1081From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 10 June 1809 (Adams Papers)
IN page 29. Mr. Hamilton says, "when an ordinary man dreams himself to be a Frederick," &c. To this I shall make but a short answer. When a Miss of the street shall print a pamphlet in London, and call the Queen of England an ordinary woman, who dreams herself a Catharine of Russia, no Englishman will have the less esteem for his queen for that impudent libel. There is something in the 24th...
1082From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 2 May 1814 (Adams Papers)
If with blind Eyes and paralytical Hands, I could enfanter des in Folio, like De Wolf, Priestley and Voltaire, and at the Same time had the Library of the late King of France, about me I might be qualified in part to correspond with you. Buckminster imported Brucker with him from Europe. In the Sale of his Library, the Competition was between Harvard University and the Athenæum. William Smith...
1083From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 30 August 1810 (Adams Papers)
Amsterdam, March 19, 1782—Mr. Adams is very sensible of the honor done him in the polite card of Madam Van Berckel of this day’s date; but has the mortification to be conscious, that he is not the anonymous person alluded to, and therefore has no title to the genteel acknowledgments for the present or the billet. The happy auspices of a future connection between the two nations, which appear...
1084From John Adams to Thomas Melville, Jr., 11 May 1815 (Adams Papers)
I have received the letter you did me the honour to write me, on the 7th of this month, with its enclosures, a diploma of honorary member of the Berkshire Agricultral society; the address of my friend Elkanah Watson Esqre & the premiums to be given at your next Exhibition of Cattle— I pray you Sir to present my thanks to the society, & to their Executive Committee, for the honor they have done...
1085From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 28 December 1811 (Adams Papers)
Paris. June 14, 1783. Gentlemen—Permit me to address the enclosed Memorial to your excellencies, and to explain to you my reasons for so doing. It is because many consequences now at a great distance, or unforeseen by us, may arise between our two countries, perhaps from very minute and incidental transactions, which in their beginnings may be imperceptible and unsuspected as to their future...
1086From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 December 1812 (Adams Papers)
Never! Never be weary, in the Ways of well dreaming! any one of your Dreams worth to the Moralist and the Statesman any Fable of Esop or Phedrus, La Fontaigne, More or Gay. And why should your ancient Wisdom deny itself the Relaxation of a little folatre. Gaiety, where it gives so much pleasure to your Friends hurts the feelings of nobody, and Communicates useful Instruction to all— My Dream...
1087From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 22 May 1815 (Adams Papers)
Your favr is recd. Gallia changefull as a Child at play “now calls in Princes; now drives away,” and this is exactly conformable to Examples Sett her by England Scotland and Ireland in the 17th Century; to that of Holland, Geneva, Switzerland &c in the 18th. and Austria Russia Sweden Prussia Saxony and the whole Confederation of the Rhine in the 19th. And our dear beloved Country has not been...
1088From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 24 December 1813 (Adams Papers)
If you were in any spot between New Orleans and Passamaquaddy, I should write you every day If I could but the communication now, is so uncertain, and so dangerous, that I never write without fear of hurting you or the public. You almost from your cradle and I from 16 years of age have been Heluones Librorum. We have hunted books in Boston, in Bordeaux, in Paris, in Nantes L’orient and Brest,...
1089From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 23 September 1816 (Adams Papers)
I pray you to send me a Book whose Title is ΑΙΡΕΣΕΩΝ ΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΙΣ : A New Way of deciding Old Controversies By Basanistes. Third Edition enlarged Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat Hor. London Printed for J. Johnson & Co. St. Pauls Church Yard. 1815. If there has been any Subsequent Edition Send me that. But above all let me intreat you to read it. If you can inform me Who wrote it, or is Suspected...
1090From John Adams to Benjamin Stoddert, 15 October 1811 (Adams Papers)
Your obliging Letter of August 16th was presented to me by your son in law Dr Thomas Ewell and his amiable Lady your Daughter. Although I was confined with a wounded leg which is not yet healed; and afflicted With a series of misfortunes afflictions and Deaths among my tenderest connections such as rarely happen to any man even in this troublesome world: I am not the less obliged to you for...
1091From John Adams to John Adams Smith, 26 May 1816 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your sensible and feeling letter of the 7th of February. If you and I should take a flight to the North Star, and after a years residence, meet a negro, a Tartar or Indian, or a Hottentot from Earth; I verily believe we should embrace him as a brother. There are no doubt, hundreds of young men in the United States, who envy your situation because they know nothing of the...
1092From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 12 October 1812 (Adams Papers)
I have a Curiosity to learn Something of the Character Life and death of a Gentleman, whose name was Wollaston, who came from England with a Company of a few dozens of Persons in the Year 1622, took possession of an height on Massachusetts Bay built houses there for his People, and after looking about him and not finding the face of Nature Smiling enough for him, went to Virginia to seek a...
1093From John Adams to Rufus King, 2 December 1814 (Adams Papers)
I am very much obliged to you for the information, melancholly as it is to me, of the death of Mr Gerry. A Friendship of forty years I have found a rarity, though not a Singularity. I am left alone. While Paine Gerry and Lovell lived, there were Some that I Seemed to know: but now not one of my Contemporaries and Colleagues is left. Can there by any deeper damnation in this Universe, than to...
1094To the Boston Patriot, 6 April 1811 (Adams Papers)
ON Saturday, the twenty-sixth of October, 1782 I arrived in the night, at the Hotel de Valois, Rue de Richelieu in Paris, after a journey of ten days from the Hague, from whence Mr. John Thaxter and Mr. Charles Storer departed with me, on the Thursday se’night preceding. I have several times performed this journey of about three hundred and twenty-five miles in three days. But rains of unusual...
1095From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 26 February 1817 (Adams Papers)
Where the Fine Arts are Studied or practiced there Should be a Trybunal of Criticism always in Session, before which every new production Should be arraigned and tried; by no other laws however than Truth or Nature, and no other penalty than Reputation in the public Opinion. “Are We not in too great a hurry, in our Zeal for the fine Arts”? This is as noble and beautiful a question, as that of...
1096From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 15 October 1813 (Adams Papers)
On the 5th. your mind was relieved from its Uncertainty; and your Anxiety must have been Succeeded by Grief. But why Should We grieve, when grieving We must bear? I Should have visited Charles and Should have asked to See him when I was at his fathers house with you; if I had not been apprehensive that the Sight of an entire Stranger would distress and fatigue him. It is melancholly, that Such...
1097From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 21 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
THE memorial promised in my last letter was in these words High and Mighty Lords , As soon as her Majesty the Empress, was informed of the sudden departure from the Hague, of the Ambassador of his Britannic Majesty to your High Mightinesses; guided by the sentiments of friendship and benevolence which she professes towards the two powers; she did not wait, for further explanations, concerning...
1098From John Adams to Samuel Miller, 13 April 1811 (Adams Papers)
I Sent yesterday to the Post Office one of Mr Hancocks Century Sermons under cover to you and I thought the foregoing Letter written for the Purpos was wrapped in it. By Some inadvertence, of myself or another, it was omitted: and I am not Sorry for it as it now gives me an opportunity to add Somewhat relative to your Ancestor. John Alden, a Magistrate of Plymouth Colony, was one of the first...
1099From John Adams to David Sewall, 19 November 1815 (Adams Papers)
I am much obliged to you for your favour of the 10th. Your political sentiments, so far as you disclose them, are so nearly my own, that I shall have no controversy with you, upon these Topics. Your account of connections between the Quincy’s Sewall’s and Hull’s is very entertaining to me, and agrees very well, with all I have heard, or known of the subject. Mr Hull who made and executed the...
1100From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 16 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
Your Letters to Priestley, have encreased my Grief if that were possible, for the loss of Rush. Had he lived, I would have Stimulated him to insist on your promise to him to write him on the Subject of Religion. Your Plan, I admire. In your Letter to Priestley of March 21. 1801, dated at Washington you call “The Christian Philosophy, the most Sublime and benevolent, but the most perverted...
1101From John Adams to John Adams Harper, 20 March 1812 (Adams Papers)
I have received, under your Frank, Copies of Henry’s full Proofs of his own turpitude and that of the late Governor of Canada, and that of some of the British Ministery; and I thank you for them. I read a Speech of Mr. Harper in Congress which appeared to me to contain marks of a Mind awake to Principles of Equity Humanity and Benevolence, as well as of Discretion, Patriotism and Sound Policy:...
1102From John Adams to Francis Dana, 3 February 1813 (Adams Papers)
I thank you, for with all my heart for your Christmas Oration, which I have read with and reread with increased pleasure loving the philanthropic heart which dictated it not less than admiring the ingenious head which composed it. With any man who denies the Legitimacy of our Revolutionary War, or my Quasi War with France or Mr. Madison’s War with England, I will not dispute because there can...
1103From John Adams to Boston Patriot, 22 January 1811 (Adams Papers)
The Hague, August 22, 1782—wrote tosSecretary Livingston—“Their high mightinesses have at length received their instructions from all the provinces, and I have this day been in conference with the grand committee, who communicated to me the remarks and propositions on their part. To this I shall very soon give my replication, and I hope the Affair will be soon ended. I was received in state,...
1104From John Adams to John Trumbull, 1 January 1817 (Adams Papers)
Your kind Letter of the 26th. of Decr has given me more pleasure than it would be prudent or decent for me to express. Your design has my cordial Approbation and best Wishes. But you will please to remember that the Burin and the Pencil, the Chisel and the Trowell, have in all Ages and Countries of which We have any Information, been enlisted on the Side of Despotism and Superstition. I Should...
1105From John Adams to Joseph Bradley Varnum, 9 February 1813 (Adams Papers)
With much pleasure have I read your favour of January 23d. I have thought that Nature, which has given to the Ant & the Bee to the wild geese & the storks, as well as to most other Animals in certain foresight necessary for their preservation; & to men a more extensive circumspection & sagacity: should have dictated to this nation, a more careful & provident preparation for National defence by...
1106From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 12 April 1809 (Adams Papers)
Thank you for your favor of the 1st. I might have quoted Job as well as St Paul, as a Precedent: but as I mix Religion with Politicks as little as possible, I chose to confine myself to Cicero. you advise me to write my own Life. I have made Several Attempts but it is so dull an Employment that I cannot endure it. I look So much like a Small Boy in my own Eyes that with all my Vanity I cannot...
1107Resumption of Correspondence with John Adams, followed by John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 1 January 1812 (Jefferson Papers)
As you are a Friend to American Manufactures under proper restrictions, especially Manufactures of the domestic kind, I take the Liberty of Sending you by the Post a Packett containing two Pieces of Homespun lately produced in this quarter by One who was honoured in his youth with Some of your Attention and much of your kindness. All of my Family whom you formerly knew are well. My Daughter...
1108From John Adams to John Adams, 14 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
Your classical letter of the 4th. of Octr, does you honour, upon every Supposition that I can make. If you have composed it yourself, it is highly honourable to the Skill and care of your Preceptors and to your own Application to your Studies; All of which must have concurred in producing Such a proficiency in so Short a time. If, by your dutiful and submissive behaviour to your Masters you...
1109From John Adams to Alexander Townsend, 26 June 1816 (Adams Papers)
When I lent you two Letters from Col. Smith I ought to have lent you a third: but it was overlooked by the Person I Sent to find them. That third dated 24th. Feb. 1816 I now inclose, with a Request that after you have examined the three, to your Satisfaction, you would be So good as to return them to me. You have in Contemplation a greater Subject than you perhaps are aware. I have Seen a Well...
1110From John Adams to Jonathan Mason, Jr., 26 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
The public papers have announced some sentiments of yours which have induced me to beleive that the volume of sketches which accompanies this letter will not be unacceptable to you. I pray you to accept it not only as a token of remembrance, but as an opportunity to encourage and promote, the extension and completion of a work, so necessary to our Commerce, our Union & our Independence. I am...