1From George Washington Adams to Clerk of the Suffolk County Court of Common Pleas, 25 September 1824 (Adams Papers)
It being my intention to apply for permission to practise as an attorney in the Court of Common Pleas in Suffolk I have obtained the certificates which accompany this application, which are herewith respectfully submitted. MaBoHNE .
2From George Washington Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 23 July 1824 (Adams Papers)
Should it be thought presumptuous to address to you a pamphlet little worth your acceptance but for the occasion which gave it birth, it may yet be excused by the remembrance of your personal friendship for my Grandfather and your intimate connection with the glorious event it was attempted to commemorate. With the deepest respect / your most obedient and humble servant DLC : Papers of Thomas...
3To Thomas Jefferson from George Washington Adams, 23 July 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
Should it be thought presumptuous to address to you a pamphlet little worth your acceptance but for the occasion which gave it birth, it may yet be excused by the remembrance of your personal friendship for my Grandfather and your intimate connection with the glorious event it was attempted to commemorate. DLC : Papers of Thomas Jefferson.
4From George Washington Adams to Daniel Webster, 22 July 1826 (Adams Papers)
My Father directs me to send you with the above, the volume containing the Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, requesting its return when you shall have done with it, as it is the only copy he possesses I am Sir / Very Respectfully DLC : Daniel Webster Papers.
For your favour of the 23rd October I am greatly indebted; it should have been acknowledged before were it not that subjects are constantly accumulating in which we are led to apply to you and I thought it better to delay for a short time the answer to your letter in order to take an opportunity at the same time reluctantly to trouble you with some request or other. Such an opportunity has...
Your excellent letter to me arrived at the close of the last week and was brought to me by John from Boston: The hasty letter written to my Father on the morning of the 5th. to announce the melancholy event of the preceding day was followed by so many others to different persons of your family at Washington that I was not anxious concerning the transmission of regular information to you from...
Let me express to you my gratitude for your last note on reading which I had a foretaste of the suffering I should have undergone had the dreadful rumour you mentioned preceded it. I most heartily thank God that my Father was saved to you, to his children, to his country. The idea of his loss is too terrible to think of and at the time when your note arrived; not having recovered a calm tone...
A most unpleasant journey was completed by our arrival at Quincy last week where we had the satisfaction of finding grandfather in better health and more comfortable than when we had last seen him. Two days afterwards Charles left us and returned to Cambridge anticipating much pleasure from the remaining months of his residence there but a little afflicted by the assignment of a part to him...
I am directed by my Father to congratulate you upon the handsome acquisition you have lately made for the purpose of establishing the Athenæum in a more convenient and appropriate position and to request of you the name of the munificent donor who is announced as having given you a building for the purpose. Pursuant to previous custom I have to request of you to ask Messr Wells and Lilly in my...
It is really afflicting to hear that you are again subjected to painful illness and to observe in your letters a depression and melancholy which are not natural to your character and which are I fear gaining ground over you. I do not think with those who attribute your indisposition to the election, although the scandalous persecution to which my Father has been subjected and the unblushing...
Ever since the middle of the last month we have been in such a succession of events and interruptions that the time has slipped away with out a moments reflection on the interval between this letter and my last. On the 15th. of June General La Fayette came and his arrival was the signal for dinners parties and shows. You ask for a description of the 17th. of June. It has not been attempted...
12From George Washington Adams to William Smith Shaw, 18 October 1821 (Adams Papers)
My Father has desired me to request you to send on with his law books a large Ainsworths Latin Dictionary and a copy of Adam’s Roman Antiquities both which are somewhere among his books at the Atheneum I am my dear sir / respectfully yours. P.S. This is written in a hurry I shall soon write you a letter. I will trouble you to hand the enclosed paper to Mr Benjamin Joy and to tell him that I...
13From George Washington Adams to William Smith Shaw, 27 October 1821 (Adams Papers)
I am directed by my Father to inform you that he has received your letter with the Bill of lading of the books embarked on board the Ocean for Alexandria but is prevented by multiplied avocations from answering it himself. He desires me to express to you his thanks and I pray you to accept mine for your kindness in transmitting the resolution of the Suffolk Bar on the subject of his...
Just this moment opening my shutters I find the ground covered with snow and it lays apparently somewhat deep. We have had a number of little drizzles as the parson called them but this is the first real snow storm of the season. Yesterday was very disagreeable: a very light snow was falling all day but not enough to accumulate much, and the air was exceedingly sharp and piercing. The...
15From George Washington Adams to John Quincy Adams, 5 July 1826 (Adams Papers)
By the letters which I yesterday forwarded from Boston you were informed of the very low condition in which my Grandfather lay: The moment I heard of it I came out of town and arrived in time to see him but not to hear him speak. After two days of suffering occasioned by an accumulation of phlegm in the throat which he was too weak to throw off. he yesterday forenoon became easier; spoke of...
I have received your journal for the two first days of this month and shall as you permit read parts of it to my Grandfather. He has consented to give me all your preceding journals which are to be delivered to me next week. He thinks this the most proper disposition which could be made of them as he does not wish them liable to any view but those which you may voluntarily grant. I shall...
This extraordinary season has prevented all ideas of regular correspondence for few employments are so irksome as writing when the thermometer stands at 100, but it is so agreeable to receive letters from home that one endeavours to seize every opportunity to obtain them. Grandfather has been favoured lately with a visit from his highness the Duke of Saxe Weimar, a gentleman who intends soon...
The heated and violent temper of the public upon the question of politics renders it necessary to keep individual feelings cautiously in check but this is not always possible. The low spirits indicated by your last letter to me and subsequently by the one to Mr Cruft have affected me more than any thing which is going on without. The atrocious application of the story of Mrs Moulton to the...
By Marys last letter I am told that you are still suffering from illness and Harriet Welsh understood from Mr Smith in New York that St Anthony had tormented you more than usually for some time. This disorder seems to have become very prevalent in this country and Mrs Welsh suffers so much from it that she is compelled to remain constantly at home. Grandfather had it pretty severely last...
It was painful to hear that you had been so ill after arriving at Washington and astonishing that people tell you you have changed for the worse. This is not a thing to mortify you as you have been always superior to dependence upon mere looks but it has always struck me as a disagreeable and not infrequently an ill natured remark to tell people that they have changed for the worse. It is...
It is pleasant to be able to inform you that Grandfathers health rather improves than declines. He has gone comfortably through the month of February and is now better than he has been for some time past. The family at Quincy are well. Mr Cutler, the Episcopal Clergyman there seems to have made sad havoc with poor Susans intellect. She is very enthusiastic and the religious fervor grows rather...
Your letter of the 1st. instant has affected me deeply: it was received this morning and afforded me more real pleasure perhaps than any you have ever addressed to me. Your style in writing is known to be that of the most animated conversation but in this instance it seems to obliterate the ideas of time and distance and to bring me near to you not in the mood of mortified affection and...
23From George Washington Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 25 May 1822 (Adams Papers)
I am enabled to reply to your last favour somewhat earlier than to the two which preceded it and hope that as my large file of unanswered letters is at last wholly disposed of I shall have it in my power to keep pace with my correspondents in future. There are moments in the life of every man when it is exceedingly difficult to bend the attention to business and those who allot special hours...