11From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 6 December 1804 (Adams Papers)
In your Letter of the 26 of November, to your Brother, you express a “Wish that I could See the course of Things with more indifference.” But this is impossible. The Habits of a whole Life of Man, are not to be changed without difficulty. While Life and Breath and being last, I shall love my Country: and neither the Interests of Posterity nor the Happiness of the present Generation, can ever...
12From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 14 December 1804 (Adams Papers)
In my Letter of the 14th Ult. I believe I misunderstood the Presidents Position. His Expression that the Judges ought to hang American Citizens who should commit homicide &c meant no more than to express his opinion that the Fact amounted to a Capital Offence. His opinion that it is a Capital offence to resist French Revenue Laws, in the West Indies is totally unfounded. The President was also...
13From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 22 December 1804 (Adams Papers)
Many Thanks for your favor of the Eleventh. It is very odd, but no less true that I not only never Saw, Mr Bentley, but I never heard of his fame or name, till I read his Election as Chaplain in a Newspaper. Since that time I have heard much, and among other things that he is an intimate Friend of James Winthrop the Judge. Mr Bowdoins appointment is the best, the President has made in this...
14From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 24 December 1804 (Adams Papers)
Has there ever been an Instance, in the World, of two Persons living together without Emulation and Jealousy.? Is it possible there should be one? When I was finishing the Letter I wrote you on the 22d, the Ladies of the family without knowing what I was about read me, a passage in Hayleys Life of Cowper from p. 122. to p. 127. Vol. 1. Mrs Unwin was eclipsed by the Brilliancy of Lady Austen,...
15From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 8 January 1805 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of Decr. 24. was received in the regular course of the Mail and in good order. It refreshes me to See that you write in good Spirits. Your Family and private Friends must console you, under all your humiliations in public Life. For fifteen years, i.e from the year 1760 to 1775 I was in the Valley, the dark Valley of Grief Gloom and disappointment; Unalterably devoted to Principles...
16From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 20 January 1805 (Adams Papers)
I received in Season, your kind Letter of the 5th. and have been so very busy that I have not found time to acknowledge it, till now. When I write to you it is with no Expectation of any Answer, unless it be in a bare Acknowledgement to Some of us, i.e. to me, your Mother or your Brother of the receipt of my Letter. I know that the public Business must as it ought to engage all your time and...
17From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 27 January 1805 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the fourteenth, with its ample Enclosures of Documents, has arrived in good order....I deliver all the Journals of Senate and House, all the printed Bills and other printed Papers you send me, to your Brother, who I presume preserves them all in order for your Use and his own. The Season here has been unexampled. We have had an Abundance of Snow but it has been melted almost as...
18From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 7 February 1805 (Adams Papers)
I received your favour of the 24 of Jan. this morning. I must repeat to you that I neither expect nor desire that you should answer my Letters. I write for my own Amusement and on a Supposition at the same time that a little diversion from your Studies and Labours might give a little pleasure. Neither you nor the Gentlemen who commonly vote with you, ought to discard your concern relative to...
19From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 23 December 1805 (Adams Papers)
I ought, before now, to have acknowledged the Receipt of your favours and even now I can do no more than acknowledge them, for what Subject have I for a Letter? Shall I Send you diagrams of my Grounds, which the fine Weather of November and December has enabled me me to plough, for Corn, Potatoes, Barley Clover and Timothy? But what a Miniature picture of a Lilliputian Plantation, would Six...
20From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 29 January 1806 (Adams Papers)
The Mail of yesterday brought, me, the Documents and in the Evening I received from Boston your favour of the 14th. By the Journals of the Senate I see, that you have Work enough, to excuse you from private Correspondences. By all that I read in the Documents, Journals, and Newspapers, it seems to me that the reigning Principle is to crouch to france & Spain and be very terrible to Britain....
21From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 5 February 1806 (Adams Papers)
In the first place, I must, in conformity with one of the rules ordained by you orators, endeavour to conciliate the affections of my reader, by quieting your Anxiety for your Children, which I can do with a good conscience by assuring you that George and John are in very good health and very fine Spirits. My Sheet would not hold the history of their Studies, their Sports and frolicks. In the...
22From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 26 February 1806 (Adams Papers)
My Exordium must inform you that George is and has been a long time in perfect health. John has been as plump and gay and hardy and hearty as you could wish him, till yesterday when he looked a little paler or rather a little less ruddy than usual but he worked and played as usual all day: but this morning he discovered symptoms of qualms in his stomack and puked a little, but a Tea Spoonfull...
23From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 7 January 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have regularly received the Journals and Documents you have been So good as to inclose and two Short Letters for which I thank you. I have recd also the Economica of Mr Blodget for which I pray you to thank him. It is I presume a work of merit and Utility. I have not been able as yet to attend to it very carefully. I have not written to you before, because I had nothing to write, unless it...
24From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 20 June 1807 (Adams Papers)
Inclosed is the Certificate of forty Shares in the Fire and Marine Insurance Company. The third part of the Capital which is to be paid off, you will please to receive in shares of the Boston Bank, if you approve of it, and hold them as you propose. I am your affectionate / Father MHi : Winthrop Family Papers.
25From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 12 November 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have not written to you, though I have received two kind Letters from you, Since your departure, giving me very pleasing accounts of your comforts in your Travels. Soon after you left Us, I took the resolution instead of Sending George to Atkinson by the Stage or any other accidental and precarious conveyance to convey him myself. Accordingly We Set out, your Mother your Son and myself, and...
26From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 14 December 1807 (Adams Papers)
Knowing very well by too long Experience the nature of your Employment, I wish you to understand that I never expect or desire any answers to my Letters except when I expressly request Information, more than a bare Acknowledgment of the Recipt of them. I Say this however upon a very patriotic and Self denying Principle because every Line from you is a cordial to my Spirit. Mr John Smith of...
27From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 8 January 1808 (Adams Papers)
The distance between Us, the total retirement in which I live and the Want of Facts, render a Correspondence between Us, upon public affairs of very little use to you, though it is a great pleasure to me. The Storm that has agitated the Elements for twenty Years in Europe must be drawing towards a Conclusion, and the last blasts may be the fiercest of all. We have been favoured by Providence...
28From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 17 January 1808 (Adams Papers)
As I know you hold a higher Rank in the intellectual Scale and a more estimable Situation in the moral Gradations of the Universe than Admiral Nelson, I know of no reason why I should not borrow his Fathers Epithets and for once or twice bestow them upon you. I, who perhaps ought to be indifferent to all Things in this World, and certainly Should conscientiously resign all Men Measures and...
29From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 12 February 1808 (Adams Papers)
Since you will not allow me the whole of Parson Nelsons Epithets for his Son I will insist upon retaining the better half of them. Nothing was farther from my intention than to underrate the Character of Admiral Nelson. I can Subscribe to all that you Say in his praise: yet I would not exchange Sons with the Parson, though the Admiral were still living with all his Wealth, Virtues, Titles and...
30From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 19 February 1808 (Adams Papers)
In Answer to your Letter of the 27 of January I request you to make Provision for Advancing me, by Mr Shaw one thousand one hundred and twenty five dollars and fifty Cents, or thereabout, which is the amount of an Obligation I owe to Miss Thaxter, or if you choose and I think there is but one remaining due to that Family. Your Mother has written you on the Subject of Caucus’s. I am not of her...
31From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 5 March 1808 (Adams Papers)
Livy in his 42. Book and chapters 29 and thirty, as an introduction of his History of the War between the Romans and Perseus King of Macedonia, says that all the Kings and States of Europe and Asia had their Attention fixed upon those two powerfull Nations upon the Point of engaging in War. He first explains the Views of the Kings Eumenes, Prusias, Ariarathes, Antiochus, Ptolomy, Massinissa,...
32From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 18 March 1808 (Adams Papers)
Your luminous Letter of the 27th of Feb. and 6. March are is before me. Was this an homogenious Nation under a consolidated Government, the Provision in the Constitution of Massachusetts would be Sufficient. But in a Confederation like ours there is danger. In Holland they have thought unanimity necessary in all most every Thing. Under our old Confederation, a Concurrence of nine States out of...
33From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 12 April 1808 (Adams Papers)
In your favour of March 25th. you express a hope that nothing like a distribution of Money, among the Principal Leaders of our Parties, has occurred or will occur, among Us. I agree with you in this hope and I will add that I Still entertain this belief. At least there is no one, on whom I can fasten even a Suspicion. But that foreign Money has been received by Sebastian, has been adjudged:...