1To John Adams from James Lovell, 10 March 1808 (Adams Papers)
Hoping to have, very speedily, an opportunity of testifying my Esteem of you, at your own house, in propria personâ; I now take the freedom of making a previous intreaty that you would find from Judge Cranch the origin of the Katascoptic Club; which met at the Chamber of Edmd. Quincy 3. times in a Chamber at in the Widow Salter’s House where Gl. Donnison now lives; – in 1756 or 57. I beg you...
2To John Adams from James Lovell, 2 February 1809 (Adams Papers)
Our Lincoln is wreathing in the Fox-trap of pretended-Friends. And the desendants of those Same Mice, who nibbled you when you sent good-Ellsworth to France, have been Striving to make holes in a Small Mole-hill here . I long to have in a proper “Hole,” Some of that “Sweet Converse” with you which the now-cautious Demos extorted into a rascally Public Gazette Chronicle. But, Sir, the Set-time...
3To James Madison from James Lovell (Abstract), 29 March 1805 (Madison Papers)
29 March 1805, Boston . “Your prompt communication to me of the 20th. of this month is in strict unison with your former Kindness. “Instantly upon reading it I recollected my rejecting three or four bills of 100 dollars, because they were patched; and inclosing one that was whole, without any more minute scrutiny. I am ashamed of the hasty manner in which I closed my letter that evening for...
4To James Madison from James Lovell, 27 January 1806 (Abstract) (Madison Papers)
§ From James Lovell. 27 January 1806, Boston. “I am honoured by your kind Close of the business which regarded my grand children. I will teach the young Things to esteem you and your agent from my own feelings: And I beg you to be assured that your Gravity and his Jocularity in the conveyance of your Sympathies for our disappointments greatly exceed in Value the Defalcation of my Bank-Bill. I...
5To Thomas Jefferson from James Lovell, 8 January 1803 (Jefferson Papers)
Self Interest once forced me to intrude upon the busy moments of your Excellency, for the purpose of showing how much it was my own choice to hold a Commission “during the Pleasure of the President of the United-States for the time being.” A more generous motive leads me to intrude a second time, for the purpose of proving how much I am convinced that my watchful concern for my own...
6To Thomas Jefferson from James Lovell, 4 July 1805 (Jefferson Papers)
When in August 1802 I first “spread myself with sincerity”, before your official Chain, as we are taught to do, when we go for our daily bread, before an Altar; I hinted my odd yet serious intention of a public attempt to “rarify some of the clouds of our Religion and Polity”. That intention has been hiterto artfully frustrated; which has driven me to the necessity of letting loose (after a...
7To Thomas Jefferson from James Lovell, 24 January 1809 (Jefferson Papers)
Having upon the 17th: written to your political Secretary of the Treasury What was then proper to be communicated to the President of the United States; I chuse now to present myself to your Authority as to a Critic of Literature and Morals and, in consequence to offer some sketches from “a Bundle of facts and anecdotes.” A rich young-Man, in days of yore, was advised, by a meek & lowly Person...