21From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 22 October 1812 (Adams Papers)
If you had investigated the Question, concerning Possessions or that about matter and Spirit, in your Treatise on the Diseases of the Mind it could have been only, by way of digressions like Swifts digressions concerning Criticks. his digression of the modern kind, his digression in praise of digressions his digression concerning Madness, in the Tale of the Tub: which although they are all...
22From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 18 September 1812 (Adams Papers)
In the good old English Phrase, I give you ten thousand Thanks for the Muscat Wine of Samos, which is now in my Cellar, in good order and of good Quality. You did not forsee one effect of it. It will increase my Love of Greek and Latin more than my Patriotism. Oh! How I heard a Circle of Ladies, of the first quality, old and middle Aged, and young, praise it last Evening! If indeed there is...
23From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 6 September 1812 (Adams Papers)
Will your tranquilizing Chair, exorcise Demoniacks? Will it cure the Hydrophobia? I am Sure Our Country is possessed,—I am almost prone to Say, of The Devil—but Hugh Farmer, my quondam Friend reinforced by Dr Mead and his great Ancestor the Friend and Correspondent of Dr Twiss,—convince me that I ought to Say only,—of a Demon. If your Chair can cast out Demons, or if it can cure the...
24From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 4 September 1812 (Adams Papers)
Little can be added to your distinctions of Principles and delineation of Parties, in your Letter of the 21st of August. Permit me, however to intimate one Idea. The pious and virtuous Hamilton, in 1790 began to teach our Nation Christianity, and to commission his Followers to cry down Jefferson and Madison as Atheists, in league with The French Nation, who were all Atheists. Your “British...
25From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 17 August 1812 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the Eighth, is another Monument to virtue and Piety, I would rather have your Birth and descent than that of any Howard or Montmorency, any Bourbon or Austrian, any Guelph or Stewart. The Antifederalists, Democrats, Jacobins, Republicans and Frenchmen, for all these Shades of Faction, and graduations of Party united twenty Years ago, to raise a popular clamour against me, for...
26From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 1 August 1812 (Adams Papers)
We have been in such hurry of late that if I have mentioned your Letter of 18th of June, I have not taken any particular Notice of it. You and I have both been to blame. You, for destroying your Notes of the Revolution; I, for keeping none, and making very few. You have much Merit in preserving the Pamphlets you have given to the oratorical Controuler, who is a Phenomenon, for who ever heard...
27From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 19 July 1812 (Adams Papers)
Your delightful Letter of the 13th received Yesterday now in turn must receive my grateful Acknowledgements. Is it a dream? Or is it Biography? When I write my Life in obedience to your Commands, I ought to insert in it the Anecdote, that once upon a time I had the Pleasure and the honour, in your and your Brothers Company, and at the invitation of both, to make a visit, to your amiable...
28From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 18 July 1812 (Adams Papers)
Your Letter of the 8th, my dear Friend is pleasing and it is painfull to me, in a high degree. You are not less allarmed, than I am grieved, at the opposition to the general Government in our State. But I am more allarmed and grieved at the Apologies furnished for it by that general Government in their Stupid Embargo and their wicked refusal to build a few Frigates. You will daily read more...
29From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 10 July 1812 (Adams Papers)
I beg you would not consider yourself obliged to answer my Letters. Your Time is prescious, mine of no Value. I thank you for the contrast. Striking it is. General Mifflin behaved nobly. But Muhlenbourgs, Coxes &c &c how did they? In Strong and Goodhue you See the Whiggism or rather the Republicanism, of Strait Hair ; as well as in Pickering. Liberty sometimes wears Strait Hair: but Strait...
30From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 7 July 1812 (Adams Papers)
If I were as rich as Mr Stephen Gerard or Mr William Gray, I would publish and proclaim offers and promises of Rewards in Gold and Silver, in money and medals, for the best Essays on Several Subjects, Some of which I will now hint without any regard to arrangement. 1. 100 Dollars or Eagles if I could afford them, and a Gold Medal for the best History of our American Navy and its Exploits as...