41From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 3 June 1822 (Adams Papers)
Some of Jobs afflictions and some of Jobs comforts have prevented my answering your letters, as far as no 30. I hope you will persever in stud y ing Barbaracque. I hope you will critically study his Notes and his quotations in latin and Greek from the Ancients. Endeavour to pick and search out their meaning.— Mr Russells letter and your Fathers remarks are arrived and running the round of...
42From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 14 January 1826 (Adams Papers)
Permit me to introduce to your acquaintance, a young Lawyer by the name of Josiah Quincy, and with the title of Coll. being an Aid to our Governor. The name of Coll. Quincy has never I believe been extinct for two hundred years. He is a Son of our excellent Mayor of the City of Boston and possesses a character unstained and irreproachable. I applaud his ambition to visit Monticello and its...
43From John Adams to Alexander Bryan Johnson, 12 February 1823 (Adams Papers)
Of making and reading Books, there is no end, And therefore it is hardly worth while to make a begining except for the necessary purposes of common life; I have never been afraid of a Book.—Brand Hollis, my Friend, said to me, there never was a bad book in the World.—Perhaps a Man of Sense and rectitude might learn something from any one; But there are many bad Books, and I have read...
44From John Adams to Emma Willard, 11 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
Accept my thanks for your obliging letter of the 25 of last month which I received but yesterday—the Book you mention is not yet arrived—I should be much pleased to see Mr Southwicks address, as I am a friend to every effort to improve the knowledge Virtue and happiness of our laborious Youth— I do not complain, Miss Willard, of the ingratitude of any party because I always endeavoured to be...
45From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 18 May 1817 (Adams Papers)
I pretend not to preserve any order, in my Letters to you. I give you hints, as they accidently occur to me, which, an hundred years hence, may be considered as Memoires pour Servir a l’histoire des Etas Unis.—I am about to write to you the most melancholly Letter, I ever wrote in my Life. One, which the most deeply touches my Soul with Greif.—And now, I know not where to begin, nor how to...
46From John Adams to John C. Gray, 24 July 1822 (Adams Papers)
My Friendship for your family must be my apology for neglecting so long to acknowledge the receipt of your Oration, I presume to reckon among my friends, your Grand Father Mr Chipman of Marble Head—he was a Brother barrester at law, And I spent a week with him in the year 1764 in the same house and at the same Court in Pownalborough and found him an able lawyer, and an amiable Man; though we...
47From John Adams to Benjamin Owen Tyler, 19 July 1818 (Adams Papers)
I have recd your favour from Richmond of July 4 I cannot write long letters. When you visit Boston do not forget Quincy the residence of your Ancestors for almost 200 years. Your Grandmother had an elder sister who Married Mr Joshua Bracket and a brother Benjamin. I should be glad to know something of all these for I believe it is twenty years since I have any thing of any of them When you...
48From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 10 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
My thanks are due to you, and are most joyfully given, for two copies of your Report on Weights and Measures, one of them elegantly bound. Though I cannot say and perhaps shall never be able to say that I have read it, yet I have turned over Leaves of it enough to see that it is a Mass of historical, philosophical chemical mathematical and political knowledge which no Industry in this country...
49From John Adams to Hezekiah Niles, 25 May 1817 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your favour of the 19th and the return of the Pamphlet with a Copy. You revive me when you assure me, that the Original “Principles of the revolution are coming again into fashion: and that foreign feelings are opening giving Way to a national Character” As you are “Zealous to help on the latter,” I Should be happy, if I could, to help you. As doubts and questions are easily...
50From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 29 January 1819 (Adams Papers)
If I am not humble I ought to be, when I find myself under the necessity of borrowing a juvenile hand to acknowledge your kind favour of the 19.th: I have read your university report throughout with great pleasure, and hearty approbation; Of Tracy’s report I have read as much as I could, the translation appears to me an original written with all the purity, accuracy, and elegance, of its...
51From John Adams to John Binns, 20 September 1819 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for the Copy of your Declaration, which I have just received and will return by the first Opportunity. I pray you to save yourself the trouble and expence of sending any other Copy to Sir your / humble Servant MHi : Adams Family Papers, Letterbooks.
52To Thomas Jefferson from John Adams, 15 November 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
Your friend Professor Ticknor is bound upon a Tour in Virginia, though he needs no introduction to you he has requested a letter from me, and I cannot deny him,—he carries his Lady with him; who is rich enough, and handsome enough, & amiable enough; And what can we say more— Is the present calm in the Political World to continue long or not? Our controversy will be settled in a short time, and...
53From John Adams to James Brackett, 2 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
I am informed that Mr. Brackett has cut off one lot of Mr Adams’s land almost half way down from the upper end, by mistake. It is not worth while at your age & mine for us to go to law about a few acres of mud and a few cords of wood. I therefore propose that we agree upon two or three honest neighbours and upon a skillful, experienced & scientific surveyor to go upon the spot and decide the...
54From John Adams to David Sewall, 10 October 1819 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 5th. has given me great pleasure off those which St Paul calls, light afflictions, which are but for a moment—a double portion has been allotted to me—but why should I grieve, when grieving must bear.— The seperation of Maine has never been approved by me, any more than by you.—but as the People judge it most convenient for their happiness—I wish them all the Prosperity they...
55From John Adams to James Hyman Causten, Sr., 2 March 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received your polite letter of the 20th. of February. It would be a pleasure to me to impart any information to you, relative to the spoilations committed by France on the Commerce of the United States, between the years 1793, & 1801, If I had any, but I have none, but what is common to all my fellow Citizens. The Convention and the able, and voluminous Correspondence between Messrs....
56From John Adams to Thomas Perkins, 16 September 1825 (Adams Papers)
I am deeply indebted to you for a polite and friendly letter and for a noble basket of Grapes, which were the more delicious for the fair hand by which they were presented. Such clusters and varieties of Grapes, I have never seen, since I lived some part of the day in Boileau’s garden, at Auteuil in France. They are perfectly delicious. You have merited the thanks of the Country, by giving...
57From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 19 December 1817 (Adams Papers)
Your Letter of the 13th. has touched my feelings. Deeply infected with a dangerous distemper you ask my advice as a Physician. The Faculty sometimes cure their Patients by relating facetious Anecdotes. I could give you a hundred within my own Experience and little reading but your Malady is two inveterate to be cured by Jocularity. It must be treated Seriously. I know not the Facts. Has the...
58From John Adams to John V. N. Yates, 1 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
I have received the letter you did me honor to write me on the 24th. December. And I pray you to accept my thanks for the kind expressions and benevolent sentiments of it,—The Greeks I believe have been alternately excited and encouraged in their resistance to the Turks by Russia, Austria England and France for a course of years past, and now I fear they are to be abandoned to their fate by...
59From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 27 October 1821 (Adams Papers)
Your kind letter of the 21st. has given me great satisfaction, indeed you have been very good I have received letters from all places you stoped at, as far as Trenton—The safe arrival of you all at Washington is very agreeable news—I hope you will not expose yourselves to the pestilence that walks in darkness through the whole region round about you—I hope the frosts have before this time...
60From John Adams to Charles Thomson, 6 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
Col: Pickering has sent me in your name your Synopsis of the four Evangelists, The whole of which has been read to me, except the notes, I cannot delay to express my gratitude for your Rememberance of me, and for this rich present, It is much more intelligable to me than King James translation— I know of no Man who has spent the last thirty years of a long life in so much serenity, industry...
61John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 21 July 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
I am greatly obliged to you for your Letter of the 9 th It has entirely convinced me that the Mecklenburg Resolutions are a fiction, when I first read them in the Essex Register, I was struct with astonishment—It appears appeared to me utterly incredible that they should be genuine; but there were so many circumstances calculated to impose on the public; that I thought it my duty to take...
62From John Adams to Mathew Carey, 9 February 1820 (Adams Papers)
I had not sufficiently thanked you for your great Work—The Vindicie Hybernice, when I received your favour of the 26th. Janry. With the Valuable present of Addresses of the Philadelphia Society for the Protection of National Industry—for which again I thank you— Under the necessity which I am, of borrowing Eyes to read, and hands to write, It is utterly impossible for me to take any useful...
63From John Adams to Ward Nicholas Boylston, 6 May 1820 (Adams Papers)
The Emperiour of China quoted the precept of Confucius, give much, and take but little—but you have adopted another maxim, give much, and take nothing—for I have nothing to give—but I am too proud to receive so much with all the gratitude that is due without returning any-thing—Here is a Box of Cegars which I have not dared to open though I suppose they are as odoriferous as an incensoir of a...
64John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 8 December 1818 (Jefferson Papers)
Your Letter of Nov. 13 gave me great delight not only by the divine Consolation it afforded me under my great Affliction: but as it gave me full Proof of your restoration to Health. While you live, I Seem to have a Bank at Montecello on which I can draw for a Letter of Friendship and entertainment when I please. I know not how to prove physically that We Shall meet and know each other in a...
65From John Adams to Dummer Sewall, 12 May 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have your favour of the 3d of May your Name has been familiar to me for fifty or Sixty years, the Names of Dumor and Sewal are amongst the most respectable in the Lexicography of New England—whether you are an Elder Brother or a Cousin of my friend David of York, I know not— Main has cost me two many anxious nights and laborious days to save it from the all grasping gripe of Great Britain—to...
66From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 15 February 1820 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you this Morning before I received your delightful letter of the 7th. which has opened a New world to me I rejoice with all my heart in your prosperity and comfortable pleasing prospects—I rejoice that the Governour and the Legislature and the People of the State of New-york—have the Wisdom to appreciate your labours at their just value—which I esteem an important service rendered not...
67From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 24 July 1822 (Adams Papers)
At the request of our worthy friend and excellent Neighbour Dr Amos Holbrook; I transmit you the inclosed papers, praying you to convey them to the Superintendent of the Patent Office, If I knew Dr Thornton was there I would have transmitted them to him. But I think I have heard some other Gentleman was there, and that he was in some other station—My Compliments to him, if you please— It is...
68John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 20 January 1820 (Jefferson Papers)
When Harris was returned a Member of Parliament a Friend introduced him to Chesterfield whom he had never seen—So Mr Harris said his Lordship you are a Member of the House of Commons — you have written upon Universal and scientifick Grammer! you have written upon Art, upon Musick, Painting and Poetry! and what has the House of Commons to do with Art, or Musick, or Painting, or Poetry, or...
69From John Adams to William Tudor, Jr., 28 August 1818 (Adams Papers)
your kind Letter of July 4th. ought to have been answered sooner. my apology would be long and tedious.— I highly applaud your design of Writing the Life of Mr Otis, a man whom none who ever knew him, can ever forget.— In what I have written of Mr Otis, I have not written to Sagadahock and the Provence of Maine; to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucked; to Hampshire and Birkshire; to Barnstable...
70From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 10 March 1822 (Adams Papers)
Contrary to my established habit for many years I must now become an intercessor for a candidate. You must remember a virtuous & industrious lady old lady the widow Owen who lived to be 90 odd years of age, and maintained an always an excellent character and was highly esteemed by your mother. You must remember also young Hollis her grandson who lived some time in our family and was the...
71From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 15 November 1822 (Adams Papers)
I received the letter you did me the honor to write me, on the 7th. of this month. Inclosing a copy of an additional return of the Census of Alabama in virtue of an act of Congress of the 7. of March 1822 / and salute you with the respect and affection / of your obid: & very humble Servant MHi : Adams Family Papers, Letterbooks.
72From John Adams to Clarkson Crolius, 9 December 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have received the favour of your an obliging letter which you did me the honor to write me on the 29th. November—be pleased to present my thanks to the Society of Tammany or Columbian Order for this honorable mark of their Attention I admire the frankness and fortitude with which they have censure’d a Multitude of errours and abuses in the Policy Morals and Manners of this Nation no Satire...
73From John Adams to George A. Otis, 16 January 1821 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your letters, and for the second–Volume of Botta—And now I have read both Volumes—I should have finished this reading much sooner, had I not been interrupted by business, and by indisposition—I unite with many other Gentlemen in opinion, that the translation has great merit—has raised a monument to your Name, and performed a valuable service to your Country—If the Work should...
74From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 8 March 1817 (Adams Papers)
“Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity!” The French have a distinction, between Eulogy and Apology. I know not under which of these heads to class, the following anecdote. Governor Hutchinson, in the plenitude of his Vanity and self sufficiency, thought he could convince all America and all Europe, that the Parliament of Great Britain had an authority supreme, sovereign, absolute and...
75From John Adams to Harrison Gray Otis, 9 May 1823 (Adams Papers)
The amount of my former letters to you is this that all the sovereignty there existing in the nation was in the hands of Alexander Hamilton & that his conduct of it was delirious or in the strong language of my last letter stark mad I am now to justify these conclusions. The manner in which this oligarchical triumvirate was introduced into power is to be explained hereafter; but in the manner...
I have your letter of the 9th. is received—your packet from the Meditaranean is safe and shall remain so till your Orders—Mr Clarkes letters and your letters—which your Grand Mother left in a bundle together—are my property and shall remain so for the present—nobody has seen them, and shall see them for the present, but my self—I should not be very willing to transmit them to you by the...
77From John Adams to Samuel L. Mitchell, 13 December 1819 (Adams Papers)
I rely upon former acquaintance between us—Alass much too slender for me as an apology for the Liberty I take of introducing to you the Reverend Mr Andrew Norton, a Professor of Biblical Critisim in our University Men of letters and science, ought to be known to each-other in Person, as well as by fame whenever a fair opportunity presents—I flatter myself you will find him every way worthy of...
78From John Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 22 December 1820 (Adams Papers)
This day two hundred years our adventurous Ancestors landed at Plymouth—and two years hence will compete two hundred years since a more jolly company of them landed at Mount Wollaston—I have been made an honourary member of the new Plymouth Institution, and have been urged with warm invitations to go and Celebrate the day, and hear the Oratory of Mr Webster which I doubt not will be...
79From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 3 February 1821 (Adams Papers)
I have just read a sketch of the life of Swedenborg, and a larger work in two huge volumes of Memoirs of John Westley by Southey, and your kind letter of January 22d came to hand in the nick of time to furnish me with a very rational exclamation, “What a bedlamite is man!” They are histories of Galvanism and Mesmerism thrown into hotch potch they say that these men were honest and sincere, so...
80From John Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, Jr., 20 September 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received much satisfaction from the reports of your conduct since you left me. I have received still more pleasure from the constancy & punctuality of your correspondence with your parents, sister & Brother: & your letter to me of 12 crowns all. I thank you for the pamphlet you sent me containing the journal of your excursion to Concord which is very particular entertaining &...
81From John Adams to William John Coffee, 18 November 1818 (Adams Papers)
The distress of my family must be my apology for neglecting your two letters till this time. The information in your last, is as afflictive to me, as it is new. An uninterrupted personal friendship with Mr Jefferson, notwithstanding all political conjunctions and oppositions for forty three years has endeared him to me; and your account of his danger is a great addition to my other, almost...
82From John Adams to John Adams, 18 November 1823 (Adams Papers)
Your account of the first part of your journey, is quite as entertaining and instructive as is that of the latter part, recorded in your former letter. The seventy persons on board the steam boat who were obliged to sleep in mats covered with a blanket, reminded me of my excellent friend and physician, Dr Holbrook’s account of the treatment of the small pox in Canada when our Revolutionary...
83From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 10 March 1818 (Adams Papers)
I Sincerely condole with you in the loss of your Friends Walker Wislar and Bray. I Sincerely Congratulate you on the Acquisition of an honourable Usefull and profitable Employment and Amusement for Life. And more cordially as it is a providential Rescue from your metaphysical and delirious Project of Writing Cosmogonies and Metempsichosies of Worlds. A Week before I recd. Your Letter, I...
84From John Adams to Joshua Sands, 18 February 1825 (Adams Papers)
I have received with peculiar sensibility your friendly letter, of 11th. instant—because I knew it proceeded from a Gentleman of great respectability in society a Gentleman of great honor, integrity and worth, I wish you and yours every prosperity I long to write to our friend Jay but I am too faint and short-breath’d to dictate a few lines I am Sir your obliged friend / and humble Servant MHi...
85From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 28 February 1823 (Adams Papers)
In your last Letter you requested copies of my Letters to Dr. Price. They are inclosed— These letters and many others, and other writings and conversations to the same affect destroyed my popularity with mankind.—The Turgotests, the Condorcetians, the Rochefaucaultians the Brissotians the Jacobins and the Sans Cullotts—France took offence and pronounced me an aristocrat Rochefoucauldians; and...
86From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 24 February 1825 (Adams Papers)
The events of this month, have been to me almost overwhelming. They have excited my sensibility too much for a man almost ninety years to bear. The multitude of letters of congratulations which I have received I can never pretend to answer, for it fatigues me to dictate even a few lines—but none of these letters have been more cordially welcomed than that of my friend Van der Kemp. I...
87From John Adams to Isaac Gomez, 10 April 1820 (Adams Papers)
your selection of a father for the use of his Children, are worthy to be presented by every father, to every Child—and deserve a place in every family, there is not an impure or mean thought in the whole Book—there is science Literature and taste in it enough to form the best Characters of Men and Women— It is a Collection of the Wisdom of Ages, and, of Nations—But I regret that you have...
88From John Adams to Wiley & Halstead, 30 July 1821 (Adams Papers)
I have recieved a letter under this signature dated 22 July 1821 but it must surely be a supposition for the genuine master of the trident which is the sceptre of the ocean never indulged himself in so much flattery nevertheless the institution he recommends has my most cordial approbation. Every institution calculated to alleviate the sufferings & promote the comforts of that brave, generous...
89From John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 8 December 1817 (Adams Papers)
Nature did not make me of a jealous disposition; but a dismal experience has made me Suspicious of myself, not less than of others. I often Suspect myself, and that my Imagination deceives me; that I mistake posibilities for probabilities and Non Entities for probabilities; that I See “ Au dessous des cartes ” many things which in reality may not be there. Masons and Austins are Old South...
90From John Adams to Abiel Holmes, 1 May 1820 (Adams Papers)
I have received your kind letter of the 29th. April with much pleasure—When I received the favour of your two Volum’s of American Annals—I read them with greatful sentiments for the rich present.—and with great satisfaction in the enjoyment—and pleasure, and instruction they afforded me Though the British reviewers say we have no literature— yet I say that this work is of more importance to...