1To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 17 November 1795 (Adams Papers)
After a detention of twenty days at Helvoetsluys, and a pleasant passage of twenty four hours from thence to Margate I arrived here on the morning of the 11th: instt: The state of the business on which I came, will be known to you before the receipt of this Letter. An English paper that I saw at Rotterdam on the day of my departure from the Hague gave me the first information of Mr: Randolph’s...
2To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 6 June 1796 (Adams Papers)
At length I have been released from a situation, equally remote from all public utility and all personal satisfaction. After a detention which I could not avoid, but which was at least unnecessary, of several months I left London on the 28th: of last month, and arrived here on the 31st: The People there were in the midst of the Saturnalian electioneering holidays. The writs issued for the New...
3John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 20 March 1796 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of January 23 d. by Captain Barnard reached me two or three days ago. I am a little surprized that you had not at that date received any letters from me later than July. But indeed the intercourse between America and Holland is so precarious and interrupted that it is scarcely possible that a letter should pass from the one to the other in a shorter time than four or five months....
4John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 2 September 1792 (Adams Papers)
I believe I am in arrears with you, for two or three Letters, which is owing in some measure to my indolence, but in a greater degree to the stagnation of events worthy of communication— The purpose of my present Letter is to enquire of you respecting a warrant from the Treasury for some money, which it seems must be sent here to be signed by your father before it can be sent back for payment....
5John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams, 15 September 1795 (Adams Papers)
The most recent intelligence we have from America is contained in your letter of June 30 & July 23. which arrived some days since, and gave me information unpleasant but not unexpected. I was convinced from a variety of reasons that all the engines of popular agitation would be played off against the ratification of the treaty signed by M r Jay, and I knew that some of its contents were such...
6John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 5 May 1796 (Adams Papers)
I received a few days ago your favour of Feb y: 29. which was doubly grateful to me, as it was the first letter I had received from America, for many weeks.— Since then I have also received a letter from Philadelphia, which determines my immediate return to the Hague, from whence I hope that the next letter I shall write you will be dated. You will find in the papers enclosed all the news that...
7To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 4 February 1792 (Adams Papers)
A variety of circumstances have occurred since you left this part of the Country, which have combined to change in some measure the state of our parties in this State; you have probably heard of them from other Quarters, and ought to have heard of them before this from me. I will endeavour however to retrieve as far as possibly my former deficiency, and to give you an account of the present...
8John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 21 September 1790 (Adams Papers)
I have received within a few days three Letters with which you have favoured me, and shall pay to their contents all the attention which I can command. The scheme which you have traced out in the last of them is so extensive, that I am apprehensive it will require much time, as well as very constant enquiries, to obtain the information of the several kinds which you mention. I shall endeavour...
9John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 20 February 1797 (Adams Papers)
I hope we shall never get into a habit of writing to one another angry and kind Letters alternately, for it would be far from promoting the happiness of either. Your obliging favour of the 7 th: inst t: came to me yesterday. It gave me great pleasure which I will not mingle, with other sentiments by dwelling upon a topic necessarily disagreeable.— I wish it were in my power to write you always...
10John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 26 December 1795 (Adams Papers)
Your Packet by M r: Clarke at length was delivered me on the 21 st: and your letter of the 11 th: of this month, by M r: Calhoun the day preceding. Quincy’s letter is indeed a valuable one, and contains some opinions which are at once just important, and not sufficiently established in the minds of Americans in general. I would enclose it back to you, but think I may as well be the bearer of...
11John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 13 August 1794 (Adams Papers)
Col l: Hamilton arrived in Philadelphia, the night before you left it, but from the pressure of business more immediately urgent, was not prepared for me untill last Friday. On that Evening I left the City, in company with Gen l Knox, and arrived here (quite overcome with fatigue, and somewhat unwell of the complaint which you brought from the same place) on Saturday at about 6 in the Evening....
12John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 12 September 1796 (Adams Papers)
I have received, my amiable friend, your letters of the 19 th: and 28 th: of last month, and am properly grateful for the readiness with which you consent to accompany my rambling destinies. The sacrifice which you will be obliged to make in quitting your paternal roof, is so great, that it gives me not a little anxiety. To give you a substitute for it, I cannot expect. That you should ever...
13John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 24 March 1796 (Adams Papers)
M r: Clagett has this moment delivered me your favour of the 29 th: ult o: and informs me that he goes again for Holland to-morrow morning. I have therefore only time to tell you that I am still waiting for that permission to return which I have been more than two months in hourly expectation of receiving. My detention here is doubly mortifying from the consideration that as my presence is...
14To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 4 May 1795 (Adams Papers)
Mr: Wilcox has not yet been here but sent me from Hamburg your favour of February 11. which was the first letter I have been happy enough to receive from you since we left America. When he comes here, I shall be happy to shew him every civility in my power. It is extremely pleasing to hear that the elections for the ensuing completion of the Senate have been so favourable. I believe the time...
15John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 18 January 1797 (Adams Papers)
A few days ago, I received a Letter from my father dated at Quincy the 28 th: of October, and brought by a vessel directly from Boston. But there came with it, none from you either to my brother or to me, and my father does not mention the state of your health, so that we are much concerned about it, particularly as a Letter from M r: Cranch at Washington, written in September mentions by...
16To George Washington from John Quincy Adams, 9 December 1796 (Washington Papers)
I received at Amsterdam on the 5th instt the Letter which you did me the honour to write me on the 12th of September, and immediately made enquiries to ascertain whether there was at Amsterdam a person by the name of Sollingen. I could trace no such person, but am informed that Sollingen near Dusseldorf in Germany is a place where there are noted manufactures of arms and sword-cutlery. I have...
17John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 12 February 1795 (Adams Papers)
The arrival of the french Army in this Country, as the friends and allies of the Batavian People, and the Revolution, which has abolished the Stadholdership, the nobility, the former States of the Provinces, and the Regencies of the Cities, will undoubtedly be a subject of considerable attention in our Country; perhaps it may give occasion to many groundless rumours and reports, and possibly...
18To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 24 December 1796 (Adams Papers)
The french Directory have refused to receive Mr: Pinckney as Minister from the United States, and have taken a resolution, that all communication between them and the American Government shall be suspended untill the wrongs of which the French Republic has a right to complain, shall be repaired. The motives alledged for this proceeding are said to be that the Treaty between the United States...
19John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 27 July 1794 (Adams Papers)
I expected to have been on my way to Boston before this; but M r: Hamilton is gone into the Country, and I cannot be supplied with my instructions untill he returns. He has been expected every hour these four days, and it is very possible that four days hence he may still be hourly expected. In the mean while I am here lolling away my time, and sweating away my person, with nothing to do, and...
20John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 30 March 1796 (Adams Papers)
The opportunities for writing occur so frequently at this time, and there is so little to say that I am apprehensive some of them will escape without carrying any letters to you; for one is ashamed to write a short letter; when it is to go so far; and like most correspondents I do not always remember that to write little is better than not to write at all. I send you by the present opportunity...
21To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 22 May 1795 (Adams Papers)
My last Letter acknowledged the receipt of your favour of February 11. That of December 2. has since reached me. By the same opportunity, I have Letters from my brother Charles of March 12. And I have seen Boston papers to the 1st of April. Our information from America, is yet generally indirect, and our means of conveyance few, difficult and uncertain. The appointment, which places me here is...
22John Quincy Adams to Joshua Johnson, 27 January 1797 (Adams Papers)
I am to thank you for your obliging favour of the 30 th: of last month, which I received a few days ago.— I have given due attention to your observations contained in it.— If the approbation of my Countrymen were the only motive which I felt myself obliged to compare in the sacrifice of domestic happiness which I find myself obliged to make, I should not hesitate a moment in taking a different...
23To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 20 March 1796 (Adams Papers)
In the situation which has already detained me here between four and five months, and from which I am waiting with anxiety not unmingled with impatience to be relieved, I have very few opportunities to obtain any intelligence of importance other than what is contained in the daily newspapers, one complete sett of which I have regularly forwarded to you by every opportunity that has been known...
24John Quincy Adams to Joshua Johnson, 2 June 1796 (Adams Papers)
I arrived at Gravesend on Saturday, barely in time to get on board the vessel in which I had engaged my passage, and which was already under weigh. After a voyage of three days, I landed at Rotterdam, and came on here immediately. In the boat from Rotterdam I met M r: Bourne, who was on his return from Paris, and who goes on this day to Amsterdam As I understand there is a vessel going to...
25John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 19 October 1790 (Adams Papers)
I have a Letter from you which has called forth the few remaining sparks of my attenion to politics— Were my own mind at ease, I should at the present time enter more than ever into the spirit of speculation upon public affairs. The prospect is really glorious; but it is perhaps impossible, at least for a man whose patriotism is not tinctured with more heroism than mine, to consider the...
26To John Adams from John Quincy Adams, 30 December 1796 (Adams Papers)
The enclosed extract of a Letter from Paris, which has been communicated to me, contains certain paragraphs from the Rédacteur a newspaper used by the French Directory for their official and non-official publications. It explicitly denies as you will observe that the Directory have determined to suspend their intercourse with the Government of the United States. It is among those paragraphs...
27John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 20 December 1796 (Adams Papers)
I have this morning received your two Letters of Nov r: 29. and December 6. The pain which the prospect of an inevitable continuance to our separation has given you I readily believe, and I know too well from my own experience its force. At the same time I rejoyce in finding that you have the fortitude to support it; you have seldom as you say been taught in the school of disappointment: your...
28John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 1 February 1792 (Adams Papers)
I have been for more than three weeks indebted to you for two very agreeable Letters, which Mr. Otis brought from you. They would not have remained so long unanswered but for a variety of circumstances which have concurred to engross all my time during that period. It is possible that you may have observed in the Centinel about a month since, that a Committee of 21 inhabitants at this Town was...
29John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 28 April 1790 (Adams Papers)
I received your short Epistle by M r: Thomas at Ipswich, where I was then attending the Court of Common Pleas: and at the same time he gave me very agreeable information respecting your performance at exhibition; which has been confirmed to me from several quarters. From the conversations which have repeatedly passed between us, you will readily imagine how much I was gratified, to hear that...
30John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 31 October 1795 (Adams Papers)
I have been detained about ten days in this place, waiting for a wind, and am very like to be detained as many more; the westerly winds prevailing in the channel at this Season of the year almost without intermission. Since my arrival here I have received your favour of August 25. transmitted to me by my Brother, who remains at the Hague, with the care of our affairs during my absence.—...