201Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 1 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
your kind Letter of Jan’ ry 14 th I received last week. I Shall not be dissatisfied with mr Whitney if the people are disposed to give him a call, but far otherways, I shall rejoice in the prospect of having so Virtuous and sensible a Gentleman Setled with us, to whom I doubt not, years will teach more knowledge of the world I can understand you well tho you do not speak plain. I know you...
202John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 5 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I had scarcely closed my last Letter to you my dear mother, acknowledging the receipt of your favours of Dec r: 2. and Nov r: 23. before I received that of Nov r: 3. written at East-Chester.— We are duly grateful for your kind congratulations upon our marriage.— You will find by some of my late Letters that we have already been brought to the trial of some unpropitious circumstances Yet much...
203Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 6 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I was very anxious to receive a Letter from you this morning, and Betsy was wishing yet dreading to hear from her sister. that she yet lives, is some hope for to build upon. mr Brisler has just brought your Letter from the office dated 29 th Jan’ ry I believe I have written you every week, but fancy the Ice may have prevented the post from arriving. I wish Polly was where you could often see...
204Abigail Adams to William Smith, 6 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received your Letter of Jan’ ry and observed Your communication, somewhat alterd to better suit the Times. I though the alteration not amiss. the paper you inclosed to me I put into the Hands of the President. he could not apply the Character as he did not recollect that any such person had applied. I had an opportunity of shewing it to the secretary at War. he was at no loss, and mentiond a...
205Abigail Adams to Cotton Tufts, 6 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have not had the pleasure of receiving a Line from you for some time. I laughd at my Friend not long since when he sent a Letter to you the contents of which he appeard to be very private about. I told him I knew it was the Farm he had written about, and that he would not tell me because he knew I was averse to encumbering ourselves as we grew older with more cares. it is not my wish to add...
206John Quincy Adams to Catherine Nuth Johnson, 7 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
Your very obliging favour, written at Stromness, found its way to London, only a few days before our departure from it, and reached us in the midst of our preparations for the voyage and Journey then before us; the occasion then of much anxiety, and since, the cause of much distress as my dear wife has no doubt before this related to you.— In the hurry and constant avocations of that time, I...
207John 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...
208Mary Smith Cranch to Abigail Adams, 9 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
what a feast you have sent us my good sister. for alhough it may be call’d a feast of bitter herbs yet I would not be ignorant from whence the Poison is extracted which is design’d to destroy our constitution this is evidently the design of those declamers. how can the People bare to see their members spending So much of the publick money to the very worst purpose. is it possible that they can...
209Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams, 10 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I hope long before this time you have arrived Safe at Berlin. The first intelligence which I received of your having left England, was under the Copenhagen head soon after. Letters were received from mr Murrey of the 9 th of November, in which he mentions your writing to him from Hamburgh. I immediatly informed my dear Louissa’s Parents and received a Letter from mrs jhonson this last week; in...
210Thomas Boylston Adams to Abigail Adams, 12 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
Your kind favor of November 7 th: written at East Chester came to hand on the 24 th: ult o: and I have now to acknowledge the receipt, on this day, of your more recent communication, dated the 3 d: ult o: at Philadelphia. I have written to you but once since our arrival here, but my brother has been so frequent & copious in his letters both to you and my father, that I derive a sort of excuse...
211Abigail Adams to Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody, 13 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you on the 23 Jan’ ry. you have not received a Letter of that date, for a very good reason, that it still lies unfinishd in my desk, and now it is so much out of date that I do not think it worth sending. in it however I acknowledgd a Letter from you, and one for Mrs smith which I sent, also 2 Letters from the children all of which I forwarded to their Mamma. I have now the pleasure of...
212John 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...
213Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 15 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have not received a Line from Since the last of Jan’ ry Betsy is much distresst to hear from her sister and I am not a little anxious. I hoped the twesday post as usual would have given me some information. I must attribute it to the weather for my dear sister, write me a line every post if only to tell me how you all are. You will see much to your mortification, that congress have been...
214John Adams to William Stephens Smith, 16 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have received the Letter you wrote me on the 7th of this month, and I shall give all the attention to the Subject of it which may be necessary. It is not new to me— You are too precipitate in my opinion in pronouncing an opinion that the General has been guilty of high Crimes &C a: There have not been wanting Critics upon your conduct, as severe as you have been upon his It is reported not...
215Mary Smith Cranch to Abigail Adams, 18 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I write again my dear Sister because I know you love to hear from me, & not that I have any thing important to communicate I was disappointed by not having a line from you yesterday as you clos’d your last Letter of Feb. 1 d by Saying you had just receiv’d one from me which you Should reply to the next day I went to Boston a Friday with mr & mrs Black in their Sleigh & return’d with them the...
216Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 21 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received your kind Letter of Feb’ ry 9th and was quite rejoic’d to hear that mrs Baxter was like to do well, when I feard to open the Letter least it should inform me of her death. I have been Confined with a cold like the influenza for several days past. I have dreaded least it should prove one of my Feb’ ry attacks. it came on with a very soar Throat and hoarsness and terminated in...
217John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 22 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
By your letter to my brother dated 3. January which he has just received I find that at the time when it was written you had received from us no advices later than the 16 th: of September, a circumstance equally surprizing and mortifying to me. After that date I wrote on the 19 th: and 21 st: of September to my father and on the 4 th: of October addressed to him some observations upon an...
218Mary Smith Cranch to Abigail Adams, 23 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I cannot enough thank you my dear Sister for your kind Letter its Sisterly contents Sink deep in my heart & draw tears from my eyes. happy happy woman! to have the ability & the Will to do So much good. yes my delight is to be you almoner I am always sure of a welcome wherever I go to distribute your bounty. mrs Smith dear creature what She must have Suffer’d I know her Silent manner of...
219William Stephens Smith to John Adams, 23 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have received the letter you did me the honor to write under date of the 16 th. ins t. —and am content that the communication I thought it my duty to make, has been received—and am also satisfied that it is not new to The President— The report that on my visit to Detroit, I gave out, that I was sent by The President, for ends of Government of some sort or other— is utterly and totally false...
220Charles Adams to James Whitelaw, 25 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
Seeing an advertisement in the farmers Weekly Museum that you would attend to the payment of monies due on Lands in the State of Vermont I now take the liberty to trouble you with respect to some owned by my family A M r Jesse Gilbert called on me some days ago and I promised to transmit him money to clear our claims but as I was not so fortunate as to receive the money in time for him I think...
221Abigail Adams to William Smith, 28 February 1798 (Adams Papers)
We now have the appearence of some fine weather our Rivers are open, but our Roads are all like what we experienced when we came through the Jersis in April last. I begin to look towards my Native state with a wish to be early there, which I fear will not be seconded by Congress, for tho many of them are distresst at the manner this session has heitherto been wasted, yet they cannot controul...
222Abigail Adams to Catherine Nuth Johnson, 2 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday the secretary of state received Letters from mr Adams at Berlin dated Nov’ br 10 th & 17 th in which he says that he left Hamburgh on the 2d and reachd Berlin on the 7 th. he had an interveiw with the Minister. the King was informd of his arrival, and desired the Minister to express to him the extreem regreet he felt at not being able to give him Audience, as his dangerous illness...
223Abigail Adams to William Smith, 2 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
The President received your Letter this morning dated 5 Feb’ry. the Rule of the former President not to answer Letters of this nature, he has abided by. his Rule is to place all Canditates for office upon a Book kept for that purpose, and to appoint to office such persons as come best recommended for abilities integrity and industery. in your case he would be particuliarly delicate, for as he...
224Cotton Tufts to John Adams, 2 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I have enclosed a Letter to M r. Webster in Answer to his which you forwarded to me, I have left it open, when you have read it, please to seal & forward it. If I have faild in any of the striking Features of the Epidemic of 1761, as you was with Your Father who died with that Distemper, your Memory will perhaps enable you to supply the Defects. M r. Cranch has several Cows, which He wishes...
225Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 3 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
To communicate pleasure, is reflecting happiness. The secretary of state came smiling in my Room yesterday. I said to him, I know you have got dispatches, upon which he took from his pocket, two Letters from my dear son at Berlin. tho they were publick Letters and upon publick buisness, they informd us of his safe arrival at Berlin on the 7 th of Nov’ br , 4 days from Hamburgh— on the 10th he...
226Thomas Boylston Adams to John Adams, 4 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
Since my residence at this place I have received your kind letter of October 25 th: written at East Chester, a few weeks previous to your return to the seat of Government, from your nothern excursion. I have been highly delighted by the accounts which reached us from various quarters of the cordial & dignified reception given by the people to their chief magistrate, both in his going from &...
227Hannah Quincy Lincoln Storer to Abigail Adams, 4 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I presume Dear Madam that I Shall receive Your pardon by Complying with the request of M r. Charles Bulfinch, to be the bearer of a Letter of Mine to You— his wish without doubt is to be Noticed in Your family, as an acquaintance of this.— his Merrits Need Not be Mention’d as they are well known— He is Now imploy’d (And his expences paid) by a Number of Gentlemen, to veiw the Banks in Your...
228Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 5 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received on saturday Evening the 3 d March Your kind Letter of 25 Feb’ ry. You estimate much too highly the little services I am able to render to my Friends, and you depreciate the value of your own, the benifit of which I have too often experienced to Sit lightly by them, for whilst you visit the widow the orphan, the sick, and console them by your presense, enliven them by your...
229Abigail Adams to William Smith, 5 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received your kind favour of Feb ry 25 this morning. the badness of the roads I suppose was the reason it did not reach me sooner. The Maderia I do not want to be sent here. it is for Home consumption I have no occasion for it here. there are some other articles I should wish you to secure for me immediatly half Hundred Coffe and a Hunderd & half Brown sugar; which will immediaty rise, for I...
230William Cranch to John Quincy Adams, 5 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I do not know what was the date of my last to you, nor of yours to me, nor is it material to decide on whose part the last omission happend. You may have learn’d from some of my former letters, that I was much engaged, that no opportunity presented itself, to determine me to write at one time rather than another, and that although I have always been extremely industrious, I have always found...
231Abigail Adams to Hannah Phillips Cushing, 9 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I yesterday received your kind Letter of March 5 th and congratulate you and the Judge upon your safe arrival at N york. I assure you I was under serious apprehensions for your safety when I found you gone; I had sent Betsy to your Lodgings to inquire after your Health, a few moments after you were gone. I did not know how to credit it when she returnd with the News— I will not say, you took...
232William Cranch to Abigail Adams, 12 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
After a most fatigueing journey I arrived on friday Evening. I travel’d all the first night, & arrived in Baltimore the next night at 9 o Clock, & sat off again at 3 the next morning. The roads as far as Wilmington were extremely bad, the rest were much better, and in this City they are quite settled. I found M rs. Cranch well, altho’ fatigued & worried with watching and attending my little...
233Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 14 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
yesterday dispatches were received from mr King up to the 9 th Jan’ ry in a postscrip he says, I have just learnt that mr Adams has been received by the new King notwithstanding his commission was to his Father. this is civil and will enable him to proceed with business— I received a Letter from dr Tufts yesterday that allarmd me. I thought I inclosed him some Bills. I might as I wrote you the...
234Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams, 17 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
A private opportunity offering by way of Hamburgh to write to you, I eagerly embrace it, and hope it may reach you safely notwithstanding the various Chances it may run. your arrival at Berlin was made known to us from your Letters to the secretary of state of Nov’ br the 10th and 17 th . no private Letter has yet been received, nor the publick Letter which you mention having written from...
235Abigail Adams to Benjamin Franklin Bache, 17 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
Taking up your paper yesterday morning, I was shockd at the Misrepresentation a Writer in your paper has given to the nomination and appointment of J Q. Adams, to sweeden for the purpose of renewing the Treaty with that Power. I could not but reflect upon the different feelings which must actuate your Mind, and the writer of the following paragraph, written last october, upon seeing Some...
236Abigail Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 18 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
When I have written to your Brother I feel as if I had exhausted all the subjects which it is proper for me to write upon, but as your Hand writing allways gives me pleasure tho I see it only upon the superscription of a Letter, or in a few Promissory lines in the cover, I judge you will allways be gratified with a few words from me tho they contain no more than a Bullitin of our Health and...
237Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 20 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I write you a few Lines this mor’g just to inclose to you the News paper of yesterday which contains an important Message from the President; it is a very painfull thing to him that he cannot communicate to the publick dispatches in which they are so much interested, but we have not any assurance that the Envoys have left Paris and who can say that in this critical state of things their...
238Abigail Adams to William Smith Shaw, 20 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received your Letter of Jan’ry 23 d and was gratified to find your Hand writing improving. I know you are attentive to what is passing in the political World, indeed who can be an indifferent Spectator, in Times so critical, so allarming and so big with Concequences as the present? I send you a late publication under the signature of scipio, [ “ ]Reflections on Monroe’s view of the conduct...
239Abigail Adams to William Smith, 20 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I yesterday received your Letter of March 11 th it would give the President great satisfaction to communicate to the publick the dispatches of our Envoys if he could do it consistant with their safety and Security. the Portugeze minister is imprisoned now in France. we have not Certainty that ours have left Paris—and so critical are the times, that our Ministers cannot communicate...
240Ruth Hooper Dalton to Abigail Adams, 20 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
To hear of your health and happiness my dear Madam is always pleasing to me when ever you can spare time from the many ingagements I know you have I shall esteem it a favour. I am flattered from the pleasing account you give of my Daughter White she was always a good Child and I think she will do all she can to render the Family she is in happy Mr s Bartlett is a fine Woman. Mr Dalton and I...
241William Stephens Smith to Abigail Adams, 21 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
It would be singular indeed, were I to permit your friendly note of March 9 th. to pass unanswered, and not to thank you for forwarding the letter from the west-ward, which accompanied it, I should not have taken the liberty of desiring my correspondents to have addressed letters to me, to the care of the Presidents secretary, had I not experienced the basest treatment thro’ the line of the...
242Mary Smith Cranch to Abigail Adams, 22 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I write now because I know how it feels to be disappointed not because I have any thing to communicate of importance. I receiv’d your kind Letter of the 13 th of this month what related to my dear Son has given me great pain tis no more than I have fear’d. but his Father Says if he can get over these difficulties he will be as cunning as the ——— he does not speak wicked words you know. my fear...
243Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 27 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I received yesterday your kind Letter of March 19 th . I expect a Letter every week if you have nothing else to say, but as Sterns observes, “how the Shadows Lengthen, as the sun declines” and this may be applied to the well as the natural System. as we descend the Hill of Life, our gay and vissonary prospect vanish, and what gilded our meridian days, our Zenith of Life, as the Shadows...
244Abigail Adams to William Smith, 30 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I fully unite with you in sentiment, that much ill Blood and warmth of Passion is excited by Town meeting Government. the Merchants who are most interested ought to be left free to Arm or not as they please. You cannot conceive what Mischief will result to our Country from the inteference of People, who can have only a partial view of subjects of this nature; I will tell you Sir, that the...
245Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 31 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
I write you a few lines this morning merely to inclose a Letter which I will thank you to cover and forward to Atkinson. I have not time to write this morning to Atkinson. inclosed I sent you a specimin of the Manners Religion & politeness of one of the 44 Gentlemen, Who can come and Eat of my Bread, & drink of my Wine one whom the Virginians consider as a Paragon of politeness whom they have...
246Cotton Tufts to Abigail Adams, 31 March 1798 (Adams Papers)
In my last I enclosed a rough Plan of the proposed Addition to the Wood House, that Plan will exhibit to You an Idea of the lower Room; since then I have found, that it will not be much more expensive, to take the Roof off from the Wood house & Library and erect a new one over them, than to proceed in the Way that was projected. I have accordingly orderd it to be framd in this Way; upon this...
247Mary Smith Cranch to Abigail Adams, 1 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your Letter of the 20th of march which I receiv’d yesterday & for the papers you sent mr otis & Harpers Speeches are much admir’d by one party & their Wit & Satire felt by the other. they “have bar’d the Breasts of those villains who are doing their utmost to ruin & degrade their country & have Strip’d the gilding from the Principle which they wish’d to establish.[ ” ] it had...
248William Smith Shaw to Abigail Adams, 2 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
Some lover of your nephews happiness, last thursday added something to the fragment of life, by placing in my hands your agreeable favor of March 20 th. The pamphlet sent me, I give you my sincere thanks. Is not Mr. Pickering the author. As soon as I read it, I thought I could see in it his simple style and forcible reasoning. I had read both Scipio and Munroes view, before I received your...
249Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams, 4 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
I embrace this opportunity by mr Thornton Secretary to mr Liston the British Minister to write too you, and to Send you two Speeches upon the Foreign intercourse Bill, one by mr Gallatin, and one in reply, by mr Harper. I wrote to you last week by Way of Hamburgh: but we are still without a line from you of a private Nature; and have only learnt of your arrival at Berlin from your Letters to...
250Abigail Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 4 April 1798 (Adams Papers)
To know that one Cannot freely say that Black, is Black; even tho it be “darkness visible,” or that white is white, tho the new fallen snow is not purer, is fettering ones faculties, as well as restraining ones pen. Yet in such perilious Times as the present, freely to discuss motives which lead to measures, or to Characterize the Actors “who fret and Strut their hour upon the stage” would not...