Adams Papers
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From John Adams to Cotton Tufts, 16 September 1789

To Cotton Tufts

New Yo[rk Se]pt. 16. 1789

My dear Friend

I have recd all your Letters, and the Post Office is very faithful.1 The Heat has been excessive and my daily Toil Somewhat exhausting besides a very extensive Correspondence, without a Clerk. Pray let Mr Cranch if he will be so good look over the Account, as he did formerly.

Have you read Ned Church’s fragment.? What Passion, or what Principle, could put it into that fellows head? I never injured, or offended him. I never saw him— He did not call on me. He never asked any Thing of me.— Washington refused or neglected him: and he fawns on Washington and Spits fire at Adams. poor Devil! I pitty him.— it is however good Verse and will do me honour.— so i’l enjoy it.—

The Fellow Su[pp]osed it impossible but the first must always be jealous of the Second; and on this principle expected to recommend himself at Court by abusing a Rival: but in this he mistook the Characters both of the first and Second, between whom there is the most perfect Harmony and good Understanding.

I must soon write again / Yours

John Adams

RC (NHi:John Adams Coll.); addressed by CA: “Honble: Cotton Tufts / Boston”; internal address: “The Honourable Cotton Tufts Esq”; endorsed: “Recd. Septr. 23d.—”; notation by JA: “Free / John Adams.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 115. Text lost where the seal was removed has been supplied from the LbC.

1. The most recent extant letter to the Adamses was Tufts’ of 20 July to AA, outlining the sale of JA’s farming tools and livestock as well as the leasing of the Adamses’ land in Braintree (AFC description begins Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Richard Alan Ryerson, Margaret A. Hogan, Sara Martin, Hobson Woodward, and others, Cambridge, 1963–. description ends , 8:392–393).

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    Adams Papers
    Title
    From John Adams to Cotton Tufts, 16 September 1789
    Author
    Adams, John
    Recipient
    Tufts, Cotton
    Date
    16 September 1789

    Reference

    Cite as
    “From John Adams to Cotton Tufts, 16 September 1789,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-20-02-0101. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 20, June 1789–February 1791, ed. Sara Georgini, Sara Martin, R. M. Barlow, Gwen Fries, Amanda M. Norton, Neal E. Millikan, and Hobson Woodward. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020, pp. 155–156.]

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