1To John Adams from Richard Rush, 4 January 1811 (Adams Papers)
Encouraged by the very flattering permission you have given me, I am venturing to say to you in the form of a letter, (a liberty which I hope you will pardon,) that I have read the “review of the works of Fisher Ames.” And I must be allowed to say, that I have read it with the pleasure naturally belonging to the perusal of so able a performance. Although I carefully treasure up every thing...
2To John Adams from Richard Rush, 27 January 1811 (Adams Papers)
I was more gratified sir, than I can express at the letter which you did me the honor to write to me. The very evening before it came to hand I had finished reading, in course, the last of the lectures upon rhetoric and oratory, which for several weeks had occasionally yielded me great delight during the intervals of a busy profession. The just and often original reflections which they...
3To John Adams from Richard Rush, 8 April 1811 (Adams Papers)
A day or two before I had the pleasure to receive your last valued favor of the 3rd of February, the governor of this state was pleased to honor me with the commission of Attorney general. It so happened that, at that moment our criminal courts here were upon the eve of sitting, which suddenly threw upon me a good deal of publick business. This is the chief cause to which I owe the loss, until...
4To John Adams from Richard Rush, 10 July 1812 (Adams Papers)
I beg you will do me the honor to accept a copy of a discourse I delivered on the 4th of July at this place. The present crisis of our country, Sir, is most momentous; but it seems greatly to be feared that the powerful and intelligent state of Massachusetts will not yield her zealous cooperation to the nation in its present struggle. With constant wishes for your health and happiness allow...
5To John Adams from Richard Rush, 18 July 1812 (Adams Papers)
I beg you will do me the honor to accept a Copy of a discourse I delivered on the 4th of July at this place. The present crisis of our country, sir, is most momentous; but it seems greatly to be feared that the powerful and intelligent state of Massachusetts will not yield her zealous cooperation to the nation in its present struggle. With constant wishes for your health and happiness allow...
6To John Adams from Richard Rush, 6 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
It was only the day before yesterday that Mr Andrew Eliot handed me your letter dated the 5th of May. Although you do not speak of him as being particularly known to you yet the mere circumstance of his bringing a letter to me from your hand was gratifying, and constitutes the highest claim to my attention to him. As yet I have seen him but once when he delivered it to me; but in whatever way...
7To John Adams from Richard Rush, 29 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
Your kind letter of the 13th has gratified me very much. When I spoke of New York having joined in with Pennsylvania and Virginia, I alluded to the issue of the late election for governor there. From a variety of local causes existing in that state, this last election seems to have been the only one they have had since the war began which fairly brought to a test the relative numbers of the...
8To John Adams from Richard Rush, 2 August 1813 (Adams Papers)
It is no interference with my publick employments to write to you. I can command some portion of almost every day, and the priviledge of using it in this way is most gratifying to me. Michiavel says war ought to be the only study of a prince. We shall indeed, Sir, be taught, by terrible experience, that it must henceforth be more the study of our republick. One of our Colonels told me not long...
9To John Adams from Richard Rush, 5 August 1813 (Adams Papers)
I have taken the liberty to copy for your eye the enclosed lines, written by St George Tucker of Virginia, on being asked why he had ceased to court the inspirations of the muse. They struck me as very touching and beautiful both as to sentiment and manner. If you have not seen them before, perhaps they may afford you a few minutes pleasure; and the hope that they may do so has induced me to...
10To John Adams from Richard Rush, 24 August 1813 (Adams Papers)
Mr St George Tucker is, I believe, a native of one of the West India islands. He was brought to Virginia quite a boy before the revolution, fought with reputation at Camden as a militia major, was next a lawyer, and has held several civil stations in Virginia, where, as I understand, he has always been greatly esteemed for his virtues and learning. He is now, on the late appointment of...
11To John Adams from Richard Rush, 25 September 1813 (Adams Papers)
I must be allowed to offer you my heartiest congratulations upon Commodore Perrys great victory on lake Erie. I know of nobody who will take as much pleasure in it as you. I know of nobody, sir, who has so just a title to rejoice at our splendid naval trophies as you. The Navy is yours. Hull must have been your officer. Decatur I know was. Bainbridge, Jones, Lawrence, Burrows, all of...
12To John Adams from Richard Rush, 24 October 1813 (Adams Papers)
As soon as I received your acceptable and instructing letter of the 8th of this month, I wrote to a friend in Philadelphia, who is much in the literary and political way, to beg he would inform me, if he knew, who had been writing or preparing to write a commentary upon the “Defence of the American Constitutions,” for that I had understood there was such a work on hand, if not published. As to...
13To John Adams from Richard Rush, 8 November 1813 (Adams Papers)
According to the intimation contained in one of the letters I have had the pleasure to write to you, I took the liberty of enclosing to Mr St George Tucker, though entirely unknown to him; not the copy, but the original, of your favor to me of the 13th of August. It was the one in which you acknowledged the receipt of his beautiful little poem, and I was sure the original, in your own hand...
14To John Adams from Richard Rush, 30 November 1813 (Adams Papers)
I had hoped that this letter would have shaped itself by some of the agreeable topicks touched in your two most agreeable favors of the 5th and 20th; the former of which my better half has put into one of her own drawers claiming it as her own property and desiring her most dutiful compliments and acknowledgements for the handsome things said of her; and the latter of which I received...
15To John Adams from Richard Rush, 25 December 1813 (Adams Papers)
Christmas Day I sit down to offer you the compliments of the season, in the most respectful, cordial, and friendly way in which they can be tendered. May you live to see many Christmases more, and may each find you in possession of health to enjoy the blessings and fame that surround you; of the faculties of a mind more full of wisdom as age continues to come over it; and of a heart still, as...
16To John Adams from Richard Rush, 31 December 1813 (Adams Papers)
Since writing the enclosed, which I wrote at home, I have come to the Treasury building where mr Nourse has stepped into my office to ask if I have heard any thing of the report of the morning. It seems it is, that a flag of truce arrived at Annapolis yesterday after a short passage from England with dispatches from Lord Castlereagh to our government, which came on by express from Annapolis to...
17To John Adams from Richard Rush, 31 December 1813 (Adams Papers)
On Sunday last I saw the President, and he mentioned to me that not a single line had been received from our commissioners in Russia since they left the U. States. He spoke of it with surprise, and seemed at a loss to account for it, unless some dispatches from them had miscarried, as it is near eight months since they went away. Yesterday he mentioned to me in conversation, that, by the late...
18To John Adams from Richard Rush, 17 January 1814 (Adams Papers)
Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes. Nothing can be more applicable to our situation, and the late offer of Britain. I repeated it in conversation a few days ago in the hearing of Mr Ingersoll, of the house or representatives from Pennsylvania, and I have since heard with pleasure that he took occasion to thunder it out in his place at the capitol, and that it caught the ear of the house to a...
19To John Adams from Richard Rush, 7 February 1814 (Adams Papers)
Mr Hay is the son in law of Mr Munroe, and the day after I received your last favor I took the liberty to read a passage from it to the latter. This morning he requested of me an extract of it to send to Mr Hay, saying that he knew how highly it would gratify him. I ha ve cheerfully consented. Thus, Sir, while your kind correspondence is a source of pleasure and of pride to me, I make it also...
20To John Adams from Richard Rush, 21 March 1814 (Adams Papers)
At the very beginning of the last month my new appointment was bestowed upon me, and I was suddenly thrown into the midst of the supreme court the very day after, without the least previous acquaintance with any of its business. There I have been, day in and day out, ever since until last thursday blundering on in an agony of embarrassment and ignorance, doing the business of the court and not...
21To John Adams from Richard Rush, 17 April 1814 (Adams Papers)
You could have sent me no greater treat than the letter of Mr Adams which you were so kind as to enclose in your last favor. I had before now, and from the best sources, heard that his diplomatic correspondence on a file in the department of state exhibited when, taken from the beginning, a fulness, an elegance, an accuracy, an extent of observation, a sagacity, a profoundness of political...
22To John Adams from Richard Rush, 20 April 1814 (Adams Papers)
After having read, for a fifth time, the elegant letter of Mr. J. Q. Adams, I return it with renewed thanks; and as in the postscript to your favor of the 6th instant I think I recognise the hand writing of Mrs Adams, I must beg my respectful compliments and thanks to her also, to whom I feel indebted in part for the pleasure and benefit of perusing the letter in question. And next, sir, for...
23To John Adams from Richard Rush, 20 May 1814 (Adams Papers)
On my return four day ago from Philadelphia where I had been for a fortnight I had the pleasure to find your favor of the 2d of this month which arrived during my absence, for which, as for all I get from you, I must return my thanks. One of the objects of my visit was to lay in a stock of new law books, as I hope, by hard study, to lay in a stock of law knowledge. At least I know this is my...
24To John Adams from Richard Rush, 24 May 1814 (Adams Papers)
I have given the above extract exactly as I find it in a book of my venerated parent that I have just been reading, and which is full of interesting anecdote. I avow it in part as my motive, that I may ask you what toast you would give now if I had the happiness of being in your company at Quincy. That we shall have to fight longer is, as I intimated to you a few days ago, highly probable. The...
25To John Adams from Richard Rush, 17 June 1814 (Adams Papers)
Since you first allowed me the honor and gratification of corresponding with you, I have observed, that important events in the political world have trodden so closely upon each other that they interpose themselves between the successive favors I receive from you, and to such a degree as often to bear out of the view the subject of the last by drawing the eye towards some new occurrence, or...
26To John Adams from Richard Rush, 11 July 1814 (Adams Papers)
The pleasure I usually derive in opening a letter from you, was considerably abated at the receipt of your last favor, because it spoke of your indisposition. I hope the cessation of your north and north east winds, with a return of dryer weather, will have restored you to health. I hope that years of tranquility and happiness are yet to shine upon you before the close of your illustrious...
27To John Adams from Richard Rush, 5 September 1814 (Adams Papers)
The last kind favor that I had from you, mentioned your indisposition, and as it is a great while since, I am not without my apprehensions that you may be still unwell. Out of your own immediate family there is no one, sir, in America, or the world, who feels a livelier interest in your health and happiness than I do. I know how old you are in service, in honors, and in years. But years of...
28To John Adams from Richard Rush, 23 October 1814 (Adams Papers)
I was made happy by your last esteemed favor, from its assuring me that your health was restored to its usual tone. I lately spent an evening with young Mr Dallas, who came home in the John Adams. He is an intelligent young gentleman, and deals out a great deal of European anecdote, of Lords and Emperors, Kings and princes. He speaks with nothing but praise of Mr J. Q. Adams; who, he says, was...
29To John Adams from Richard Rush, 13 November 1814 (Adams Papers)
Mr Dallas insists upon it that the emperor Alexander is a republican. As one proof of it he tells this anecdote. Conversing with Louis the 18th, he said “Sir, were I so happy as to reign over such a people as the French, it should be my study to make them perfectly free.” This is a noble sentiment even if it does not prove him a republican. Kings and Emperors, by the way, are very apt to be...
30To John Adams from Richard Rush, 24 December 1814 (Adams Papers)
I do not know that I have ever yet made my acknowledgments to you for the favor you were kind enough to do me in sending me a letter by the Revd. Mr Everett. That I was not fortunate enough to make his acquaintance I consider a real loss. I knew of his being here only the day before he went away, and was unlucky enough, (a thing that very rarely happens with me,) to have an engagement that...