21John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 20 February 1796 (Adams Papers)
By the present opportunity, I send you a few pamphets which may give you some entertainment in the perusal, and newspapers from which you will collect the current intelligence. For my own part I have been here so long in idleness that I have almost entirely doff’d the world aside and bad it pass.— You will observe in the papers a pretended preliminary convention for a pacification between...
22John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 17 October 1790 (Adams Papers)
I am I believe more than one Letter in your debt; but I feel if possible less inclination than ever to write to my friends as I have no good news to tell them about myself, and very little about any one else. I have now the advantage of being three hundred miles distant from every member of the family; alone in the world, without a soul to share the few joys I have, or to participate in my...
23John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 30 June 1796 (Adams Papers)
I begin again to number my letters to you; a practice which I neglected, in writing from England, but which I renew, that at least you may know whether any of them miscarry in the conveyance. I wrote you eight Letters from London: the last of them dated May 5 th: and though you have been the most frequent and punctual american correspondent I have had, I have yet no acknowledgment of the...
24John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 28 February 1796 (Adams Papers)
The last Letter I wrote you should have gone by the Galen, but from being postponed to the last moment, the opportunity was lost, and it will now be delivered to you, together with this by my friend M r: Gardner who goes with Scott. He has also the goodness to take charge of the cloaks for yourself and Louisa, for which you wrote to my brother Thomas. As he remained at the Hague, I undertook...
25John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 7 November 1795 (Adams Papers)
Your few lines of August 25 th. were forwarded to me from the Hague by my brother, and though short, yet as the tokens of your remembrance, gave me the customary pleasure. A longer interval than I can fully justify to myself has elapsed since I wrote you last. But having written repeatedly to my father, I have always supposed myself writing at the same time to you. As you have been a traveller...
26John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 24 November 1795 (Adams Papers)
You will receive the letter I wrote you during my captivity at Helvoetsluys, where I was detained by opposite winds and violent weather almost three weeks. On the 11 th: inst t: I arrived here. How long I shall stay is yet unknown to myself, but I hope not long; there is something so dissipated and yet so solitary in the residence of a City like this, that I have never found in it either the...
27John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 29 June 1795 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of April 22. marked N. 4. reached me a few days since; I have already acknowledged the receipt of your three preceding letters and have answered them. The sight of a letter from America has lost none of its charms in Europe, and that of one from you can never lose them in any part of the world. I have just written an encyclopaedia of politics (I mean in point of quantity) to my...
28John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 13 December 1794 (Adams Papers)
I hear of an opportunity from Rotterdam to Boston, but so lately that I have scarce time to write any Letters except my necessary dispatches. General Eustace goes as a passenger in this vessel, and I have given him letters of introduction to you and several other of my friends in Boston. Had I known of this vessel earlier I could have taken measures to send your things by her; which for the...
29John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 5 December 1789 (Adams Papers)
No, my dear Madam, I have not tasted of the waters of Lethe, nor have the Laws of Nature, been obliterated from my heart, by too close an attention to those of Nations. The reasons which have hitherto prevented me from writing since I left you, are various; but would not be very interesting in the detail, for which reason I shall, omit the unnecessary tediousness of a justification, and offer...
30John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 14 November 1796 (Adams Papers)
I received a few days ago, your favour of August 10 th. it mentions a previous letter of July 11 th. which has not yet reached me. The latest date from you before this last is of June 10. From my father I think I have none since May.— The appointment to the mission of Portugal, I find from your Letter was as I had before concluded, unknown to my father. I have already written you upon the...