351From John Adams to Josiah Nightengale, 11 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have received information that you have mistaken the boundary line between your lot in the six hundred acres & mine that I bought of the late Genl. Ebenr: Thayer as to have cut & carried off a considerable quantity of wood from my land. I therefore propose to you to join with me in an application to the fence viewers of the town requesting them to go upon the spot choose their own surveyor,...
352To John Adams from Peter Ludlow, Jr., 11 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
Having been advised to arrange an unbiassed history of the events which have grown out of the late Seminole War, especially as relating to the conduct of General Jackson we assume the liberty of requesting your generous aid in an undertaking which we esteem laudable and important— In calculating the difficulties which might impede our project we were persuaded that no plan could be pursued...
353From John Adams to James Brackett, 12 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of yesterday. The condition you mention or refer to is altogether inadmissable. No line or section of any line or point of any line between us has ever been agreed upon by me or any person authorized by me or by my order or with my consent or knowledge. I have been informed that boundary trees or blazed trees have been cut down & carried away that heaps of stones...
354From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 13 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
As you was so well acquainted with the philosophers of France I presume the name and character of Mademoiselle De Lespinasse is not unknown to you. I have almost put out my eyes by reading two volumes of her letters which as they were printed in 1809 I presume you have read long ago. I confess I have never read any thing with more ennui, disgust and loathing. The eternal repitition of mon dieu...
355From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 14 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
Your letter of 20th: of two sheets of paper would require eight sheets at least to answer it and I cannot write one line. My head is brimfull & running over with observations on Mr Jefferson’s letter but I will not commit one of them to writing. What great work you have in contemplation I know not. I have not even read “Tempus.” Do you suppose I am sleeping on a bed of roses? Samuel Adams many...
356From John Adams to Thomas Dawes, 16 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
Inclosed are copies of two letters written by me to my Wife one in the morning, and the other in the evening of the 3d: of July 1776 the day after the vote of Independence was passed in Congress. An extract of one of them has been published in the newspapers. Once on a time, upon my Stony field Hill, you interrogated me concerning that extract in so particular a manner that I thought you felt...
357From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 17 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
I sincerely and cordially pity you. But why are you not candid & explicit with me? If you expect me to assist you in your sublime and beautiful projects why do you not let me know what they are? From your enigmatical letter I can conclude nothing but that you are employed in a work to prove Governor Adams and Govr: Hopkins the joint authors of American Independence. If this is your design you...
358From John Adams to Benjamin Guild, 19 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
I am very much obliged to your excellent mother—your amiable lady and your worthy self for the copy of Mr. Jones’ letter though it I know nothing of the character or history of Mr. Jones’ letter though are so many circumstances of resemblance between his affliction and mine that I have read it with satisfaction for while it occassions a revival of my own Borrows, it at the same time renews my...
359From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 19 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
As you know I have often been ambitious of introducing to your acquaintance some of our literary characters, I now send you in the same spirit, some mathematical papers by our Mr. Bowditch who has translated La Place’s mechanique coeliste & has written commentaries upon it as voluminous as the book—; which are thought by our scientific people to be one of the greatest astronomical productions...
360From John Adams to Peter Ludlow, Jr., 20 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have recd your polite favour of the 11th. of this month. You request my opinion upon a variety of great and difficult questions which would require discussions and answers too voluminous for a man of my age and various infirmities to compose. I have read the printed life of General Jackson and have given some attention to the late accounts of his public conduct and have conceived a great...
361To John Adams from John Taylor, 20 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
I am sorry you terminated your strictures upon my Enquiry because it is probable that I may comply with a late solicitation to issue a new edition, which I incline to enrich with your observations, as I formerly intimated to you. Its value would be still farther enhanced, if you would favour me with your opinion upon banking, which corresponded, I think, in some degree, with my own. The...
362From John Adams to William Willis, 21 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your address to the New Bedford Auxilliary Society for the suppression of Intemperance which I have read with pleasure and edification it abounds in ingenuity and information it is eloquent and pathetic it is pious and virtuous it addresses itself to the understanding & the heart. A drunkard is the most selfish being in the universe he has no sense of modesty shame or disgrace...
363From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 23 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
Enclosed is your letter to me of Feb’y 10th wh’ I return to you as you request— I wrote to the President in your favour in as strong terms as I could pen—it is a rule as well established as it is indispensible, that the President shall answer no letters, recommendations, or testimonies, in favour of candidates for office, accordingly, although Mr. Monroe did not answer my letter in your...
364From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 24 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
I am diligently & laboriously occupied, in reading & hearing your “political economy”—I call it yours because I do not believe that Tracys is more of an original in point of purity, perspicuity or precission—I have read as yet only to the 90th page—it is a connected chain of ideas & propositions, of which I know not which link to strike out. His philosophy appears to me to be precisely that of...
365To John Adams from Henry Warren, 26 February 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have ever been led to believe that the Group , written in the early stage of the American revolution, was composed at your suggestion; & the manuscript copy in the hand writing of Mrs: M. Warren my mother, is one evidence of the fact: and some letters of yours to her on that subject are fully confirmatory of the authorship.—But having lately seen in print & in Ms: credit to have been given...
366From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 2 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have taxed my eyes with a very heavy impost to read the senator Tracy’s Political Economy & been amply rewarded for the expense. When I first saw the volume I thought it was impossible I should get through, it, but when I had once made a beginning I found myself led on in so easy a train from proposition to proposition, every one of which appeared to me self evident, that I could not leave...
367From John Adams to James Brackett, 3 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have received with pleasure your civil & friendly letter of Feb’y 26th I am very far from censuring your fathers attachment to the lands of his ancestors I have felt & still feel a similar fondness for those of my own, these are natural feelings & amiable sentiments I have not tender Motives for doating on the lot in questions it was purchased for me with the hard earnings of my laborious...
368To John Adams from Alden Bradford, 3 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
In your letter to me of Octo. last, for which I beg you accept my very respectful acknowledgements, you were pleased to recommend, that a pamphlet, “called an appeal to the world, in vindication of the town of Boston from the aspersions &c of Govr. Bernard & others” printed in the autumn of 1769, should also be inserted in the Vol. which I proposed to publish—And you observed, that it was the...
369To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 4 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
Although the manifold proofs, which I received from your affectionate regards can never be obliterated—no—not even weakened by lenght of time—yet I presume—it may be become a difficult task to you to recollect, when the last line to inform me of your wellfare—from Montezillo was written—You know me too well, that I could wish to extort from you one Single line, which Should cause you the least...
370From John Adams to Anonymous, 5 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
If you will look among your mothers papers—you will find a letter from me to that lady a few years ago on the subject of the “group” I have there asserted that She alone could have written it I have certified with my name on the copy of it in Mr. Shaws atheneum my knowledge on the Subject—to attribute it to Mr. Barrett was the greatest of absurdities no other being in the universe at that time...
371From John Adams to Alden Bradford, 5 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
The zeal of my young friend Samuel Adams Welles for the glory of his Grandfather is natural, amiable & laudable. I wish he would publish his researches—The appeal to the world of the town of Boston I wish to see published not for the honor of Mr Otis or Mr Adams—but for the sake of justice to the town of Boston & the Massachusetts Bay it contains the essence of all that was afterwards done in...
372To John Adams from Alden Bradford, 6 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
I am much obliged by the information & advice given in your Note of the 5th. instant—I hope I have not deviated materially in my plan from your views on the subject—In most instances, I have given, by way of note, the names of Committees, who prepared & reported the documents printed; especially the important ones—But it is not my intention to say who of the Committee was the writer—It would...
373From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 7 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
On the 20 of January 1768 the House of Representatives appointed a committee to prepare a petition to the King & letters to his ministers & a letter to the agent knowing that Such a committee was appointed & that they were buisily employed in preparing these representations meeting Mr Otis one morning I asked him how do you proceed with your petitions & letters he answered I have drawn them...
374From John Adams to Alden Bradford, 12 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
There has been some misunderstanding between us. I fear the mistake was originally mine; the “Appeal to the world” was not the pamphlet I intended. In the discourses on Davilla publish’d—in the year ’89 page 87th. beginning I find this paragraph: Americans! Rejoice &c continued to the words “alteration of the constitution” In the margin of this vol—appears in my hand writing these words “This...
375From John Adams to John Taylor, 12 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
The painful difficulty of holding a pen which has been—growing upon me for many years & now in the middle of the 84th year of my age has become insupportable must be my apology—not only for terminating my Strictures upon your enquiry but for the necessity I am under of borrowing another hand to acknowledge the receipt of your polite & obliging letter of Feb’y 20th. I have never had but one...
376From John Adams to Mordecai M. Noah, 15 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have to thank you for another valuable publication your travels in “Europe & Africa” which though I cannot see well enough to read I can hear as well ever & accordingly have heard read two thirds of it & shall in course hear all the rest—It is a magazine of ancient & modern learning of judicious observations & ingenious reflections I have been so pleased with it that I wish you had continued...
377To John Adams from J. H. Tiffany, 18 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
Will you be pleased to accept of the accompanying political charts of 6 tables or sheets; & may I solicit your Suggestions of improvement & correction of the plan & matter? I hope, to be enabled to furnish a more ample & correct edition in 1821. The Appendix will contain matters not susceptible of tabular exhibition; & among other things, definitions of political terms to which certain &...
378To John Adams from Thomas Jefferson, 21 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
I am indebted to you for mr Bowditch’s very learned mathematical papers, the calculations of which are not for every reader, altho’ their results are readily enough understood. one of these impairs the confidence I had reposed in La Place’s demonstration that the excentricities of the planets of our system could oscillate only within narrow limits, and therefore could authorise no inference...
379To John Adams from Caesar Augustus Rodney, 28 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
In the late irreparable loss, you have sustained by a severe dispensation of Divine Providence, I sincerely sympathise with you; but hope that time, reason & religion have administered their consolations, and restored your mind. Permit me to enclose you copies of two letters, from my uncle to my father, at memorable epochs in our Revolutionary annals. The first from New–York when the Stamp Act...
380From John Adams, 30 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
This Book, of more value than a gold Watch Sett with diamonds is presented to John Adams by his Grandfather MQA .
381To John Adams from William Willis, 30 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have some time wished, and from day to day intended to write you a letter: And your esteem’d favor of the 21st of last month encreas’d that desire. But whenever I have place’d paper before me for that purpose, my hand has been arrested by an afflicting thought, that by expressing my condolence for the trying loss you have met with, I might open in your bosom a healing wound. But a confidence...
382From John Adams to John Rhea, 31 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have received with great pleasure, your favour of March 9th. with the inclosed of Copy of a Speech, and of a circular Letter The speech is to me both in point of eloquence and information at least, as satisfactory as anything I have read upon the Subject—The Letter is a Concise comprehensive and marsterly compendium of the state of the Government and the prosperous circumstances of the...
383From John Adams to J. H. Tiffany, 31 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
Your Political Chart is a happy thought—and an invention as useful as it is ingenious, accept my best thanks for the present you have made me of it—and for your obliging favour of March the 18th. which came to my hand but yesterday— As I have always have been convinced that abuse of Words, has been the great instrument of Sophistry and Chicanery—of party, faction and Division in Society:—the...
384To John Adams from Henry Channing, 31 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of Jany 29th. directed to me in Boston, was forwarded, and received a short time after. It is always a high gratification to be honoured with a line from one, whose character and public services are held in grateful recollection. I take the liberty of enclosing the papers of 24th and 31st inst. presuming you will be, at least amused by a curious exhibition, which may be called...
385From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 2 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
Your Letter of March 21st. I will Communicate to Mr Bowditch, and Pickering— You may put my Letters upon the Subject of Tracy’s Book into any hands you please, with or without any Verbal alterations, as you may think fitt—“what you would have them, make them.” Or as James Otis used to say to Samuel Adams—here take it. and “Quicu Wuicu” it— I am obliged to borrow the hand of a friend to write...
386From John Adams to Ebenezer Green, 2 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
Memorandum of Agreement made the 2d day of April in the year of our Lord 1819, between John Adams of Quincy in the County of Norfolk Esqr and Ebenezer Green of said Quincy Yeoman. It is covenanted and agreed by & between the parties to submit all Accounts and demands between them, to the determination of Messrs Josiah Bass, James Hall and George Beale all of Quincy—the Report of whom or any...
387To John Adams from Elkanah Watson, 3 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have often regretted I had Not inserted in my Tour in Holland—a Meml. in the original Mss:—dated 20 June 1784. as follows—“Mr. Adam’s mind appeared Settled and intent upon an American Navy—in Our pleasant rides about the Hague—he appeard at times absorb’d in a reverie and at last length wou’d brake silence by exclaiming yes it must be So—12 Sail of the Line would place us in some respects on...
388From John Adams to Caesar Augustus Rodney, 4 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
I thank you Sir for your Condolence in my great affliction.— And for the Copies of the two letters from your Uncle to you Father—the first in 65. and the last in 76. Cæsar Rodney your Uncle was in my opinion a judicious and Sagacious Judge of men and things—I knew only three of the Delegates to the Congress of 65.—General Timothy Ruggles was a Man of a strong mind—but devoted to great...
389From John Adams to Henry Channing, 7 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your favour of the 31st March and the two newspapers inclosed, the History of the Old Lady and the Epilogue, have entertained and instructed me their wit and humour and Allegory are less malicious and more Significant than is Common in our American political Anama’s—how happens has it happened that Connecticut has monopolized the wit and humour of the Continent it has certainly...
390From John Adams to William Willis, 10 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
Your Sympathy in my Sorrows, and Condolence in my grief—are soothing to my afflicted Bosom—Sixty years of pure friendship; fifty -four of which, were passed in the Sacred State of Wedlock; are ties that can never be dissolved, and obligations that never can be forgotten, but this is a Subject that I cannot dwell upon— How my Letter of the 21st of Feby.—may appear in print publick I know...
391From John Adams to Elkanah Watson, 14 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of April the 3d is like the recognizance of an old acquaintance after a Separation of several Years. I lay no serious claim to the title of Father of the navy or of any thing else but my family. Have you seen a history of the american navy written by a Mr Clarke and edited by a Mr Matthew Cary? I gave the names of Alfred, Columbus the Cabots and the Andrewdoria to the first ships...
392From John Adams to William Tudor, Sr., 15 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
Do not expect to escape so, I have a hundred if not a thousand letters to write you. which however I shall never write, upon the restoration of the tories to this Country, and their subsequent Conduct towards me—of that host of Vagabond Foreigners who have tormented and deceived this Simple American people for four and forty years—for the secret Correspondences’s and Corruption—Civil political...
393From John Adams to Mathew Carey, 16 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday I recd. from the post Office your vindicia hibernicae and I feel myself under great obligation to you for it, there is not a Subject upon which the attention of mankind can be turned to more advantage and your enterprise in this publication does not less honor to your choice than to the natural patriotic affections of your heart. I have always esteemed and admired the Irish Nation as...
394From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 16 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have recd. your kind favour of the 4th. of March and thank you for your kind rememberance of me, but I am overwhelmed with an oppressive correspondance at an age when I can neither write nor read; and this must be my apology for making so unequal returns to you for your goodness. I rejoice that your energies are so usefully employed. Your translation I am convinced will be useful to the...
395To John Adams from D.C. Ballard, 17 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
We respectfully beg leave to ask your notice of the enclosed bill—as agents for Mr Niles, we can safely vouch for its correctness; you will observe it bears date in March 1818 and is receipted. As we did not observe, untill our attention was directed to it by Mr N., that your bill for 13th. vol of “Niles’ Register”, forwarded to us in March 1818 still remained unpaid in our hands, it may be...
396To John Adams from J. H. Tiffany, 20 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
The great favour by your attention & answer to my letter is peculiarly enhanced by many considerations, & among others, the unfortunate necessity of employing an amanuensis. The public which participates largely in the motive & benefit, must be joined in the Responsibility of gratitude for what you have done— Mankind have a curiosity, an interest & perhaps a right to hear the voice of America...
397To John Adams from William Tudor, Jr., 25 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
Having understood that Dr. Townsend whose wife was formerly intimate in the Otis family might possibly give me some anecdotes of James Otis, I called on him, a day or two since. He said he knew nothing particular but still mentioned two or three things which I wish to mention to you to know if they will recall any thing to your mind that I can make use of—The first thing was the trial of the...
398To John Adams from Emma Willard, 25 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
The writer has no other reason to offer for again interrupting your repose with a letter and a book, but that she considers you as a Father of that country which she dearly loves, and as such she regards you with filial gratitude and reverence: and what we strongly feel nature prompts us to express.—Nature also prompts us to receive with a degree of pleasure those expressions of affection...
399To John Adams from Ann Frances Bulkeley Humphreys, 27 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
Having heard from Mr. Binon the Sculptor, yesterday, that you had graciously expressed a wish to see a little drama of “The Yankey in England” by our departed friend. I have now the honor to enclose it to you, and present Doolittle to your mercy & indulgence, with the hope that he may now & then excite a smile in your countenance. I am peculiarly interested in poor Doolittle, from the...
400To John Adams from Robert Walsh, Jr., 27 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
Mr. Mathew Carey of this City did me the favor, this morning, to shew me an interesting letter from you to him, in which you suggest your inclination to promote the aim of any person who might undertake a Vindicia Americana. The misrepresentations made abroad, of this Country, particularly by the writers of Great Britain, have provoked me to engage in an enterprise of that nature; & with a...