John Adams to Abigail Adams, 12 October 1799
John Adams to Abigail Adams
Trenton Octr. 12. 1799
My dearest Friend
We arrived on the 10th.1 I, much oppressed by one of my great Colds, which is now going Off.— I could obtain only one little Room and one little bedroom. but We can make a shift. I came here more loaded with Sorrow than with Rheum.— Sally opened her Mind to me for the first time. I pitied her, I grieved, I mourned but could do no more. a Madman possessed of the Devil can alone express or represent.— I renounce him.— K. Davids Absalom had some Ambition and some Enterprize.2 Mine is a mere Rake, Buck, Blood & Beast.
To go from a private Calamity to a public the Fever in Phyladelphia is still bad, from ten to fourteen in a day. The great black frosts which come before the Middle of Novr.
If the Weather has been as wett in New England as here, you will have a damp Journey and not pleasant Roads.
I must be seperated from you a whole month, which will appear to me long enough.
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “J A Octbr 12th / 1799.”
1. On the evening of 11 Oct. “a handsome display of fire works in honor of the President’s arrival” was presented to a large crowd in Trenton, N.J., with “the initials (J. A. and G. W.) … displayed in colored fires, and received with shouts of applause” (Massachusetts Spy, 23 Oct.).
2. JA in his discussion of CA was evoking 2 Samuel, 18, in which David mourned the death of his son Absalom, who had rebelled against him.