1From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 27 July 1820 (Adams Papers)
I will not envy you but congratulate you on the pleasure you have had in your excursion to Washington But I covet the like pleasure so much that if I could do it with out stirring up an uproar, & hurly burly through the Contenent—Old as I am I would get into my Gig, & bend my course thitherward to morrow morning—. I regret most grievously that you did not Visit Cedar Grove—at Fishkill...
2From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 25 December 1817 (Adams Papers)
It was not friendly in you to involve me in your domestic & family Controversies Major Pierce Butler told me that he made a voyage to England from S Carolina to ask his fathers consent to marry a Lady, whom he was determined to marry, whether his father consented, or not. And I believe you ask my advice with the same resolution I have seen Fanaticism in all its forms. the fanaticism of honour,...
3From 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...
4From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 14 August 1817 (Adams Papers)
I fear I have not answered your letter of 20th of June. That of the 8th: of August, I certainly have not. I have been justly accused of Imbecility & Dotage for twenty years past. Yet I seem to be a Man of more consequence now, than I ever was before in my whole life. What a cloud of Reminiscences, has your last letter, exhailed in my old brain! Several of with whom I gazed through a telescope...
5From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 25 March 1817 (Adams Papers)
The great question was “Whether Writs of Assistants, were legal, or illegal; constitutional or unconstitutional”? “Writs of Assistants”! You will indignantly say. “What are Writs of Assistants”? “I understand no more about Writs of Assistants, than about ‘ The great question ’.” I believe you; and will endeavour to give you Some hints. When the British Ministry received from general Amherst...
6From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 4 June 1817 (Adams Papers)
Your pathetic Letter of the 2d. has filled my heart with Sympathy and Grief. Your Son, by all that I know, or have heard of him, would have been an ornament to Society. Your Sorrow at his loss must be exquisite. I can give you no better Advice for your Consolation, than to read your favourite Dr Barrow. It is the Lot of humanity! You are not alone! If I look back for Sixty years, what a long...
7From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 12 January 1818 (Adams Papers)
In your Letter of the 21st. of October you Say that Mrs Knox said to you that “her husband was the parent of the American Navy.” It is interesting to enquire what Idea that Lady could have had in her Mind. Have you Seen Mathew Careys History of the Rise and Progress of the American Navy? If you have read it you have Seen that the American Navy was begotten and born and a System of Naval...
8From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 16 June 1820 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for Dr Ware’s letter to Dr Mc Load which I have read with pleasure, they are worthy of his Father, & his Father in Law—Mc Load’s choice of a Text is in the true Character of a Jesuitical Priest-hood whose maxim is, that it is lawful to lie for pious purposes You must at least have had a pleasant Eevening, on your return from Montezillo—And I rejoice to hear that none of your days...
9From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 30 January 1818 (Adams Papers)
As “the accurate Jefferson” has made the Revolution a Game of Billiards, I will make it a Game of Shutle Cocks. Henry might give “the first impulse to the Ball” in Virgina but Otis’s Battle Lore had Struck the Shuttle cock up in air in Massachusetts and continued to keep it up for Several Years before Henrys Ball was touched. Jefferson was but a Boy at Colledge of 15, or 16 Years of Age at...
10From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 7 September 1820 (Adams Papers)
Captain Phillips’s letter is a Volume of News to me—That he Sailed without a Commission was never known, heard, or suspected, by me—and not one word of his Conversations with Mr Stoddard, were ever communicated to me—but at this distance of time, what can I do to sooth the feelings of Mr Phillips—Till I received your letter, I have never heard one word about him since his dismission— G. W. A...
11From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 5 February 1818 (Adams Papers)
Clarks History of the Navy is the Same with Mathew Careys. Wilkinsons History I have not Seen. I believe with you that the Battle of Bunkers Hill has never been faithfully recorded. It would require an hundred Volumes in Folio to investigate the “Roost Cock” who produced the Sacred mysterious Egg, to which you allude in your Letter of 17. Jan. The Antiquity of this Egg and its Universality...
12From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 9 December 1817 (Adams Papers)
Oh! that I had Eyes and Fingers for a little Badinage! When you cannot keep your Chin above water, I advise you to apply to the Hospital for the Sane.—Vid Dr Rush passim, and a pritty thing in the North American Review, by young Mason—The great Docter Johnson and Rush agree that we are all a little cracked. This only a Few who can be denominted Sane, and those only quad hor—For these Mason has...
13From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 8 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
You must have much pleasure in watching the Opining mind of your Grandchild; for, being half Waterhouse and half Ware it must be a choice Spirit. But how Smal is your felicity in comparison with mine, who have Seven Grand Children, Scattered over the World, and Seven more under my own roof, and eight or ten great grandchildren, one of whom is here with her Mother. A great grand daughter, and a...
14From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 18 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
I have made my Cantabridgians read your Letter to all my family at Breakfast. We all recognized the concordance between the Oration upon Industry and Doctor Barrows Sermons which I have caused to be read in my family over and over. Indeed I do not believe it possible for human Ingenuity to write any Thing upon Industry which may not be found Substantially in his five Sermons in favour of that...
15From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 10 June 1822 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for your letter of 5th. June and smoaking lecture but as I have not read the lecture I shall confine myself in this, the smoaking Theology. I believe you have heard of the Park Street prayers for the conversion of Boston and Cambridge, in which as far as they are good, sincere, honest pure and benevolent, I heartily join them; but which as far as they are hypocritical bigoted and...
16From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 21 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
I am glad I forgot to return your Son’s beautiful morsel on Industry with my last Letter; because it furnishes an Apology for writing another. In answering a letter I commonly forget to notice two thirds of it, till my Answer is Sent away. Helvetius and Rousseau preached to the French Nation Liberty , till they made them the most mechanical Slaves; equality till they destroyed all Equity;...
17From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 17 August 1817 (Adams Papers)
I fear I have not answered your letter of 20th. of June. That of the 8th. of August I certainly have not. I have been justly accused of Imbecillity and Dotage for Twenty Years past. Yet I Seem to be a Man of more consequence now, than I ever was before, in my whole Life. What a Cloud of Reminiscences, has your last Letter, exhailed in my old brain! Sewal, with whom I gazed through a Telescope...
18From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 19 March 1817 (Adams Papers)
Can you prescribe rules for painting, a perception? A reminiscens,? a judgment? a ratiocination? Do you think there will ever arise an original Genius who will invent an Art of painting a debate in a Boston Town Meeting, or an Argument at the Bar? It would not be a Wonder, equal to your Jennerian Inoculation! If Such a Phenominon Should appear, I have a Subject to propose to him. The local...
19From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 7 November 1820 (Adams Papers)
I return you Captain Phillips’s sensible letter, I wish I could converse with you upon the subject; it is most certain that I never knew, heard, or suspected, that he Sailed without a Commission, I have no recollection that I ever gave orders, or consented to his dismission from the Service. Indeed I suspect he never was dismissed; and that he is now a Captain in the Navy, as much as ever he...
20From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 25 November 1821 (Adams Papers)
I sympathise with Alexipharmacus in his resentment of the indignities offered to Richardson, Lock, Barrow &ca: yet I cannot approve of the principle of Clarissa Harlow’s history, because such virtue ought never to be rendered so unfortunate; for I believe it never is, even in this world; nor was ever so infernal a villain as Love-lace ever able to maintain, for so long a time, the esteem and...
21From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 25 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
I received yesterday your favour of the 22nd and will begin at the end of it you must not utter a word or insinuate a hint against the character of Junius Brutus He had eyes as piercing as lightning, views as vast as the globe and benevolence as expansive as the human race. He had an exalted soul and a heart of celestial fire. He was as ready to sacrifice his own life as that of his sons And...
22From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 17 March 1817 (Adams Papers)
Have you read certain Strictures upon Painters and Paintings in the Newspapers? What do you think of them? I am pleased with his gratitude to Copeley, but I believe he was not perfect Master of Copeleys Merit. There is a Portrait of Justice Dana in his Robebands and Tie Wigg of a Barrister at Law, now no doubt in possesion of his Descendants. There is a full Length Portrait of Governor Adams,...
23From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 18 June 1817 (Adams Papers)
I return the letter of JQ, which you lent me. You know his is a painter. And which of Hogarths is more moral or more satirical? Have you adjusted your Bib & Tucker to visit the President? There is no other theme of conversation at present. It is kind in him at this pressing time to give the Nation something to talk about. His plain manners will please in general. Tranquility & prosperity to...
24From 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...
25From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 19 July 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have heard Friend Lancaster, with pleasure, he is an excellent scholastic and academical disciplinarian—I wish he had the melodious Voice the graceful attitude’s and dignified Motions and gestures of the Revnd George Whitefield, of wonderful memory.— Lancaster formes his company’s into Battalions, Battalions into Regiments, his Regiments into Brigade’s—and teaches them all his Tactics with...
26From 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...
27From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 6 February 1818 (Adams Papers)
you ought to tell me the name of that animal, who “faced you down” against dates and Otis. he must have been an inveterate, indurated Old Tory , with an Iron heart, and a brazen face. or at least a Son, or Grandson of such an one, who has inherited all his Ancestors Envy, Malice, Hatred, mortified pride and demoniacal revenge. “James Otis had no Patriotism”!!! Had the adored Hutchinson...
28From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 18 July 1819 (Adams Papers)
I have heard friend Lancaster with pleasure, he is an excellent scholastic and accedemical disciplinarian I wish that he had the melodious voice, the graceful attitudes and dignified motions and gestures, of the Revnd George Whitefield of wonderful memory— Lancaster formes his company’s into Battalions into Regiments Battalions into Regiments, his Regiments into Brigades, and teaches them all...
29From 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...
30From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 11 October 1818 (Adams Papers)
I am really grieved at your Misfortune, if it were only on the Principle of Rochefaucault and Swift, that “In all Misfortunes of our Friends We first Consult our private Ends.” I lost a long expected and desired Visit. But when I reflect that your head might have been precipitated into the magnificent Entrance into the Domicil of a Woodchuck, I am Seized with horror. A late Experiment in...