1Abigail Adams to Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody, 19 May 1801 (Adams Papers)
This will be deliverd to you by the children who leave me this day. I hope they will return to their Studies with undiminishd zeal, they have had three months dissipation, in which I hope they have not acquired any ill habits, but close application will be necessary for them to retrieve the past time. William if he chuses may be fitted for colledge by the next july twelvemonths and it is the...
If I had written to you my dear sister half as often as I have thought of you and contemplated writing, you would have had a Letter by every Mail for these two months: I have to acknowledge the receipt of two kind Letters from you since I have made you any return the last bearing date May 29th, which came last week to hand, and to which I should have replied yesterday by a young Man who lives...