1From John Adams to Oliver Whipple, 3 March 1809 (Adams Papers)
I have recieved your favour of February 23rd and thank you for the friendly as well as the complimentary sentiments expressed in it It has been now and then my fortune in the course of a long life, though not frequently to receive a compliment. yours is a pleasant one; and as an instance of adversity seldom comes alone, so I have observed that an instance of prosperity is seldom quite...
2From John Adams to William Cunningham, 22 February 1809 (Adams Papers)
Inclosed you will find a phillipic of our angry, pevish, fretful Prophet Jonah. His anger is his talent. When he gives a loose to that passion which he always does in every thing he produces something smart, pert, and malignant, which pleases the malignaty of the vulgar. But Phillipics are not the highest style of politicks. I cannot think Demosthenes and Cicero in the highest grade of...
3From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 20 February 1809 (Adams Papers)
When you informed me that Mr Cooper in his Life of Dr Priestly had ascribed to that Philosopher, the first hint of the Perfectibility of the human Mind, I answered you that this was the Doctrine of the ancient Stoicks. My Memory did not Serve me with details and I referred to no authorities, not thinking it worth while to Search Books upon Such a Subject. But within a day or two I have...
I have yours of the 18. Jan. When you receive your Diploma you will have no fees to pay. We have not yet adopted any regulation which requires fees from the Members elected. Perhaps it would be prudent in future to adopt Such a Measure and give a Salary to our Secretary. Our Officers are now Men of So much Business and So dependent on their Business for the Support of their families that they...
5From John Adams to William Cunningham, 14 February 1809 (Adams Papers)
The complaint in your favour of the 11th, of the refusal to publish your Chathams, is no suprise to me. I have seen nothing in the four federal papers of Boston, for the last year, but such another prostitution, of genius, learning, and eloquence, as We read in Madam Drapers, Fleets, and mien, and Flemmings Papers in 1773 and 1774. A blind devotion to England and a disposition to sacrifice to...
6From John Adams to William Cunningham, 11 February 1809 (Adams Papers)
I have your favour of 14 ult. The Mirror was never read—and if it ever should be it will be willfully misunderstood—Seventeen Wheels within one wheel. Seventeen Empires within one empire Seventeen sovereignties within one sovereignty. Seventeen Imperia in one Emperio will tell in time we have had a Chaise’s disturbance: a Gallatin’s disturbance a Fries’s disturbance; and why may we not have a...
7From John Adams to James Lovell, 7 February 1809 (Adams Papers)
If our friend as you say is writhing in a Fox trap those who as you say nibbled when I sent Elsworth to France have woven the meshes with great art. They have composed the snares of the cords of a man and the bands of Love. They have exerted themselves with success equal to thier zeal and activity to get his son Theodore elected, into the senate and his son in Law Bailies into the H——of R——of...
8From John Adams to Henry Guest, 29 January 1809 (Adams Papers)
I am favoured with your kind Letter of the 20th. At your age and mine, as the Body fails to Supply Such plentifull provisions of animal Spirit, as it commonly does in youth and middle Age. We are usually Subject to more frequent dejections and gloomy Apprehensions. In the present dreary times you are not alone but accompanied by the whole Nation as far as I know it, in your depression. But not...
9From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 January 1809 (Adams Papers)
What Signify Clamours against Commerce Property Kings Nobles Demagogues Democracy, the Clergy Religion? For to each and all of these has the Depravity of Man been imputed by some Philosophers. Rousseau says the first Man who fenced a Cabbage yard ought to have been put to death. Dr but Diderot says the first Man who Suggested the Idea of a god ought to have been treated as an Enemy of the...
10From John Adams to Joseph Bradley Varnum, 9 January 1809 (Adams Papers)
The following comments were written, within a few days after the appearance in public of this Text “The Proclamation of the King of Great Britain requiring the return of his Subjects, the Seamen especially, from foreign Countries, to aid, in this hour of peculiar danger, in defence of their own. But it being an acknowledged Principle that every Nation has a right to the Service of its Subjects...
11From John Adams to William Cunningham, 3 January 1809 (Adams Papers)
I have your favours of December 17, and 21st. I hope you will not insinuate a comparison between John Q. Adams and Coriolanus. Whatever injustice or ingratitude may be done him, he has none of the Roman’s revenge, much less his treachery. Of Mrs. Warren’s History I have nothing to say. The Count De Vergennes was an accomplished gentleman and scholar, and a statesman of great experience in...
12From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 31 December 1808 (Adams Papers)
In answer to your kind Inquiries concerning my health, in your favour of the 14th, I can inform you that I enjoy as good health as a Man in his fifteenth Lustre, can reasonably expect, except a little paralytic trembling in the hands, which does not much incommode me however in Writing. I have been engaged this Summer as you have in reading History. Voltaires Moeurs et Esprit des Nations and...
13From John Adams to Joseph Bradley Varnum, 26 December 1808 (Adams Papers)
I receive very kindly your obliging letter of the 15th. of this month. Ever since my return from Europe, where I had resided ten years and could not be fully informed of the state of affairs in my own Country, I have been constantly anxious and alarmed at the intemperance of party spirit and the unbounded license of our presses. In the same view I could not but lament some things, which have...
14From John Adams to Josiah, III Quincy, 23 December 1808 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for all the fine Speeches you send me and especially for that of Mr Loyd and the letter of the 14th. inclosed with it. The Speech is a chaste, neat composition, very Sensible, candid, frank and manly. I conclude with him “remove the Embargo, authorize the Merchants to arm their Vessels, put the Nation in a State of defence and assert your well established and indisputable Rights or...
15From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 22 December 1808 (Adams Papers)
I know not whether I shall make you smile or weep, excite your ridicule or pity or contempt when I reveal to you the mistery of my long delay to answer your last Letters. But before I unriddle that unusual negligence, I must say a few words concerning our Friend Whartons Attachment to Prophecies and his habit of applying them to passing events. I have no objection to the Study, but I am aware...
16From John Adams to John Adams Smith, 14 December 1808 (Adams Papers)
It is a long time since I had a Letter from you. In the last I think you prophesied “Wonders in November.” I understood you to mean, a wonderful revolution in the sentiments of the people, and a restoration of the Federalists to the Government of the Nation. But the month of November is past, and there appears, notwithstanding all the terrors and horrors of the Embargo a wonderfull adherence...
17From John Adams to William Cunningham, 13 December 1808 (Adams Papers)
I laughed when I read your Expectation, that what you had written on J. Q. A. would be printed. I found that you was not acquainted with the World, as it exists in Boston. The four federal Papers are under the Imprimatur of an Oligarchy of Purse, proud Speculators as despotic as the thirty Tyrants of Athens. Tryals enough have been made, as I have been informed to insert many Things on the...
18From John Adams to Isaiah L. Green, 9 December 1808 (Adams Papers)
I received, yesterday, from the Post Office, under your franc, the nervous Reply of Nine of our Representatives to the certain resolutions. Having read it with pleasure I thank you for your politeness in Sending it to me. while it treats our Legislature with all the respect it deserves, it is written with as much candor and moderation as perspicuity and Energy. The Facts are fairly stated, and...
19From John Adams to William Cunningham, 25 November 1808 (Adams Papers)
I have your favour’s of the 12th and 16th: of the month. The letter of President Washington concerning J Q A. is at your discretion to make what use of it you please. All the communications concerning the other Gentleman made or to be made I confide to your sacred confidence. The great regard I had for your Grandfather and for your Grandmother, who was a beloved Sister of my Mother, and for...
20From John Adams to Josiah, III Quincy, 25 November 1808 (Adams Papers)
I owe you a thousand thanks, to speak in the good old English form of civility, for the Speech and the documents. You are greatly to be pitied, I mean all of you, of all parties, for I see you must labour very hard and with much anxiety, without the smallest hope, that I can discern of preserving yourselves and us the people from very dull times. If you continue the Embargo the times will be...
21From John Adams to William Cunningham, 7 November 1808 (Adams Papers)
The letter of General Washington would have remained in obscurity forever, as far as I know, as it has been for twelve years past, had not a mean vengeance been hurled on the subject of it, for no other offence than his sterling integrity. You are the first person except one who ever asked me a question concerning the reasons for releasing, a certain Gentleman from the burthen of public...
22From John Adams to William Cunningham, 15 October 1808 (Adams Papers)
The information in your last letter, to look in the Palladium for certain speculations, is very agreeable. As I have never subscribed for that paper, I have never read them. Indeed I seldom see it. Your friendship for J. Q. Adams, encourages me to say, that Washington was indeed under obligations to him, for turning the tide of sentiment against Genet, and he was sensible of it and grateful...
23From John Adams to Gabriel Duvall, 13 October 1808 (Adams Papers)
I have received the Letter you did me the honor to write me on the Seventeenth of September; and in Answer to it I beg leave to inform you, that the account of the fourteen thousand dollars granted on the Second of March 1797 for the further Accommodation of the Household of the President of the United States was Settled before I left Washington, as appears by the enclosed Copy of a Letter to...
24From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 10 October 1808 (Adams Papers)
The three Classes of People in Boston, who direct our public Affairs are the Same as those you describe in your favour of 22 of Sept. It gives me great pleasure, to learn that our old Friend Mr Clymer is as he always was a pure-American. I cannot however boldly defend the long Continuance of the Embargo. I thought it at first a necessary Measure, but was fully apprehensive it could not be long...
25From John Adams to John Adams Smith, 10 October 1808 (Adams Papers)
It gives me great pleasure to observe in your letter of the first of this month your increasing thirst for knowledge and attachment to your profession. Your natural aversion to politics will soon too soon wear away. A lawyer must be a politician. It is impossible to avoid it; he breathes constantly in a political atmosphere. The companies with whom he associates are all politicians. Judges,...
26From John Adams to Henry Guest, 30 September 1808 (Adams Papers)
I agree with you in your obliging letter of the eighth of this month that the new England states ought to have their equitable share in the government of the nation and I think that hitherto they have not, I think too that hitherto they have not I think too, that they ought not to bear more than their just proportion of the public burden; but I know that they have. They are so much outnumbered...
27From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 27 September 1808 (Adams Papers)
That Rosicrusian Sylph, that Fairy Queen Mab, or that other familiar Spirit whatever it is, that inspires your nightly dreams, I would not exchange, if I had it, for the Dæmon of Socrates. You have more Wit and humour and Sense in your Sleep, than other People I was about to Say, than you have yourself when awake. I know not whether I have ever read two finer Allegories, than the two you have...
28From John Adams to William Cunningham, 27 September 1808 (Adams Papers)
The papers to No. 6, which you mention in your kind letter of the 19th I have never seen nor heard. In what paper or pamphlet were they published? The federalists, I think, might suffer my old lamp to go out without administering their nauseous oil, merely to excite a momentary flash before it expires. Do you think the federalists believe themselves when they say that I am on the side of the...
29From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 8 September 1808 (Adams Papers)
I will not Stand upon Ceremonies, with you, and wait for the Return of a Visit, or an Answer to my last Letter. Whatever proportion of Loyalty to an established Dinasty of Kings, or whatever taint of catholic Superstition there may be in the present Sensations of the Spanish People, I revere the Mixture of pure Patri or however their Conduct may have been excited by British or Austrian Gold, I...
30From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 31 August 1808 (Adams Papers)
Instead of preparing for Commencement, I am answering your delicious Letter of the 24th.—But where to begin or where to end! I will follow your own order. If I had ever heard that a Pen of Tacitus had been preserved among the Reliques of Antiquity, I Should Swear you had Stolen it to draw the Character of the most conspicuous moral political and military Character Phenomenon of this Age.— I...