1John Quincy Adams and Louisa Catherine Adams to Abigail Adams and John Adams, 28 July 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have now the happiness of presenting to you another daughter, worthy as I fully believe of adding one to the number of those who already endear that relation to you.— The day before yesterday united us for life. My recommendation of her to your kindness and affection I know will be unnecessary. My sentiment of her merit, will not at this moment especially boast its impartiality , but if...
2John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 7 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received a few days ago your kind letter written at East Chester Nov r: 4. and am very thankful for it. The circumstance of my not having mentioned to you my expectation of being married was merely accidental, or owing to the uncertainty as to the time when that event should take place, which continued until a few weeks before it happened. I am very sorry that it should have given you a...
3John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 12 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
And is it possible that my charming friend should feel an uneasy sentiment a sentiment of fear in sitting down to write to me: to me, the friend of her Heart, who would rather suffer a thousand torments than give her a moment of pain?— I am really ashamed of myself for having by morose expressions chilled the feelings of a breast which was formed for the reception of none but warm and kind,...
4John Quincy Adams to Joshua Johnson, 11 October 1797 (Adams Papers)
I received your obliging letter dated in Margate Roads just before your departure. I had indeed long observed your distress and that of your family. I was not particularly acquainted with its causes, nor was it a subject upon which I thought it proper or necessary to enquire You expected that the step upon which you determined would expose you to censure; but as you observe you thought it the...
5John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 14 February 1801 (Adams Papers)
I last week informed you that I had withdrawn from Amsterdam all the stocks I held there, and had remitted to M r: King, in London fourteen hundred pounds sterling, for which I authorised you to draw, and requested you to place the proceeds in the most advantageous manner; but not in any institution or fund depending upon our national Union; for the generality of our Countrymen are so far from...
6John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams, 1 August 1798 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you on the 14 of February a letter, which I am informed you have received, but to which no answer from you has yet reached me. Nor have I since it was written received a line from you. I must again repeat the request that you would give me immediate information concerning the property which I have entrusted to you. I have also to request that you would not draw upon Mess rs: Willing of...
7John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 31 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have received my kind friend’s letters of 3 d , 16 th: and 19 th: of May, and am impatiently waiting to hear from you and your father again. I am going this day on a tour to Amsterdam, where I shall make the arrangements for my immediate departure; so that I shall probably not remain here long enough to receive your reply to this Letter. There are many difficulties in the way of any...
8John Quincy Adams to Catherine Nuth Johnson, 28 May 1799 (Adams Papers)
I received some time ago your favour of 29 January which I did not immediately answer, from an apprehension that a letter from me without one at the same time from my Louisa, or at least without some satisfactory information concerning the state of her health would give you more concern than pleasure— She was then unwell, and a few days after, met again with a misfortune which had already...
9John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 2 June 1797 (Adams Papers)
I arrived here last Evening and this morning received your cover, enclosing the Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury.— There are Letters here from America, as late as the 29 th: of April. M r: Murray had then sailed so that he may be looked for every day. I have not yet seen M r: Damen, and of course have made no arrangements. I shall make none immediately for my own departure. I feel a...
10John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 16 July 1800 (Adams Papers)
I cannot send you a duplicate without adding a line to it; for there is a pleasure in knowing that our distant friends are well, though but one day later than we have already heard from them We have been spending several days at Charlottenburg with D r Brown’s family, and Louisa’s health which never fails to droop at Berlin in the summer, has derived benefit from it— To morrow morning we set...
11John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 6 June 1797 (Adams Papers)
“Our difficulties ended”!— Be it so.— But Faith is not one of the articles of which I possess a remarkable store.— I wish you may never have reason to consider as the commencement of difficulties, what you now regard as their termination. We shall have the means of conveyance to Lisbon.— Such as will perfectly well suit me; and such as you are willing to take up with.— But I do not like [to...
12To George Washington from John Quincy Adams, 29 October 1798 (Washington Papers)
I have the honor to enclose herewith, a letter from a young Gentleman who bears your name, and who flatters himself with being (though distantly) related to you. He is by birth an Hollander, but of a family originally English, which went over from England, and settled in the United Netherlands, sometime near the beginning of the present century. At the commencement of the present War, he...
13John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams, 29 September 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have given to our brother Thomas a general power of Attorney to transact all business on my behalf within the United States. I have therefore to request you to account with him for all my property in your hands amounting to four thousand dollars, and the interest upon that sum, for more than two years, as appears by your letters to me, and by information from Doctor Welsh, that you have made...
14John Quincy Adams to Thomas Baker Johnson, 31 July 1797 (Adams Papers)
Though I have not hitherto enjoyed the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with you, I have long since learnt to participate in the warm affection which a most amiable and worthy family, to which you belong, bear towards you, and at this time after having formed and solemnized, the tenderest and dearest of all human connections with your beloved sister, Louisa, I am happy in deriving from it...
15John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 2 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
I am very much gratified to find by your favour of the 26 th: that your Journey from Brussels was so pleasant, and that you are so well satisfied with what you had seen.— I shall request Mess rs: Moliere to extend your credit with their correspondents at Paris. There is a Danish vessel going to Lisbon from Amsterdam in the course of three weeks or a month. I shall go to Amsterdam in a few days...
16John Quincy Adams and Thomas Boylston Adams to Catherine Nuth Johnson, 13 July 1798 (Adams Papers)
I hope the enclosed letter from my dear Louisa, will be more fortunate in its passage than those which she wrote you from Hamburg, and upon her recovery from illness after her arrival here. Several of our Letters have failed and it gives us much pain to find that those which we wrote to you, were particularly among the unsuccessful number.— I hope however that even before this you have the...
17John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 9 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
Mess rs: Moliere, will this day extend your credit with their correspondent at Paris, to the amount of 4000 livres more. This I presume will amply suffice for your occasions. I requested you by my last letter, to be here not later than the 25 th: of this month. There is to be a Ball on that day at the Hotel de Suéde. The Count desires me to tell you, that you will be very much wanted as a...
18John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams, 14 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you on the 25 of October & 29 of Dec r: 1796. & on the 14 th: of May & 1 st: of August of the last year. All these letters excepting that of 14 May, related to my affairs in your hands.— I have never received any answer whatever to either of them. That of 29 Dec r: I think must have miscarried, but I have long since received answers from other persons, to letters which went by the same...
19John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 19 June 1800 (Adams Papers)
Your letter by M r: Paleske of 28 Feb y: though short gave me great pleasure as it was so long since I had enjoyed that of seeing your hand-writing— I have indeed no right to expect that you should have leisure to write me at large upon any subject, and know that a free communication of your sentiments cannot be indulged, upon public topics.— With regard to private concerns it more properly...
20John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 22 July 1797 (Adams Papers)
Three or four days after the date of my last Letter, which was from Maassluys, and while I was yet wind bound there, M r: Murray, informed me that by private Letters from a friend he understood that my destination was changed from Lisbon to Berlin. On the 9 th: inst t: I sailed from Maassluys, and arrived here at the Adelphi, on the 12 th: Soon after, M r: King delivered to me your Letter of...
21John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 25 November 1800 (Adams Papers)
Many months have pass’d since I received a line from you, or from my dear mother. From my brother Thomas I have no letter of a later date than July, and from the department of State I have but one dated since last February.— Perhaps I am to impute the greater part of this seeming oblivion of my american correspondents to my own remissness during the last winter— For six months however I have...
22John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1799 (Adams Papers)
I received not untill last Evening your kind favour of Feb y: 10. which however is the latest date that I have from you, and this circumstance is of itself sufficient to give me great concern respecting the state of your health— The Boston Newspapers in April, mention likewise that you were again ill; but I have some comfort in hearing by a letter from D r: Welsh to his son, that you were...
23John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams, 1 August 1797 (Adams Papers)
Upon my arrival at this place, about three weeks since, I received your kind letter of June 8 th: which was the first line, I have had from you these many months, and it needed not that circumstance to render it highly valuable. You do not however mention in it the receipt of several letters, which I have written you, and which I hope have not miscarried in the conveyance. Among the rest, that...
24John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 30 October 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have received your’s of the 26 th: enclosing one for M r: Welsh— I now forward those Letters for America, with which I threatened you in my last.— Of all the news which you believed or expected to believe, the only parts likely to be confirmed, are the capture of the Leander, with Captain Berry, on board, and of the two french frigates by the Colossus.— The burning of the transports in the...
25John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 6 May 1797 (Adams Papers)
Upon receiving this morning your Letter of the 21 st: of last month, I recurred to mine of the 7 th: in answer to which it was written. I was not conscious of being displeased at your reading Chesterfield’s Letters, or at your having mentioned it to me.— But in reading over my own letter again, I am not surprized at your having taken it in that light.— No, my ever dear, and valued friend, I am...
26John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 25 May 1800 (Adams Papers)
The latest letters I have had the pleasure of receiving from you are of January 5. and Feb y: 8. But M r: Paleske has arrived at London on his way hither, and I expect to see him here in the course of a few days— He informs me that he has letters for me from you. A longer time has elapsed since I wrote you last than I can apologize for with propriety; it is possible that at some future day I...
27John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 26 June 1797 (Adams Papers)
I have not written to you, since receiving your very kind Letter of 3 d: March. though I received it almost a month ago. I have determined finally to go by the way of England; you will readily conceive that this circumstance together with the necessary attention to the preparations for my departure from this Country, and since the arrival of M r: Murray, the arrangements for introducing him to...
28John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 3 December 1800 (Adams Papers)
I had been almost three months without receiving a line from you, or from any other of my correspondents in America; and although upon coolly considering circumstances I was sensible that this was the natural fruit of my own neglect of writing during the last Winter, yet as one’s feelings never make the allowances which sober reason requires, I began to think it strange to be so long without...
29John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 26 July 1800 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday morning early we took our departure from Freystadt, & came to this place; a distance of eight german miles; five of which are in single stage from Sprotau here— The face of the country has visibly & greatly improved as we came along; & although we still had to wade through miles of sands more, or less deep, we were frequently relieved by patches of good roads, & by beautiful fields...
30John Quincy Adams to Joshua Johnson, 10 December 1800 (Adams Papers)
It is so long since I did myself the pleasure of writing to you, that I scarcely know how to apologize for the omission; and unfortunately for me, my remissness has appeared to you greater and more culpable than it really was, as the letters which I have repeatedly written to you, have failed to reach you, from what cause I am altogether ignorant.— Being so distant even from every sea-port...