271To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 9 November 1810 (Adams Papers)
One hundred and twenty American vessels have sailed from the Port of Cronstadt for the United States during the present Season—The two last of them were Captain Bainbridge, for Philadelphia, and Captain Leach for Boston, in the American Hero a vessel belonging to Lieutt: Governor Gray.—They sailed on the first of this month and both of them carried letters from us.—They were the last vessels...
272From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 7 August 1813 (Adams Papers)
By the arrival of Messrs: Gallatin and Bayard, I have had the pleasure of receiving your favour of 25. April last, numbered 28/19— Your last preceding letter, dated 6. Decr: 1812 has the same numbers; and in the interval between the two I have received the duplicate of your Account for the year 1811.—dated 2: March 1813.—The Account for 1812 I am still expecting, and regret that it missed both...
273From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 24 June 1814 (Adams Papers)
At length I may indulge the hope of having reached the remotest bound of the distance which separates me from you, and that when I move again, it will be to return to you. Mr Russell left his Son at Amsterdam having placed him at a School where Mr Bourne had his two sons. Being thus left alone, he took a seat with me, in the Dormeuse. We left Amsterdam at 6 in the Morning, the day before...
274From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 19 March 1811 (Adams Papers)
In proportion as the time lengthens since the receipt of your last Letter, which is also the last that I have received from any of my friends at Quincy, I find not only my anxiety to hear directly from you increasing with it, but also my desire and determination if possible to relieve you and my other friends with you from a similar anxiety respecting us, which you would feel in the case of so...
275From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 21 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
The seventy-ninth day since our departure from Boston, and not yet in Petersburg—But we are on land, within twenty miles of it, and at the end of our voyage in the ship Horace.—We have indeed had a very long passage, and it has not been without its interesting incidents, had I but the time of narrating them—But to you as well as to us, the most interesting of them is, that we are all, thanks...
276From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 31 January 1813 (Adams Papers)
My last letter to you was of 14. November since which I have not had a line from you, nor indeed from any of my friends in America— The second year has passed away since I received last best account of my affairs in your hands. The intervals between my own letters to you, insensibly lengthen—It shall not be so if any thing should ever occur, the information of which can give you pleasure. The...
277From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 10 September 1814 (Adams Papers)
When I wrote you my last Letter, a press copy of which, is enclosed, I had little or no expectation that I should at this day still be here. The John Adams sailed from the Texel, with Mr Dallas on board, the 28th: of August, and has, I hope, by this time half-performed her passage—It is one of those singular incidents, which occur occasionally in real life, and which would be thought too...
278From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 23 October 1813 (Adams Papers)
Mr. W. Story, arrived at Gothenburg on the 28th: of last Month, and forwarded to me from that place several Letters from Quincy, among which was your N. 25/16 May 7. 1812. and 30/21 May 21. and July 1. 1813.—In this last I read thus “With my present letter I shall forward a copy of our Current account, under a separate cover &c.” I looked anxiously for the separate cover, for reasons which I...
279From John Quincy Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 12 August 1814 (Adams Papers)
Your Letter of 15 July, gives me much pleasure, as it always does to receive a Letter from you; and it would have given me still more, if it had been better written—Comparing it with your former Letters which I have on file, I find it not so well written as either of the others, although the first of them is dated nearly three months before. Your brother George learnt with much difficulty to...
280From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 20 December 1816 (Adams Papers)
I mentioned to you in a former Letter, the visit that I had received from Mr Frend, and Mr Aspland, the Minister of the Unitarian Congregation at Hackney—Since then I have dined with Mr Frend, who is a Unitarian, and Astronomer, and Actuary , of an Insurance Company. There I met again Mr Aspland, who afterwards made me a present of several of his own publications, and from Dr Disney a copy of...
281From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 28 December 1816 (Adams Papers)
General Boyd, Mr Stores, Mr Forbes, and Mr and Mrs. Everett, have all arrived in London within the week past; and by them, with many other Letters and despatches I have received your favours of 5. and of 26. November—There must be I think a Letter in arrear between the 30th. of September and the 5th. of Novr—You acknowledge the receipt of my Numbers 92 and 93—and 97 and 98. I hope the...
282From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 11 June 1811 (Adams Papers)
Your letter of 15. Feby: which was brought by Captain Brown, of the Washington, and which I received on the 23d: of last Month, gave me the first intelligence of those afflicting Events the Death of Mrs: Hellen and Mrs: Norton—I received it early in the morning, and was thereby enabled to communicate it to my wife and her Sister, with as much preparation as the nature of the case would...
283From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 12 March 1809 (Adams Papers)
Last night I received your kind favour of the 4th: instt: with the information the most delightful to my feelings, that my mother is recovering still, that the children are well, and that I may hope to find you so, upon my return.—May God Almighty grant that this hope may be realized. This is the last Letter which I purpose to write you from this place—Yesterday the Supreme Court delivered...
284From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 22 October 1814 (Adams Papers)
A dutch Vessel, called the Prince of Orange, which had taken out to America the Minister, Mr. Changuion, arrived on the first of this month at the Texel, from Boston, after a passage of thirty days. She brought Boston newspapers to the first of September, but very few private letters, and to my great disappointment, none for me—Mr Boyd had arrived here, a day or two sooner, with dispatches...
Your Letter of 30. September, not numbered, was brought to me yesterday, after I had given up the hope of hearing from you for several weeks. That which you had previously addressed to Dresden, conformably to my request, I presume is there, waiting for me, and may possibly still wait for Months.—On Saturday last we received from the British Commissioners a Note more distinctly marked than any...
286From John Quincy Adams to George Washington Adams, 15 September 1811 (Adams Papers)
The first point of view, in which I have invited you to consider the Bible, is in the light of a Divine Revelation . And what are we to understand by these terms?—I intend as much as possible to avoid the field of controversy, with which I am not well acquainted, and for which I have little respect, and still less inclination—My idea of the Bible as a Divine Revelation , is founded upon its...
287From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 10 August 1812 (Adams Papers)
Just as I was closing my last Letter to you, I received your letter of 12. April, and had barely time to make a minute of it, at the bottom of the one I was sealing up for you—Since then I have not had the pleasure of hearing from you I then flattered myself that the Revocation of the British Orders in Council, of which I had just been informed, would be known in the United States, in Season...
288To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 6 May 1816 (Adams Papers)
I keep a constant search on foot for the books which in any of your Letters, you have expressed the desire of procuring; but the excessive prices at which all books are held, deters me sometimes from taking those that I find, and I am not always successful in finding those for which I am on the lookout.—The Translation of the New Testament by Beausobre and L’Enfant is in two Quarto Volumes,...
289From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 20 August 1812 (Adams Papers)
Since I wrote you last, I have had no letter from you, or indeed from any person in the United States. The Embargo, and the Declaration of War, have effectually superseded all arrivals here directly from America. To this general fact there is an exception occasioned by the Declaration of War itself.—A Pilot Boat was on the 22d of June dispatched from New York by certain Merchants of that City...
290From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 28 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
At length, after eighty days of tedious and dangerous navigation, we are all safely landed at the place of our destination—I have written to you twice upon our passage—first, from the Grand Bank of Newfoundland, and once in the Cattegat, the night before we expected to arrive at Elseneur—From that time, I shall now continue the narrative of our voyage, which though address’d to you, is for all...
291From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 16 November 1809 to 28 November 1809 (Adams Papers)
My last Letter brought our good Ship Horace to anchor safe in the Road of Elseneur—on the 28th: of September.—At that place we were detained a full week, by adverse winds—Having been informed upon my landing there, that the king of Denmark, and his principal Minister, Count Bernstorff, were both absent from Copenhagen, I gave up, in the first instance the intention of going thither—But having...
292To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 13 December 1811 (Adams Papers)
The extract contained in one of your last Winter’s letters to me from the Astronomics of Manilius, excited my attention to that writer, of whom I had previously known nothing more than the name—I have not been able to purchase it here, but General Pardo da Figueroa the Spanish Minister at this Court, one of the most learned classical scholars in Europe has had the goodness to lend me this...
293From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 18 February 1813 (Adams Papers)
As I shall probably not have an opportunity of dispatching letters for America, after that of which I now avail myself, at least before the expiration of the present Month, and as I am unwilling to break through the rule which I prescribed to myself of writing to you, at least once every Month, I sit down to repeat to you, what only three days since, I wrote to my father, namely, that I have...
294From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 25 July 1810 (Adams Papers)
Captain Harrod, by whom your kind favour of 20. March to me, mentions that you had written to my wife, and also sent a Box of Articles which she had requested to procure for her, has not yet arrived—Your letter of 20. March itself was brought to me, a few days past, I know not from whence; but having apparently been opened, and having suffered much from a soaking; but whether in salt or in...
295From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 25 October 1813 (Adams Papers)
If I could have omitted to welcome the return of this day, and to renew my prayers for many happy repetitions of it to my father and you, I should still have been charged with the obligation of acknowledging the receipt of your two letters of 1. and 14. July which I received last week from Gothenburg—They were brought to that City by Mr Story, who writes me that he had a long passage from...
296From 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...
297From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 28 April 1812 (Adams Papers)
The only notice of existence directly from yourself that I have received since your letter of 2. June 1811. is by a scrap of half a dozen lines dated 5. January last which I received together with a letter of the same date from my Mother, by the way of Paris— This scrap was also enclosed with three or four newspapers, and short as it was gave me great pleasure— The letter which it mentions as...
298From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 14 May 1814 (Adams Papers)
After I had closed my Letter for you which is to go by this night’s Post, I received a Letter from Mr Sterky, the Swedish commercial Agent at St: Petersburg, dated the 10th: instt. last Tuesday; and enclosing one from Count Engeström of 26. April, only two days before I left you—So that if I had gone by the way of Abo, I should not have been detained by the Ice, an hour—And here—I have seen...
299To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 25 June 1811 (Adams Papers)
The fortieth American vessel, which has arrived at Cronstadt, since the opening of this years navigation, was the John Adams, Captain Thomas Downing from Savannah; she arrived last Saturday the 22d: instt:—and the first which sailed for America was the Laurel, Captain Burnham, belonging to Mr: Gray; by whom I sent the letter to you of which the enclosed is a press-copy—She sailed the 10th:...
300To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 16 August 1812 (Adams Papers)
The flames of War, which are again spreading universally over Europe, have at length caught across the Atlantic, and involved our Country in the Conflagration—Numerous as the obstacles to a safe and speedy Communication of Correspondence between us and our friends in the United States have heretofore been they are now greatly aggravated and multiplied—We received on the 5th: of this Month, the...