it...