11John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 21 March 1801 (Adams Papers)
While I was sealing up on the last post day; the cover to M r: Pitcairn, of my number 29. I received two packets from you, containing three copies of the translation, and the three first numbers of the Port-Folio, with a couple of newspapers besides— Your few lines of January 23 d: were in one of the packets; and the next day came to hand your N: 23. of January 15 th: The packets are marked as...
12From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 24 February 1808 (Adams Papers)
I have just received your affectionate letter of the 15th:— and do not a moment delay to answer your question— I did attend the meeting of members at the Capitol on the 23d: of last Month— but not without invitation— I received the same invitation, which was given to the other members— And besides that I was also personally urged to attend, by another member of the Senate— I did not attend...
13John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Adams, 1 July 1804 (Adams Papers)
On Thursday, I went into Boston, for the first time this month past, and there received at once your two letters of 14 th: and 20 th: of June. They alleviated in part, and only in part the heavy anxiety which has weighed on my Spirits for the health of the dear child— I hope the fine weather has return’d with you, so that you have been able to give him the benefit of the air and exercise— I...
14From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 13 December 1804 (Adams Papers)
Your letter of the 2d: has been duly received, and has contributed with those of your father received at the same time to cheer my mind, which every thing of a political nature around me struggles very hard to depress—Hitherto since my arrival here, I have thank Heaven enjoyed much domestic comfort from the health of my wife and children—this has been more favourable than I ever knew before,...
I have nothing new to tell you from this place. I have no letter from you of later date than 25. Novr:—My purpose now besides enquiring how you and the children, are is to enclose the within from Kitty to Caroline. Our weather for some days past has been very bad—Snow-Hail-Rain and Sleet have followed one another in uninterrupted succession—It was so bad last Evening that the Ladies could not...
16John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 31 January 1804 (Adams Papers)
This prohibition of the admission of slaves into Louisiana, is like the drawing of a jaw tooth. We have expedient after expedient introduced to answer this purpose— Breckenridge has at last concentrated all his wisdom on the subject in the Amendment, which I now inclose you.— This is a tolerably good device to reconcile the two parties of slave and anti-slave, into which the majority are...
Your letter of the 16th: brought me consolation and hope in the information that you were all getting well—My anxiety on account of my mother has been extreme; having heard through Mr: Cranch & Mr: Quincy, that she had been very dangerously ill—I learn also that George is at Mr. Cranch’s I am still waiting for my Cause to be called in Court—It was called again the day before yesterday; but Mr:...
I now enclose you the two bills, together with an order upon the Bank at Boston for their amount—which I hope will reach you by Christmas—You will see that the order is made payable to Mr: Shaw, who will receive and pay you the money.—I will thank you to get receipts upon the bills and forward them to me; as Mr: Hellen must have them. The party at Mr: Madison’s yesterday was almost entirely...
19John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 16 November 1801 (Adams Papers)
We left Washington on the 3 d: inst t: as I informed you in my letter from that place of the 1 st: it was our intention to do.— M r: and M rs: Johnson and their two youngest daughters accompanied us to Frederick— But M r: Johnson and my child were both taken so ill on the road that we had some difficulty to complete our day’s journey— M r. Johnson’s illness detained us a week at...
20From John Quincy Adams to Catherine Nuth Johnson, 18 August 1807 (Adams Papers)
I take the first moment of self-possession that I have to inform you that my dear wife at half-past eight this morning presented me a third son.—The labour which commenced about 2 O’Clock this morning was extremely severe, and the child and mother both suffered so much in the birth as to give us great concern—We had at first little hopes of the child’s life; but it is now and Mrs: Adams also...
21From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 2 January 1806 (Adams Papers)
We have so little business on hand that it was not thought necessary to commence the year with a Session for transacting it; and this morning we have adjourned for the purpose of letting the Tunisian Minister come and pay us a visit; I cannot employ the leisure of the moment better than in answering your letter of the 15th: and 16th: of last Month. Your opinion of the Message will probably not...
22From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 27 October 1807 (Adams Papers)
I wrote a line to my father, from New-York, enclosing a letter for Mr: Shaw, and informing you of our safe arrival thus far, upon our Journey.—We stopp’d at New-York two days, and then proceeded with as much expedition as we found practicable, untill we reached Baltimore. We stopp’d only one Night at Philadelphia, and had no opportunity to visit any of our acquaintance there—We came on in the...
23John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 24 March 1801 (Adams Papers)
My last letter to you, was of November 25. since which I have not enjoyed the pleasure of receiving a line either from my mother or from you— To her I have in the interval written once; and now enclose a press-copy of the letter, in case the original should fail in the conveyance. My numerous letters to the Secretary of State, and to my brother will I hope apologize for my silence during so...
24John Quincy Adams to William Stephens Smith, 4 April 1803 (Adams Papers)
The House of Bird, Savage and Bird, in London, had, when they failed, property, to the amount of nearly £4000 sterling, belonging to my father in their hands; for which I had drawn bills in October and November last— These bills are now returning protested for me to take up, with all the costs and charges upon them— I now write you, not with an expectation that you will find any property of...
25To James Madison from John Quincy Adams, 14 March 1801 (Madison Papers)
The question of peace and War between Great Britain & the North of Europe still appears to depend upon the determination of the british Cabinet, relative to Count Haugwitz’s note of the 12th: ulto. How long this may be delayed it is yet impossible to say. At the date of the last accounts we have, the king’s health, though hoped to be in a recovering state, was not such as to permit the...
26From John Quincy Adams to William Smith Shaw, 7 March 1808 (Adams Papers)
I will thank you to pay to my father, for me, on or before the 22d: of this month eleven hundred and seventy two dollars and forty-nine cents—being $1081.27. for part principal of a debt due from me to him and $91.22. for a quarter’s interest on the same debt—As you have probably not funds sufficient in your hands to make this payment I enclose you an order to receive the money due to me at...
27John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Adams, 19 July 1804 (Adams Papers)
My visit to Boston yesterday, was equally successful with those I had made several times before; for I found there your’s of the 9 th: enclosing the profiles— I rejoyce to hear that your tour to Bladensburg has been of service to the health of the children— And I hope your visit to your aunt will prove equally so to them, and to yourself. I sincerely sympathise with poor Pichon and his wife,...
28John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 25 February 1804 (Adams Papers)
I received last Evening yours of the 11 th: inst t: — You cannot employ your leisure more charitably , than in writing me these long letters— They give me some of the sweetest of my enjoyments, and comfort me amidst the thorns and briars of the path I am travelling. I shall endeavour to complete your set of the journals; but I am not sure that I can get spare sheets of all the numbers you...
29John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 13 June 1802 (Adams Papers)
If your two letters of 16 May, and 3. inst t: have hitherto remained unanswered you must impute it to a multiplicity of occupations, which for the last month have so entirely engross’d my time, as scarcely to leave me a moment for the pleasure of conversing with my friends either by word of mouth or by epistolary conveyance— The address to the fire Society, you doubtless received as soon as...
30John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 28 March 1801 (Adams Papers)
It is my intention during the short time that I expect to remain here, to send you from time to time such new publications in the french language, as may fall in my way, and appear to promise entertainment or matter of interesting meditation for you. With this design I purpose to combine another, which I am at least desirous to render of some utility to my Country— The translation from Juvenal...
31From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 25 January 1806 (Adams Papers)
The first thing I look for in all the letters I receive from Quincy, is that which relates to our children, who cannot speak for themselves, and both of whom we left indisposed, and when I find that they are well, I feel myself relieved thus far, and only hope that the rest of the letter may contain information equally pleasing, of all the other persons in whose welfare I am so deeply...
32From John Quincy Adams to William Smith Shaw, 5 February 1807 (Adams Papers)
I received some days since your favour of the 19. January, and thank you for the information it contains, and for the trouble you have taken in my individual concerns; I should have been happy to hear frequently from you; but I have been sensible that the multiplicity of your usual occupations, and the extraordinary call upon your time and attention, by the illness and decease of your...
33From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 10 February 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have two letters from you of the 18th: and 28th: of last Month to answer—And since the receipt of the last have also received from Shaw, a copy of Selfridge’s trial—It corresponds very accurately with your abridgement, excepting only the Article of Mr. Dexter’s argument with which I confess I have been much disappointed—It is professedly much compress’d in the printed trial, from what it was...
34To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 4 July 1806 (Adams Papers)
I enclose you a letter, which I received last Monday, and by which you will learn the distressing misfortune which has befallen me—I have not communicated it to you before, from the wish that it might not come to the knowledge of my brother’s wife, at a moment when it might too much affect her—I have another letter from Washington, one day later than the one enclosed; my wife was then as well...
35From John Quincy Adams to William Smith Shaw, 10 July 1806 (Adams Papers)
I have received an invitation from Mr: Boylston, to dine with him to-morrow—If you see him in town between this and then, will you be so good as to tell him that I much regret that I cannot come, as to-morrow at 2. O’Clock I commence my course of Lectures—And having already postponed it for two weeks, I cannot put it off again. To-day also I am detained here, on account of the Declamations—But...
36John Quincy Adams to Catherine Nuth Johnson, 4 July 1803 (Adams Papers)
I have the pleasure to inform you, that this morning at about 3. o’clock, my dear M rs: Adams presented me another fine boy, after having a very good time, and both are now as well as we can possibly expect— I was myself out at Quincy, spending Sunday I am, Dear Madam, faithfully your’s RC ( Adams Papers ); addressed: “M rs: C. Johnson / Washington.”; internal address: “M rs: C. Johnson /...
37From John Quincy Adams to Walter Hellen, 2 May 1805 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 22d: ulto: came to hand a few days since—If it suits your convenience to keep the horse at the original cost it will be perfectly agreeable to me; my wish to have him sold was only upon the supposition that he was of no use to you. I received at the same time with your last letter one from Mr: Cranch, in which he declines undertaking the Administration of Mr. Johnson’s...
Last Evening I received your’s of the 14th: which makes me anxious to hear from you again—Your sore throat and George’s cough will keep me upon thorns untill I hear better tidings of you—I am perhaps the more susceptible on this subject from the heavy calamity so recently befallen the family here.—It is vain to lament or to anticipate—and would be vain to attempt expressing what I feel. The...
39John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 15 March 1804 (Adams Papers)
A few days since, I received your kind favour of 25. ult o: and am greatly rejoyced at the restoration of your health— But I have delayed answering it hitherto, because as the Session draws to a close, we find ourselves more driven for want of time; in addition to which we have had the extraordinary business of trying an impeachment, and I have been in trouble with illness in the family— Both...
40From John Quincy Adams to Josiah, III Quincy, 28 December 1804 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 15th: instt. came to hand last Evening and I thank you for the remarks it contains—Shortness of time, now prevents me from replying to them so fully as I should wish—My principal object at present is to inclose for your perusal a bill, which has pass’d the House of Representatives, and is now before the Senate “to regulate the clearance of armed merchant vessels”—The...
41John Quincy Adams to William Stephens Smith, 18 January 1802 (Adams Papers)
Two months having elapsed since I made the proposal respecting the note of hand due from your brother Justus to me, and being still without an answer from him, I presume either that the proposal was not agreeable to him, or that some accident has delayed or misdirected his answer, and prevented its coming to hand. I have now settled once more in this town, and resumed the practice of the law—...
42To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 30 November 1807 (Adams Papers)
I received a few days since your very kind letter which I am ashamed of answering by a few lines; but by some accident I have fallen from a state of almost total idleness into an overwhelming flood of business, which leaves me scarcely a quarter of an hour of the day or of the Night—I sent you last week a copy of a volume in the form of a bill which I reported upon the Aggression business and...
43From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 13 February 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have received your kind letter of January; and shall particularly attend to your directions at Philadelphia, respecting the flour—It is at present my intention to leave this place the 4th: of next month; but the winter and the roads are now breaking up; so that I know not whether the roads will at that time be passable The termination of this Congress will leave our public affairs in a...
I wrote you from Cambridge last Tuesday, and then promised that my next should be from this place—Yesterday morning I walked from Cambridge into Boston, intending to come here in the Stage—My Passage was engaged, and I waited from four O’Clock in the afternoon, at Whitcomb’s untill Six expecting the Stage to call for me; but he came away and left me—having previously engaged as many passengers...
45John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 19 August 1803 (Adams Papers)
I have received two or three letters from you, which I have not answered for want of a conveyance— My objection to the Post Office, you know— I have two or three pieces by me, in a state of preparation for you; which I purpose sending by the first convenient private opportunity.— M r: Hichborn brought me last week a letter from you; but I have not been able to see him since, having been all...
46To James Madison from John Quincy Adams, 4 September 1801 (Madison Papers)
I have the honour to enclose a letter which I was desired to forward to you from Mr: Bourne at Amsterdam. A few days before I sailed from Hamburg, I sent you by duplicates, copies of a letter which I received there from the Swedish Minister at the Court of Berlin and of my answer to it. As it contained a proposition from the king of Sweden which may be deemed of some importance to the...
47From John Quincy Adams to William Smith Shaw, 25 March 1808 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 5th: instt: never came to my hands untill yesterday—I have long noticed the characters of the factions which were excited among all the antient nations, in their relations with the Romans—It has been particularly remarked by Montesquieu, and its application to our own Affairs is no new thing in my mind—Modern History is full of the same phenomenon—The English and French...
I wrote you last Sunday, the day after my arrival at Quincy and gave you an account of the progress and termination of my journey from New-York. On Tuesday I went with my father to Cambridge to attend the inauguration of the new President of the College, Mr: Webber.—The ceremonies of the day were sufficiently dull—The performances mostly in Latin, with a comfortable proportion of English in...
49John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Adams, 28 July 1804 (Adams Papers)
The delays in the receipt of my letters, of which you complain are occasioned some times by a delay in sending them to the Post-Office, and sometimes must be accounted for by the Post-Office itself— I have often times suffered the same impatience to hear from you, and last evening after having been nearly a fortnight without a line from you, received together your kind letters of the 13 th:...
The latest letter I have from you is dated the 14th: when you were very unwell with a sore throat and George with a very bad cough—I wait every Evening with the hope of a line from you of a more cheering nature —not unmingled with an apprehension of having in its stead, addition of anxiety—My hopes and my fears must be postponed from day to day and the state of Suspense still hangs over me....
51John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 20 March 1804 (Adams Papers)
A letter is now reading from Captain Bainbridge, with an account of the loss of the frigate Philadelphia, wreck’d on rocks on the coast of Tripoli—the last week in October— They were in pursuit of a Tripolitan Cruizer, and struck on rocks, not laid down in any Chart they had on board — Captain Bainbridge and 307 men, are prisoners in Tripoli.— I have already seen an account of this misfortune...
52To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 5 January 1805 (Adams Papers)
I have now two letters from you, and one from my mother, which ought to be answered more particularly, than my time will admit—The business of the Session has been delayed, untill such an accumulation has taken place, as will very much hurry the close of our Time—And although I might perhaps without injury to the public, suffer the business to be done without taking much trouble about it...
I have as little faith in presentiments as yourself—but the anxiety which I have felt for this whole week on your account has been such, that on receiving this morning your two letters of the 19th: and 21st:—I opened them with a trembling hand and heart—I lay this morning an hour before day-light, torturing myself with the fancy that some calamity of fire had befallen you or the children; and...
54John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 14 April 1801 (Adams Papers)
I received a few days ago your kind letter of 29 January. After having been so many months without a line from you, it gave me sincere pleasure to see your hand-writing again, though I could not but sympathise with the afflictions under the immediate burden of which it was written— I have cordially and deeply lamented my poor brother, and will obey your injunction respecting his child I learn...
The enclosed lines were written as a tribute of my affectionate remembrance, of your birth-day—But though begun upon that day they were not finished untill the next, and the necessity of copying them fair, has delayed their transmission, untill this time. I have not heard from you of a later date than the 1st: of this month; nor have I later letters from any of my friends at Quincy—We have had...
56From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 4 May 1806 (Adams Papers)
The first pen I put to paper after reaching my journey’s end must be to inform you, my dearest friend, of that Event—I left New-York, at four O’Clock of the afternoon of the first of this Month; the same day that my last Letter to you was written—My Sister concluded to remain there with the Coll: at least for the present—Her prospects and those of her family, are of a gloomy cast, but I can...
57From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 30 March 1808 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your kind attention to my affairs, as detailed in your last Letter which I have received within these two days— I confide entirely in your judgment and discretion, and shall approve of any arrangements you shall make for the present disposal of my farm— R. Dexter holds or held a note from me of a little more than three hundred dollars—I left a request with Shaw to pay it as...
58John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Adams, 26 August 1804 (Adams Papers)
Another week has past away, without bringing me a line from my dearest friend— The last letter I have received from you was dated the 31 st: of last month— I endeavour as much as possible to compose my mind with the hope that some accident at the Post-Office may have detained your letters since that time; but the thought that illness or some disaster must have befallen you or my dear children,...
59John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Adams, 9 April 1804 (Adams Papers)
I received this morning your letter of the 4 th: inst t: which gave me pleasure as containing the information of the children’s health; and sorrow by that of your own indisposition— The remainder of the letter was equally painful and unexpected to me— Our separation was very much against my inclination; but it was your own choice, and it has been my unvaried principle, and I hope will always...
60From John Quincy Adams to Justus Bush Smith, 8 January 1805 (Adams Papers)
When I was at New-York in April last, I received from your brother James $500 in part payment of the interest due upon your note. There still remains about $200 of interest due—This, together with the principal, from what he then said to me, and from the assurances in your letters before that time, I suppose you are at this time prepared to discharge—If however it will better suit your...