1Isaac Smith Jr. to Abigail Adams, 21 February 1771 (Adams Papers)
Your kindness to me in a former absence, requires some acknowledgment in this. I write to you, therefore, with the view of repaying an obligation, not of giving you any entertainment. After a short, tho’ not a very comfortable passage over the Atlantic, I landed at Dover, a town remarkable for nothing but extortion, except the Castle, which was originally founded by Julius Caesar, and...
2Isaac Smith Jr. to John Adams, 21 February 1771 (Adams Papers)
I have very little of a political, or of any other kind of entertainment to give you. Yet I cannot omit a few lines, however small an expression they may be, sir, of my esteem and regard for you. The apprehensions of a war, the delay of Commerce, the distress of individuals, and the liberal expences of public treasure have at length ended in this—after a negociation of four months—that the...
3Isaac Smith Jr. to John Adams, 3 September 1771 (Adams Papers)
I have just returned from an agreable excursion, in the course of which I had the pleasure of receiving your favour of April last, with that of Mrs. Adams, for each of which I beg leave to return my thanks. I am sorry to find that you have deserted Boston. You plead as an excuse, sir, “the load of public and private care, which oppress’d you.” But you would have pleased me better, if instead...
4Isaac Smith Jr. to Mary Smith Cranch, 20 October 1774 (Adams Papers)
If it was possible to tell you, my dear Mrs. Cranch, how much I think myself obliged to you, for your kind, sensible and polite letter of the last week I would do it with the sincerest pleasure. As it is not easy to me, to express the sense I have of your own, and the benevolent intentions and wishes of other of my good friends with regard to me, I must only beg you, to accept my thanks in...
5To Benjamin Franklin from Isaac Smith, Jr., [before 17 May 1771] (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society I called at Mrs. Stevenson’s yesterday, but was so unfortunate as to find you absent. As I am told that you design for the country in a day or two, and I may perhaps lose an opportunity of seeing you, I have used, sir, the freedom of addressing you in this manner and would beg the favour of your kind advice with regard to my intended expedition to France...