51From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 8 January 1808 (Adams Papers)
The distance between Us, the total retirement in which I live and the Want of Facts, render a Correspondence between Us, upon public affairs of very little use to you, though it is a great pleasure to me. The Storm that has agitated the Elements for twenty Years in Europe must be drawing towards a Conclusion, and the last blasts may be the fiercest of all. We have been favoured by Providence...
52From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 28 December 1807 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your printed lecture on the humanity Economy and other virtues, which require of us, more attention to our domestick animals, and especially to their diseases. We see our horses, horned cattle, sheep, swine and other species, as well as our cats and dogs, sick or wounded and no body knows what to do with them or for them, so that a broken bone or a fit of sickness is almost...
53From John Adams to Robert Smith, 28 December 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have received with pleasure, the letter you did me the honor to write me, on the fifteenth of this month: and pray you to accept my thanks for the impression of a medal, presented to the late Commodore Edward Preble in pursuance of the resolution of Congress of the third of March, one thousand eight hundred and five. This medal, in honor of the Commodore and in commemoration of a Splendid...
54From John Adams to William Heath, 14 December 1807 (Adams Papers)
As I did not wish to oppress you with my Letters I have not acknowledged the receipt of your favour of the 18th of May, though I received it in due Season and esteemed it very highly. I have seen lately in the Chronicle, that like the good Steward you bring out of your Treasury Things new and old, and in very good Season. The Military Countryman written five or six and thirty years ago I have...
55From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 14 December 1807 (Adams Papers)
Knowing very well by too long Experience the nature of your Employment, I wish you to understand that I never expect or desire any answers to my Letters except when I expressly request Information, more than a bare Acknowledgment of the Recipt of them. I Say this however upon a very patriotic and Self denying Principle because every Line from you is a cordial to my Spirit. Mr John Smith of...
56From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 1 December 1807 (Adams Papers)
I sympathize with you in all your Expressions of grief in your favour of Nov. 1st. at the melancholly Catastrophy of so many worthy persons your friends at Leyden and elsewhere. You derive consolation from the only source from which it can be drawn.—If I knew of any other I would joyfully administer it to you, as well as to myself.— Hunc solem et Stellas et decedentia certis Tempora momentis,...
57From John Adams to Amos J. Cook, 30 November 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have received the favour of your letter of the 21st. day of this month, and have complied with your request so far as to inclose with this letter, a Copy in my hand writing, of some Latin Verses, which I copied into my Pencil Book, in December 1779 from an inscription over the Door of the Cell of a Monk in Corunna in Spain.—The moral is so good, that they are worth the attention of the young...
58From John Adams to Abiel Holmes, 14 November 1807 (Adams Papers)
I am Sorry it is not in my power to give you much information relative to General Oglethorpe in complyance with your desire in your favour of the Eleventh of this Month. Recovering from a great Sickness in Paris in the Fall of the year after the Signature of the Definitive Treaty of Peace in 1783 I was advised by my Phesicians to take a Passage to Bath in England, for the purpose of Using the...
59From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 12 November 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have not written to you, though I have received two kind Letters from you, Since your departure, giving me very pleasing accounts of your comforts in your Travels. Soon after you left Us, I took the resolution instead of Sending George to Atkinson by the Stage or any other accidental and precarious conveyance to convey him myself. Accordingly We Set out, your Mother your Son and myself, and...
60From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 11 November 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have, long before the receipt of your favour of the 31 of October, supposed that either you were gazing at the Comet or curing the Influenza: and in either case, that you was much better employed than in answering my idle Letters. Pray! have our Astronomers at Phyladelphia, observed that Stranger in the Heavens? Have they noted its Bearings and Distances, its Course and progress! whence it...