121From 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...
122To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 14 January 1806 (Adams Papers)
I received some days since your kind favour containing the account of your occupations and amusements; and I have this day that of my brother dated at the close of the last and commencement of the present year—I have occasionally forwarded such public documents to you, as I supposed would be worthy of your perusal, together with the Journals of the two Houses—That of the Senate will I hope...
123From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 20 January 1806 (Adams Papers)
Your letter closing the last and commencing the present year, has been several days in my hands, and has hitherto remained without reply, from a variety of causes; but the want of time has been the principal one. Business is thickening upon us very fast, and notwithstanding your injunction to me at the time when I was getting into the Carriage to come here, I have not been able to keep myself...
124From 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...
125From John Quincy Adams to William Smith Shaw, 27 January 1806 (Adams Papers)
I have this morning received your favour of the 17th: and thank you for it—I should be glad to thank you more frequently than I have an opportunity to do for such favours. I cannot promise to write you often at much length, but I shall send you as often as I can documents which may be of use to you, and you will attribute to my continual occupations, from which I cannot now at least take upon...
126From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 5 February 1806 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 19th: of last Month, has been several days in my hands.—I have enclosed you the two sheets which were wanting to complete your files of the Journals of the House, but I cannot find a spare copy of the first sheet of the Senate’s Journals—I send most of the public documents to Shaw, because he wants them more than you, and because you will always have the first perusal of...
127To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 11 February 1806 (Adams Papers)
Since the date of your favour of the 29th: ulto: you have doubtless received many additional documents confirming your opinion of the system of policy prevalent here in relation to our foreign affairs—Unqualified submission to France, and unqualified defiance of Great Britain, are indeed the two pillars upon which our measures are to rest—And numerous as the proofs are which you will have of...
128From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 17 February 1806 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 2d. instt: enclosing a copy of the judiciary Bill which was before you for consideration came to hand some days since—As your legislative occupations employ you only three hours a day, I can readily conceive that you can find little time for private correspondence; for as an Antient Orator was wont to say that he had not time to make his speech short, so I have often found...
129From John Quincy Adams to William Smith Shaw, 19 February 1806 (Adams Papers)
I have received from you the Anthology for January, for which I thank you—In a letter yesterday to my brother I have made some remarks upon it with which I hope you will not be displeased—Perhaps my own zeal upon a subject of importance, made me more sollicitous concerning one Article in it than was necessary—I should be glad to review the several pamphlets on this subject lately published in...
130From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 14 March 1806 (Adams Papers)
It is so long since I have had one hour of leisure that I could appropriate to correspondence with my friends at Quincy and Boston, that I am fearful you will impute to some other cause the length of the interval between my letters—My health however has been gradually improving ever since I left you, and on the whole has been better through the Winter, than for two years before.—A variety of...
131From John Quincy Adams to James Smith, 16 March 1806 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of the 12th: instt: enclosing a receipt for $1000 deposited in the Bank of New-York, and standing there to my credit; being in payment of the interest and part of the principal of your brother Justus’s Note to me. According to your request I now enclose a receipt for the same, and also a Copy of the note itself, with minutes of all the payments made upon it,...
132From John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 19 March 1806 (Adams Papers)
I have received two letters from you, since I wrote you last; but I presume you will know the reason which has prevented me from answering the first of them before the coming of the last.—As the Session advanced the business to which my attention became necessary accumulated so much that I had scarcely time to go home and come to the Capitol from day to day—And besides all the subjects which...
133From John Quincy Adams to William Stephens Smith, 26 March 1806 (Adams Papers)
I received last Evening your favour of the 23d:—The appointment of Mr. Schenck had been two or three days before confirmed by the Senate—I most sincerely lament your removal from the Office of Surveyor; but this act is exclusively within the power of the President, and the only notice he usually gives to the Senate of a removal is by a new Nomination to the Office—Such was the case in the...
134To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 28 March 1806 (Adams Papers)
I have two letters from you which ought to have been answered some time since, but I have only one apology for the delay, which I have so often mentioned that I am almost ashamed to repeat it. I have no time for writing except when the Senate is in Session, and when such business is before them, as I can suffer to proceed without paying much attention to it.—We have now come to sit on...
135From John Quincy Adams to William Smith Shaw, 31 March 1806 (Adams Papers)
Since I wrote you last I have not heard directly from you although an interval of several weeks has elapsed—I sent you receipts for Gurley’s & Delille’s Rent, which I presume you have received—On this Idea, I have now to desire that you would enquire whether any dividend on the Stock of the Fire and Marine Insurance Company was made on the first of this Month—And if there was I will thank you...
136From John Quincy Adams to William Stephens Smith, 16 April 1806 (Adams Papers)
I have within these few days successively received your two letters, one of them containing the relation of the circumstances respecting General Miranda’s projects, and your relations with him while he was in this Country; and the other containing the request that I would write an Oration for your Son John—On the first of these subjects, I trust that in the trial of the Cause, on the Bill...
137From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 1 May 1806 (Adams Papers)
Untill this day, I have been from the moment when I left you, in such continual motion that I have not had a moment of leisure to perform the promise I made, of writing to you on my way home—We had a rainy day from Washington to Baltimore, where I parted with Messrs: Tracy and Dana, on the moment of our arrival—Mr: McHenry having taken them both to his House—They were to come on two days...
138From 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...
139From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 10 May 1806 (Adams Papers)
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...
140From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 18 May 1806 (Adams Papers)
The Children are both in perfect health; both contented with their situations, and both beloved by all around them—George appears to have lost none of his sensibility, but has a placidness and ease of temper, which must have come to him I think from some of his Remote Ancestors—He reads tolerably well, and still prides himself as much as ever in his learning. He agrees very well with his...
141From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 24 May 1806 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you this day week, last Sunday that I intended to return to Boston the next morning—But, I did not go untill Tuesday. I have been chiefly there untill yesterday afternoon when I came out in the Stage, and found the family here all well; and particularly both the children—The first thing John said to me was to enquire whether I had sent a kiss for him to Mamma—I cannot stay many days...
142From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 1 June 1806 (Adams Papers)
I expected to have this letter from Quincy, where it was my intention to have gone yesterday in the Stage— But it was to have called for me at Whitcomb’s where I still lodge, and by some mistake went away and left me. It was the cause of no small disappointment, as I had flattered myself with seeing our two darlings, for whom I had got a little book and a toy to give them from their Mama— But...
143From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 8 June 1806 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday was the first Saturday since I arrived here, which passed over without bringing me a letter from you; and although I am willing to hope that it may be owing to some delay at the Post-Office, or to some accident which prevented your writing at the usual time, I cannot help feeling some degree of uneasiness least the omission should have been caused by the state of your health—Indeed...
144From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 10 June 1806 (Adams Papers)
I have just this morning received your kind favour of the 2d: instt: which at once confirmed my apprehensions, and in some degree relieved my anxiety—From the time that the Saturday pass’d over untill now I have had an aching heart, and although I learn from your letter that you had been very ill, yet to know you were on the recovery, and had pass’d what I had long looked forward to as a very...
145From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 15 June 1806 (Adams Papers)
I pass’d the day yesterday, in anxious expectation of having a letter from you again, but it did not come—The fear that your illness should have continued or returned to prevent your writing, heavily weighs upon me; and the only probable contingency that my Imagination offers me to account for your omission again to write at the usual time is that you received my letter enclosing the deed on...
146From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 18 June 1806 (Adams Papers)
The day before yesterday, after having taken a very satisfactory view of the solar eclipse, I received your letter of the 9th: the last lines of which, mentioning that you had recovered so far as to go down stairs again, were as cheering to my heart, as the first beams of the great luminary after his total obscurity, had been to the senses—The deed though executed with superabundant caution,...
147From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 22 June 1806 (Adams Papers)
Here I am at length, established as an intimate, in the family of Dr: Waterhouse; but from a variety of delays I did not come from Boston, untill the Evening before last—And being once here I concluded to adhere a sufficient time to get habituated and reconciled to my new Situation before I would absent myself from it—This prevented me from going out yesterday to Quincy, according to my...
148From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 29 June 1806 (Adams Papers)
In the course of the last week I received your kind favour of the 15th: instt: which in assuring me that your general health was so much improved gave me one of the most pleasing satisfactions that in my present state I am capable of enjoying—I have spent the week at Cambridge in a state of great tranquility, and without the occurrence of any incident worth mentioning to you; except the...
149From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 30 June 1806 (Adams Papers)
You will receive I presume at the same time with this a letter from me written yesterday at Quincy, in the ardour and satisfaction of Hope. This morning on my coming into Boston, your letter of the 23d: so lovely by its tender sensibility, so admirable by its resignation and fortitude, yet so distressing to me by the affliction in which it was written, and the marks of suffering apparent even...
150From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 2 July 1806 (Adams Papers)
On going yesterday into Boston, I received Mr: Hellen’s letter of the 22d: of last Month, with the few lines which I am afraid you must have cruelly suffered in writing; and also your’s of the 24th: which at least administered the consolation of knowing that you were as well as you could expect—My great concern is that in the tender effort you made when thus severely ill to write, was too...