John Adams to Abigail Adams, 2 February 1797
John Adams to Abigail Adams
Phil. Feb. 2. 1797
My dearest Friend
I believe I have not directly & expressly Answered your Letter, inclosing the Memorandum from Mr Smith of the Price of a Chariot at Boston.
I had before bespoke a new Chariot here, and it is or will be ready: so that there is an End of all further Enquiries about Carriages.— I hope as soon as the Point is legally settled you will have your Coach new Painted and all the Arms totally obliterated. It would be a folly to excite popular feelings and vulgar Insolence for nothing.1
Mrs Washington, Mrs Powell &c send their regards &c
I believe I must take Mr Malcom, Charles’s Clerk & Pupil for a private secretary, at least for a time.2
I wish you could get a compleat set of Domesticks from your Neighbourhood that We might avoid a little of the Brigandage.
Fine Weather to day. Candlemas. Half your corn and half your hay.
I am Affectionately
J. A
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A”; endorsed: “Febry 2. 1797.”
1. AA to JA, 18 Jan., for which see her letter to JA of 28 Jan., note 2, above.
2. JA wrote to CA on 12 Feb. asking that Samuel Bayard Malcom, JA’s new secretary, be sent no later than the beginning of March; he also voiced a desire that CA attend his inauguration on 4 March. Malcom arrived in Philadelphia on 19 Feb. (MHi:Seymour Coll.; JA to AA, 20 Feb., below).