11Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, January 1776 (Adams Papers)
Our Country is as it were a Secondary God, and the first and greatest parent. It is to be perferred to parents, to wives, children, Friends and all things the Gods only excepted. These are the considerations which prevail with me to consent to a most painfull Seperation. I have not known how to take my pen to write to you. I have been happy and unhappy. I have had many contending passions...
12Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 13 April 1776 (Adams Papers)
I Received a few lines from you more than a week ago, and determined to have replied immediately to them, but tho you will scarcly believe me, I have never found an opportunity to take up my pen till this moment, which is ten oClock Saturday evening; tis true I have wrote several evenings since, but only to my Nearest Friend, and he has chid me for my delays, delays of which I have not been...
13Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 27 April 1776 (Adams Papers)
I set myself down to comply with my Friends request, who I think seem’s rather low spiritted. I did write last week, but not meeting with an early conveyance I thought the Letter of But little importance and tos’d it away. I acknowledg my Thanks due to my Friend for the entertainment she so kindly afforded me in the Characters drawn in her Last Letter, and if coveting my Neighbours Goods was...
14Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 8 May 1776 (Adams Papers)
Mr. Morton has given me great pleasure this morning by acquainting me with the appointment of our Worthy Friend to the Bench. Have I any influence with him? If I have I beg he would accept. I know very well what he will say, but he has long been accustomed to Courts and the office he held led him to some acquaintance with Law, and his own abilities will easily qualify him to fill the place...
15Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, January 1777 (Adams Papers)
Tis so long since I took a pen up to write a line that I fear you have thought me unmindfull of you; I should not have neglected writing to you immediately upon the receipt of your obliging favour especially as you was then under great anxiety. My Eyes ever since the small pox have been great Sufferers. Writing puts them to great pain.—I now congratulate my Friend upon the Recovery of her...
16Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 14 August 1777 (Adams Papers)
This is the memorable fourteenth of August. This day 12 years the Stamp office was distroyd. Since that time what have we endured? What have we suffer’d? Many very many memorable Events which ought to be handed down to posterity will be buried in oblivion merely for want of a proper Hand to record them, whilst upon the opposite side many venal pens will be imployd to misrepresent facts and to...
17Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 10 December 1778 (Adams Papers)
Nothing but a very bad soar finger has withheld my Hand from writing to my Friend, and telling her that I most sincerely sympathize with her in the late melancholy dispensation of providence towards her, an Event tho not unexpected yet when we are calld to the trial of resigning our dear Friends to the Grave Nature will recoil, and the Beleif of a Glorious immortality can only support the...
18Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 22 January 1779 (Adams Papers)
Your favour by Col. Henly was deliverd me by the Hand of that gentleman. I had been some time expecting to hear from you by your own worthy partner and not seeing him this way gave me some anxiety least he was unwell. But as you did not mention it, and by inquiry of Col. H——I could not find that any thing was the Mater so I set it down to the miserly disposition of my Friend who having got...
19Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 28 February 1780 (Adams Papers)
How does my Dear Mrs. Warren through a long and tedious Winter? in which I have never been honourd with a single line from her hand. Possibly she may think me underserving of her favours; I will not presume to lay claim to them upon the score of merrit, but surely she should have charitably considered my lonely State, and Brightned the Gloomy hour with the Benign Rays of her Friendship...
20Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 1 September 1780 (Adams Papers)
From your Hospitable Mansion of Benevolence and Friendship, I reachd my own Habitation, the day I left you, and found my family well, but the Scenes arround me wore a dismal aspect—the dyeing Corn, the Barren pastures and the desolated Gardens threaten us with distress, and Hunger. Not a vine that had modestly and silently crept along the Ground unasspiring of a nearer approach to the Burning...