1William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 16 December 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received your letter of Dec 9 th , with all that pleasure and satisfaction, which, the news of your better health, could not but excite— I declare I wish you would have, Aunt, a wedding every night in the week, for I plainly see that it gives you better spirits and consequently better health, than all the medicine in the world. I have not seen the president so happy this some time, as he was...
2William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 21 January 1799 (Adams Papers)
I am almost dead with a horrid cold and fear that before I shall half finish this letter I shall drown it with water, from my eyes. I wish I felt well and in good spirits enough to give you an account of the presidents ball— it was brilliant indeed, and the ladies were drest and looked almost too beautiful. The president enjoyed himself much better, than he would have done, had not Cousen...
3William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 20 December 1798 (Adams Papers)
Notwithstanding my arms are so stiff, that I can scarcely move them, occasioned by cutting venson for twenty eight very hungry men, yet I must write a few lines to my aunt, before I sleep. We were made very happy this morning by the receipt of your letter of the tenth of Dec to the president. You do not say a single word, whether you have receiveed the newspapers, which I have sent you...
4William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 31 October 1799 (Adams Papers)
Your favor of the 28 th inst I this morning had the pleasure to receive and for which my best thanks are due you. With this you will receive a letter from Mr T. Adams received last evening— I think the probability is that he will be with us this Afternoon. The Chief Justice and Govenor Davie have both left this place for New port where Captain Barrey is waiting to receive them and to carry...
5William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 20 July 1798 (Adams Papers)
O how happy should I be, were I to sit down to write you of my dear sisters better health, but alas I cannot. She fails every day & has now grown so weak that she is not able to wride out or even to come below stairs. She still keeps her usual flow of spirits, & sits “like patience on a monument, smiling” even tho in the arms of death. How miserable should I be, my aunt, in seeing my dear...
6William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 28 December 1798 (Adams Papers)
Not a single letter have we received from you since Monday. Uncle sighs and says, I wish Aunt would write oftener and I sigh and say, Ah! if she knew half the happiness her letters gave to you us, I am sure she would write every day in the week. Congress debates have been warm and interesting for two days past on Mr. Griswolds motion respecting punishing interferences in the government &c. but...
7William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 2 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
Some lover of your nephews happiness, last thursday added something to the fragment of life, by placing in my hands your agreeable favor of March 20 th. The pamphlet sent me, I give you my sincere thanks. Is not Mr. Pickering the author. As soon as I read it, I thought I could see in it his simple style and forcible reasoning. I had read both Scipio and Munroes view, before I received your...
8William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 10 April 1800 (Adams Papers)
I have the Honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Letter of the 30 th. I am much gratified that the proceedings of this Brigade meets with your approbation, I hope it will be entitled to your good opinion & wishes to the end of—its military Career— my assiduities and pointed attention shall not be wanting— I have daily causes of exultation, and am very frequently complimented, By The...
9William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 20 May 1798 (Adams Papers)
Saturday April 21 st , I received yours of the 9 th . I wrote to you the 1 st of April in answer to yours of March 20 th , which before this you must have received, and shall always esteem my letters of inestimable value, so long as they purchase yours. The excellent pamphlet you sent me I thank you. The sentiment it contains—the spirit with which it is written prove to me, that the author...
10William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 6 October 1799 (Adams Papers)
We arrived at this place last evening about seven Oclock, where we have found most excellent accommodations. We have been highly favored with charming weather—excellent roads and good entertainment ever since we left you.— find the chariot a much easier carriage than the coachee. The President thinks he never made so great a progress in his journey with so much ease to himself as the present....
11William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 12 October 1799 (Adams Papers)
After quite an agreeable journey we arrived at this place on the 10 th inst. where we have found much better accommodations than we had any reason to expect. We are at present with two old maids Miss Barnes’s, who appear to be civil and obligeing— they have furnished The President with two rooms, a parlour handsomely furnished and a convenient bed chamber. The City is very much crouded at...
12William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 16 February 1799 (Adams Papers)
I have just received your letter of the 8 th of Feb. and feel grieved to find you in so low spirits and so unwell, but flatter myself that the sight of your son (whom I hope has long before this happily arrived,) & his excellent company will revive your spirits and restore your health. The snow has almost entirely left us and we have had some days of the past week as pleasant and warm as we...
13William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 26 February 1800 (Adams Papers)
I have been honoured by your Letter of the 18 th — I have noticed its Contents, I consent to your wishes, and I will smother my own, if my heart cracks— my Idea of happiness, rests on the ability properly exercised—to promote the happiness of others, whenever I am furnished with this ability I exercise it, and consider myself obliged by the oportunity, I have written to M rs: Smith, & you will...
14William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 15 January 1799 (Adams Papers)
I have received your letters of Jan. 3 d & 6 th with all that pleasure & gratitude which so much good counsel deserved. I do love to read your letters. Before this reaches you, you must have heard of Cousen Thomas’s arrival at N York, from whence he wrote to you. He arrived in this city this afternoon, & is very well. It would do you good to see how happy it has made Uncle. I wish Aunt was...
15William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 12 December 1798 (Adams Papers)
The president received two letters the latest dated 3 d of Dec from you last Evening with a letter inclosed for your son at Berlin which, I shall superscribe and deliver to Mr Pickering with your respects with a great deal of pleasure. I am very sorry to see that you were not so well as you were when you wrote the 25 th of Nov. You do not write in half so good spirits. I find Mr. Otiss family...
16William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 25 February 1801 (Adams Papers)
I have had the pleasure to receive your very kind letter of the 14 th of Feb. at Baltimore, for which I pray you to receive the grateful offerings of an honest heart. I should not have neglected answering it, till this late date, had I not been uncommonly occupied in business, and had nothing to tell you, but what I wrote to Mr. Adams, whose letters I presume you have seen Soon after you left...
17William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 23 January 1798 (Adams Papers)
Your kind attention to my last emboldens me again to interrupt your more important pursuits, & offer my warmest acknowledgement for your excellent letter and the packet accompaning it, received Jan 13 th. Yours, my aunt, afforded a fund of refined and rational pleasure. Besides containing much valuable information, it pleasingly assured me of a share of that love and friendship, which I have...
18William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 25 May 1800 (Adams Papers)
By Major Toussard, we had the pleasure to hear of your being at Scotch plains in health, and of your being escorted a few miles from thence by some of the officers. By a letter from Malcom, […] heard of your arrival at N York, & of your intention to leave that city on Saturday Morn. I presume by the time, this can reach Brookfield, you will be there— I shall direct it, under cover to Mr....
19William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 30 December 1798 (Adams Papers)
’Though I have been writing a very long letter, to my wild, random, laughter loving Walter and have made it very late, still I want to thank my aunt for her letter of Dec 20 th received yesterday morning, before I sleep. Logan is chosen Representative for this State by a very large majority. It so happened that the day, L took his seat, a new carpet was placed on the floor of the house. The...
20William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 1 June 1800 (Adams Papers)
Before I left Philadelphia, I wrote you, expecting the letter would overtake you at Brookfield. The rain on monday prevented our leaving the city till Tuesday, as we had previously intended. The great rains, which they have had this way, have made the roads very bad— they are ploughed up, by the heavy loaded German waggons, exactly like the corn fields in New-England, and you might with equal...
21William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 25 November 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have a thousand things to tell you and but a few minutes to write. We arrived in this city fryday Evening about seven Oclock— the first week we had most beautiful weather & found the roads most excellent— the President said he never knew them to be so good. but the snow made them as bad as they were before good. We had not been in the house but a few minutes before his Excellency the Govenor...
22William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 5 February 1799 (Adams Papers)
There is a class of men in this country, possessing some public confidence, but entirely destitute of any moral principle, whose whole lives are spent in the prostitution of their talents to the perversion of reason—whose unceasing endeavors are to mislead the public mind— to obstruct public business and by the aid of cavil, misrepresentation and artificial odium, to deprive the government of...
23William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 6 January 1799 (Adams Papers)
I have seldom known it to be colder at the Eastward than it is here at present. Although I have a very large fire & my desk almost into it, still my fingers ache & the ink scarcely runs from the pen. I sent you a few days since Logans address, attempting, like his brother traitors, to vindicate his conduct. Thus did Arnold, Munroe & Randolph and thus do all traitors, Logans says in his address...
24William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 8 June 1800 (Adams Papers)
The last letter I wrote you was from Frederick Town. I should have written to you more frequently, while on the road and sooner after our arrival in this city, had it not been for the concourse of people, from the time of his reaching entering, till he left a house, which continnually surrounded the P——t, and which, in this warm weather, was infinitely more fatigueing than his journey. We...
25William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 9 February 1799 (Adams Papers)
Yours of the 2 d of Feb. I received this morning— The president says he cannot blame you for not writing oftner because you write two to him to his one—but could he write as freely as you can and had he as much leisure he should write you every day. Last Evening we went to the play. Secrets worth knowing & the children in the woods constituted the entertainment. The plays were good but the...
26William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 11 February 1799 (Adams Papers)
With this I send you two more copies of the dispatches— A defence of the Alien & sedition bills Divernois letter, Giffords address to the Loyal association &c the pamphlet setting forth the pernicious effects of stage plays. The last mentioned pamphlet was sent to the president the night after he went to the theatre and another quaker sent two more the Evening after.— they are grieved to the...
27William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 2 March 1801 (Adams Papers)
For a few days past, every moment of my time has been so compleatly occupied in official duties, that I have had hardly a moments time to write or even to think for myself— We have not heard from or […], since your last letter to the President from Philadelphia The President has nominated all the officers for this district Mr T. Johnson of Frederick—Mr Marshall of Alexandria, brother to ex Sec...
28William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 26 February 1799 (Adams Papers)
I received your letter of the 14 th of Feb. yesterday— I enclosed to you this morning Browns paper containing the report of the committee, to whom was referred the petitions &c requesting the repeal of the Alien & Sedition bills &c. It was drawn up by Mr. Goodrich of Con t. and is a most masterly production. I think you must be pleased with it. The report was made the order of the day for...
29William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 18 December 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have long been wishing to find time to give my aunt a history of the visit of Dr. Logan to the president, the monday after we arrived in the city. He began by saying that he was extremely sorry that we are not to have the pleasure of Mrs Adams company this winter in this city. The president thanked him. He then said, that he had just come from France and that he had the pleasure to inform...