281From 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...
282From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 8 August 1803 (Adams Papers)
Know all Men, by these Presents, that I John Adams of Quincy, in the County of Norfolk, in the State of Massachusetts, Esquire, in Consideration of Twelve thousand Eight hundred and Twelve dollars paid me by John Quincy Adams of Boston in the County of Suffolk, and State aforesaid, the Receipt whereof I do hereby acknowledge, do hereby give grant Sell and convey unto the Said John Quincy Adams...
283From John Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 3 August 1807 (Adams Papers)
In your third Volume page 169, you say that “on the twenty Second of April 1782, Mr. Adams was admitted at the Hague and with the Usual Ceremonies received as Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America. ” This mistake of a few days in Chronology is Scarcely worth a Remark, but I suppose you would wish to be correct. It was on the Nineteenth day of April, not the twenty Second....
284From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 23 December 1805 (Adams Papers)
I ought, before now, to have acknowledged the Receipt of your favours and even now I can do no more than acknowledge them, for what Subject have I for a Letter? Shall I Send you diagrams of my Grounds, which the fine Weather of November and December has enabled me me to plough, for Corn, Potatoes, Barley Clover and Timothy? But what a Miniature picture of a Lilliputian Plantation, would Six...
285John Adams to William Stephens Smith, 26 February 1803 (Adams Papers)
I duely rec d yours of the 16 th with the Paper enclosed. I had given no Attention to the Attack upon you in Cheethams Paper, because I know that no Integrity of heart, no Purity of Conduct, or Innocence of Life can protect any Man from the Shafts of Calumny, in these times of party rage and under an elective Government, which breeds Passions and prejudices as fast as ever the sun upon the...
286From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 5 November 1804 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favor of October 15 and all the others that you mention, I believe, although I have not been able regularly to acknowledge the receipt of them. I thank you for the two Lectures. I have not been able to procure any information relative to the N.W. Coast, which might be usefull to you. Mr Barrell is no more and I never could learn whether Mr Ingrahams Journal has been...
287From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 August 1805 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 14th gives an exact Analysis of Pennsylvania and its Parties: and from it, a probability results, that the Old Constitution will be revived. But, for what reason do you call it Dr. Franklins? I always understood it to be the Work of Cannon, Matlack, Young and Paine, and that Franklin, though President of the Convention, had no greater hand in its fabrick than the painted head...
288From 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...
289From John Adams to Isaiah Thomas, Jr., 31 March 1801 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of the 25th., with the numbers of the Massachusetts Spy inclosed, and I thank you for your civility in Sending them. I am much pleased with their Appearance, and the Sentiments which predominate in them. You will Say this is natural enough, because they are in general conformable to my own and certainly favorable and friendly if not partial to me. Your offer to...
290From John Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 8 August 1807 (Adams Papers)
More demonstrations of your Friendship for Mr Adams appear in the 229 page of the third Volume. The Same disposition to wink him out of Sight, to represent him in an odious light, to lessen and degrade him below his Station, which runs through every part of your history in which he appears, is very visible here again. “Mr John Adams had left Holland and joined the Plenipotentiaries of the...
291From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 2 February 1807 (Adams Papers)
One of the Historiographers of Johnson’s Chat, Boswell perhaps or Piozzi says that Johnson being asked which were the best sermons in the English language, answered “Bating a little Heresy, he thought Dr. Sam. Clark’s the best.” This anecdote made one suspect that Johnson had not read Barrow. I once owned Clark’s sermons for several years, and read a good deal in them before I gave them to my...
292From John Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 9 March 1807 (Adams Papers)
My Answer to Mrs Warrens Question Shall be as prompt and frank as hers can be to mine Napoleones Maker alone can tell all that he was made for, And it would take a Sheet of Paper for me to explain all that I think he was made for. But in general Napoleone was made I will not say made but permitted for a Cat with o’ nine tails, to inflict ten thousand Lashes on the back of Europe, as a divine...
293From John Adams to Richard Morris, 15 November 1804 (Adams Papers)
I have received your obliging letter of the fifth of this month, with a Copy of your defence, and thank you for both. The latter, written in a masterly manner, as far as I can judge is a complete justification of your conduct and ought to have obtained an honorable acquittal. It contains information of various kinds, which seems to have been much wanted by our President and his Ministers, who...
294From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 10 November 1801 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your favour of the 3. oct....I Should be obliged to your friend Mr Mappa if he would commit to writing a description of the Phenomena, he observed in the Eastern Asiatic Seas; and the various species of foam which he saw floating on the waves and thought preparatory matter for testaceous and crustaceous fishes. The Spat, or Eggs of oysters, float on the Waves, and are deposited...
295From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 18 April 1808 (Adams Papers)
I have your favour of the 5th. My dear Mrs Adams bids me present her friendly regards to you and Mrs Rush and all your family, and to say to you that she has read your Letter with pleasure excepting what relates to a Gentleman from whom she had before a great Esteem, and all she can Say upon that Subject is that she wished she had not read it. In my jocular prayer to the Saint I meant No...
296From John Adams to Caleb Strong, 19 December 1804 (Adams Papers)
Commodore Truxtun has requested me, to forward to your Excellency his Vindication and circular Letter. I acquit myself with pleasure of his Commission, as it gives me an opportunity of anticipating the Compliments of the approaching Season, and renewing to your Excellency assurances of the Sincere Esteem and affection of your Friend and Servant IGK .
297From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 5 March 1808 (Adams Papers)
Livy in his 42. Book and chapters 29 and thirty, as an introduction of his History of the War between the Romans and Perseus King of Macedonia, says that all the Kings and States of Europe and Asia had their Attention fixed upon those two powerfull Nations upon the Point of engaging in War. He first explains the Views of the Kings Eumenes, Prusias, Ariarathes, Antiochus, Ptolomy, Massinissa,...
298From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 20 June 1808 (Adams Papers)
I give you this Title for the present only. I Shall Scarcely allow you to be a political, moral, or Christian Philosopher, till you retract Some of the Complaints Lamentations, Regrets and Penitences in your Letter of the 13th.—But more of this presently. Mr John Reed, the first Lawyer who left a great Reputation in our State, in the Administration of Governor Shirley was a Councillor, or in...
299[January 1804] (Adams Papers)
July 2d. Mowed, over vs. Yard and Garden 3 One Load, from the road to the ditch and from the cart path to the pasture Lane 1 4 Four Loads, over the Way and between the ditch and orchard 4 5 One Load from Chris Webbs House Lott 1 6 One from the 10 Acre Lot on the hill 1 7 Two in Cranchs Barn and two from the 10 Acre Lott 4 Sunday 8
300John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 25 February 1804 (Adams Papers)
I will write to you, if it be only for the Pleasure of giving you a Proof under my hand, that I am alive.— We have had no Topicks this Winter but Banks, Insurance offices, Toll Bridges and Turnpike Roads, till lately a Manifesto has appeared of the Republican Democrats against Governer Strong, made up partly from Dallas’s and partly from the Connecticutt one which Mr Tracy answered. Your...
301From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 24 July 1802 (Adams Papers)
I have received your letter of the 1. of June and read your Sketch of the Achaic Republick. It is a valuable Addition to American Litterature, and richly deserves to be printed. It will do Some good. I fear however, that all Men in Power will generally Say with Oliver Cromwell, on reading Harringtons Oceana, that they will not be frightened out of their Power by a few paper Shot. I should be...
302From 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,...
303From John Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 30 August 1803 (Adams Papers)
I received, with much pleasure, late, the last evening your kind Letter of the 28th. of the month, and Should have answered it Sooner if it had come earlier to my hand We have been in great affliction in this Family for more than three months, on account of the dangerous illness of your Friend my Companion, on whose preservation all my hopes of Comfort in this World, Seem to be Suspended. An...
304[July–August] 1804. (Adams Papers)
July 2d. Mowed, over vs. Yard and Garden 3 One Load, from the road to the ditch and from the cart path to the pasture Lane 1 4 Four Loads, over the Way and between the ditch and orchard 4 5 One Load from Chris Webbs House Lott 1 6 One from the 10 Acre Lot on the hill 1 7 Two in Cranchs Barn and two from the 10 Acre Lott 4 Sunday 8
305From John Adams to Thomas Foxcroft, 13 February 1807 (Adams Papers)
Benjamin Beale Esq. our representative, brought me last night from the General Court, a packet containing two books and a letter. But the letter was dated from no place, and I could not decypher the signature. He thought the name of the Member who gave it to him was Foxcroft, which suggested to me the suspicion that it was came from you. There is not in my memory the faintest trace of the old...
306From John Adams to James Perkins, 17 March 1807 (Adams Papers)
I received last evening your favour of the 13th of this month, enclosing a letter to me, from Mr. Thomas Theodore Cremere of Rotterdam. This gentleman is altogether a Stranger to me, but as he appears to have been a confidential friend of Mr. John Luzac of Leyden, who, in my opinion has not left his equal in Virtue and Learning united in all Europe, this circumstance alone is sufficient to...
307From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 19 September 1805 (Adams Papers)
After receiving so many trifles you will not be surprised at another. I wish you to tell me whether the Barilla is the same with the Kali or Soda! In the first Volume of the Supplement to the American Encyclopedia, p. 8 I find an Article British Barilla is the name given by Mr. James King of Newcastle upon Tyne, to a material invented by him, to Supply the place of Spanish Barilla in the...
308From John Adams to Philip Peck, 16 November 1801 (Adams Papers)
The request, in your Letter of the 4th: which I received on Saturday, is somewhat embarrassing. On the one hand, to refuse my consent to a proposal which must be thought by some so obliging and by others So flattering, would be severe and uncivil: on the other I do not approve, in general of the practice of giving double names of Baptism to Children: Although the Influence of Grandmothers and...
309From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 31 January 1805 (Adams Papers)
Until your wishes & enquiries shall be known concerning, Ingraham’s Journal, I see nothing more likely to afford you amusement, than that part in which he seems to believe, that he had added somewhat to our Stock of Geographical Knowledge. In the 2d. volume the first page of which he has marked 52 or book 2 ch:4, he says—"1791 April 19, We steered NNW from the Island of Dominica and at 4...
310From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 18 March 1808 (Adams Papers)
Your luminous Letter of the 27th of Feb. and 6. March are is before me. Was this an homogenious Nation under a consolidated Government, the Provision in the Constitution of Massachusetts would be Sufficient. But in a Confederation like ours there is danger. In Holland they have thought unanimity necessary in all most every Thing. Under our old Confederation, a Concurrence of nine States out of...