51To John Adams from William Bentley, 10 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
Last evening I received with great pleasure your request for an explanation of a note left at Quincy. Having been in the habit for many years of receiving from Mr Endicott a portion of the Endicot Pears, & being desirous to honour the man, who above all others, deserved the name of the Father of New England, I concluded, in passing, I should be accepted, if, in the reverence of my heart, I...
52To John Adams from Benjamin Stoddert, 12 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
Until within a few Days, I had only seen detached parts of your letters, published in the Boston Patriot. I have now a pamplet containing eighteen letters—I presume the first eighteen you sent to the press. I do not know, that more have been published. It was impossible for me to read these letters, & subscribe to their Justice—at least, so far as they respect myself. You have corrected me...
53To John Adams from Joseph Ward, 13 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
I had the honor to receive in due time your favour of the 27th Sept. I read it with that attention which is due to every line from your pen. The approbation you have been pleased to express in respect to the sentiments in my letter, gives me more satisfaction, than I could receive from the united voice of the whole mob of Statesmen from Newhampshire to Georgia. I continue to read with much...
54To John Adams from William Cunningham, 17 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 27th. ult. arrived when I was at Worcester attending a session of the Supreme Court to get some redress for a most gross and injurious Fraud. Immediately on my return, I set out for Boston, from whence I returned last evening. These jaunts have occasioned this delay in the acknowledgment of your Letter. “Poor Democrats, Republicans, and still poorer Americans, are,” you say,...
55To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 17 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
Who were the ancestors and posterity of Homer, Demosthenes, Plato and Aristotle? who were the ancestors and posterity of Cicero, Horace and Virgil? Were any of them philosophers, orators or poets? who were the ancestors and posterity of Walsingham Sully, Malborough and Wolfe? Were any of them statesmen generals, or heroes? I do not ask whether they were descended from gentlemen, or whether...
56To John Adams from William Cunningham, 28 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of the 23d. The sentence from your Letter of the 27th. ult. which made the theme of my answer, I understood as being extended to the whole body of the Federalist. Several circumstances conspired to induce me to make of it an unqualified application to that party. I cannot, and it is unnecessary to recite them all—two or three shall suffice. In your Letter to the...
57To John Adams from William Plumer, 28 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
Although I have never had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with you, yet to your real character & to the great services you have rendered our common country, I am no stranger. With your worthy son, now on a mission to St. Petersburg, I served three years in the Senate of the United States, & contracted a friendship with him that I hope will terminate but with life. You no doubt will...
58To John Adams from William Bentley, 1 November 1809 (Adams Papers)
I received your Letter of Oct. 26, & am happy, if, in any degree, I have satisfied the curiosity, I excited. It would have been a great pleasure, to have been introduced to Mr Adams at Quincy, but I received every attention due to a Stranger in his absence. I took the earliest notice of your Letter, & offered such evidence of the fact; as I immediately recollected; & to which I could instantly...
59To John Adams from Joseph Ward, 2 November 1809 (Adams Papers)
Your highly esteemed favour of the 24 ult. I had the honor to receive. I am instructed by your remarks upon Hutchinson, Hamilton, and other characters, and by your deep sentiments upon finance, the want of a correct History of American affairs, the conduct of England, &c. I admire your candor to Hutchinson. I think your remarks just as well as candid. If he had fortunately escaped the old...
60To John Adams from Oliver Whipple, 6 November 1809 (Adams Papers)
Being at this Time at Boston, on my Way to Washington, I have a Favour to ask your Excellency, you will not deny; I have it in Contemplation to remove from Hallowell, on the Kennebec next Season, either to Washington, or Baltimore in Maryland; in case I should fix at Washington I would, Sr. intreat the Favour, that you would give me a Letter of Introduction, There, by which I can find the Way...
61To John Adams from William Cunningham, 18 November 1809 (Adams Papers)
Since my last of the 28th. ult. I have not had the pleasure to hear from you. I lately received some information concerning you, which I deem it a duty of friendship to communicate. I had it from one of the Supreme Junta residing at the “Head Quarters of good principles.” It is of a confidential nature though no secrecy was imposed—and is—That yourself and Mr. Gray are to be the candidates for...
62To John Adams from William Cunningham, 22 November 1809 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favor of the 15th. inst. It is no more than I expected, that your elucidations of the great transactions in which you were uinterruptedly engaged through the different periods of their existence, and in the making of which you have repeatedly had occasion to make personal allusions, would necessarily lead you into extensive correspondences. I think I told you as much soon...
63To John Adams from Joseph Ward, 27 November 1809 (Adams Papers)
I had the honor to receive your Letter of the 14th, and after reading it several times, to fasten its contents in my memory, laid it up with your other favours, as a choice memorial of your Friendship. I have deposited them with similar estimable letters, received at different periods from the illustrious founders of our Nation, whose approbation encouraged me to hope I had not lived in vain....
64To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 28 November 1809 (Adams Papers)
I listen onlÿ to a pleasant emotion of my heart, in congratulating my Self, that among So manÿ blessings, with which the good God favours me till this instant, is the preservation of your precious life during another year. How precarious is it, if I Shall enjoÿ that favour once more: your age, alreadÿ above, what is commonlÿ allotted to men, mÿ own advancing years, with the frailties and...
65To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 5 December 1809 (Adams Papers)
Philadelphia Decemr: 5th: 1809 I picked up some time ago a magazine in which I met with a revival of the Old controversy concerning the divine Origin of Episcopal and Presbyterian Ordination carried on by Dr Hobart and Dr Mason of New York. After reading a few pages of it, I threw down the magazine with disgust, and committed the enclosed thoughts upon that Subject to paper. The partiality you...
66To John Adams from Jonathan Webb, 8 December 1809 (Adams Papers)
Agreeable to your request I have considered the Substance of Mr. Dearborns letter— And hereby inform you what little I know respecting the several enquires therein mention’d. This Town abounds mostly of boot & shoemakers there appears to be about 20 shops employing from 80 to 100 hands, can be carried on with a small capital— It is not so good as it has been, no doubt the interuption of our...
67To John Adams from William Cunningham, 9 December 1809 (Adams Papers)
I am indebted to you for your favour of the 29th. ult. If you will compare your Letters of the 23d. of Oct. and the 15th. of Nov. with the one I am now answering, you will perceive, I think, that you have given me some occasion to suspect, that you distrust my qualifications for public employment. But as such a suspicion is irreconcileable with the character of your communications; and as I...
68To John Adams from Ignatius Thomson, 20 December 1809 (Adams Papers)
I received your letter of the Sixth of September which I read with pleasure and thank you for the freedom you have manifested in disclosing your thoughts on the subject. To err in judgement is an infirmity to which the wisest of men are liable, but I sincerely hope that our rulers will be endued with that wisdom that which is profitable to direct in this day of peculiar trial and the liberties...
69To John Adams from William Plumer, 22 December 1809 (Adams Papers)
I owe you a thousand apologies for not sooner acknowledging your obliging letter of the fourth of November; but it would be more than useless to trouble you with the enumeration. With respect to my intended history, my design is to commence with the discovery of America by Columbus, & bring it down to as late a period as my time & health will permit. I have commenced, but am very far from...
70To John Adams from Henry Dearborn, 26 December 1809 (Adams Papers)
I have had the honor of receiving your several communications in relation to Manufactories, including your note of the 20th. inst. enclosing a letter from John Webb. Having sent about one hundred & fifty letters to different Gentlemen in various parts of this State in the month of August last, I had presumed that before this time I should have received so much information on the interesting...
71To John Adams from William Cunningham, 29 December 1809 (Adams Papers)
When I wrote to you on the 9th. inst. I did not expect that I should again trouble you; nor did I look for an answer, except to the postscript, nor to that unless you chose to continue the communications you have made me embargoed in my bosom. To this hour, I can very truly assure you, that the contents of your Letters are unknown to any human being but myself, excepting those to whom they...
72To John Adams from Joseph Ward, 1 January 1810 (Adams Papers)
I had the honor to receive your Favour of the 15th of December, for which I beg leave to express my grateful acknowledgements. I never read any thing from your pen, without deriving information and pleasure. You have Sir, I believe drawn a correct map of Bonaparte’s power. I had some similar ideas, but you have measured things by a large scale, and marked the limits of nature. Napoleon, like...
73To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 14 January 1810 (Adams Papers)
I can but imperfectly express the pleasure, which I received from your kind favour of the 15th Dec. last—It was yet enhanced, if possible, bÿ receiving in the same instant a Letter of Rob. R. Livingston, our Late Chancellor and Ambassador to France, by whom, I supposed I was long ago forgotten. You cannot conceive, how delightful it is in mÿ situation, to be now and then remembered by the wise...
74To John Adams from William Cunningham, 15 January 1810 (Adams Papers)
I am without an answer to my last of the 29th. ult. in which I observed, that a confession respecting you sons, made in your Letter of the 22d. of June, was unlucky, but I reserved for another Letter the principal fact and the reflections upon it, which give that aspect to the acknowledgement alluded to. If you will review your Letter of the 8th. of July, but which you detained in your own...
75To John Adams from Joseph Ward, 18 January 1810 (Adams Papers)
I had the honor to receive your highly estimated Favour of the 7th Inst. Its contents afford me, much information, amusement, and instruction. And convince me more & more that the public mind, and especially our rulers, want information. Your publications in the Patriot may, if they will study them, illume the path of our rulers. But the Sun shines in vain if men will not open their eyes. And...
76To John Adams from William Plumer, 27 January 1810 (Adams Papers)
Permit me to request you to accept my cordial thanks for the list of your works, obligingly communicated by your letter of the 9th. I hope I shall profit by the hints you give respecting the origen of the constitutions of several of the States & that of the United States, should I live to bring my history up to that period. Let me entreat you, whenever you write your son in Russia, to mention...
77To John Adams from William Cunningham, 28 January 1810 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of the 16th. inst. After I had distinctly named the causes of a deliberation, whether my fidelity as a Citizen must yield to my fidelity as a Friend, you might, I think, have dismissed the suspicion that they originated in any disappointment of my hopes; especially as you had recently told me of the treachery, perfidy, malice and revenge you had, in numerous...
78To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, January 1810 (Adams Papers)
Accept of my thanks for your last letter.—I enclose you a few numbers of the Aurora. Shall we descend in a Calm or a storm to the our Graves? We are told your son is gone to Petersburg to put a torch to the flame of War, and that we are to be Allies of France and of all the powers on the Baltic in it. Mr Jackson has just left our city. He has been visited & entertained by Some of our first...
79To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 1 February 1810 (Adams Papers)
With this letter you will receive a bundle of Auroras, and another of the same size by the post of the next day—They are filled very much of late with our state politicks, but you will find many Columns still filled with complaints against Great Britain—so my son Richard tells me, for I assure you I have not read a Column in any one of them these six months. My wife asked me a few days ago...
80To John Adams from Hosea Hildreth, 9 March 1810 (Adams Papers)
We, whose bosoms have often glowed at the names of Washington and Adams, and who have often admired that firmness and wisdom, which guided the helm of state during the two first administrations of our general government, beg leave to ask the favor of your opinion of Mr Gerry’s qualifications, for the chief Magistracy of this Commonwealth. At the same time we assure your Honor, that we should...
81To John Adams from William Eustis, 10 March 1810 (Adams Papers)
I have this morning a disposition to intrude upon your retirement, to save you the trouble of enquiring, and to enable you to correct in your own mind the rumours which will reach your ear in consequence of advices received by the British packet. In an unofficial letter from Mr Pinckney, dated Jan: 4th. that gentleman states the substance of a conference held with the Marquis of Wellesley,...
82To John Adams from Samuel Perley, 8 April 1810 (Adams Papers)
When I wrote last to you, I supposed, that my Hand and Pen would have been sealed in Death, without ever obtruding any thing further, upon your Patience. But a Solicitude, which for my native Country, which can Never End, while Life exists, impells me to trouble you with a Third Letter. I have lately seen the Trial of Mr. Baylies and Mr. Turner’s Elections for the Plymouth Distric in this...
83To John Adams from William Bentley, 11 April 1810 (Adams Papers)
Agreably to your request, I accompanied Capt. John Endicott, senior, above seventy years of age, yesterday to the Pear Tree, & received from the Tree the twigs which I have sent by a careful hand, to be sent directly from Boston to Quincy. Capt Endicott said he had been in two wars for his Country, & to be remembered by Mr Adams, by a respect for his Ancesters, was good to his old age. I trust...
84To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 26 April 1810 (Adams Papers)
In One of my letters written some time ago, I informed you that my eldest son had killed a brother officer and a friend in a duel at New Orleans. The distress and remorse which followed this event deprived him of his reason, and threw him into the marine hospital where he has been nearly ever since the duel. In the month of Feby: last he arrived in Philada in a state of deep melancholy &...
85To John Adams from William Bentley, 11 May 1810 (Adams Papers)
I could not refuse myself the pleasure of sending the inclosed view of the Tree in the Endicot Orchard. It is from the pen of a young Female Pupil, belonging to the family in which I live, & from the same person who accompanied me in my journey through Quincy, in the last year; & who was present with me when I took the Grafts of this season, which I sent to you. I add in confirmation, that the...
86To John Adams from Baptist Irvine, 7 June 1810 (Adams Papers)
I have caused one of our papers of to-day to be forwarded to you: it contains an enquiry applicable to yourself; and, though the receipt of the paper might apprize you of the purpose for which it was sent, yet, sir, I thought it due to your station, character and consequence, to accompany “The Whig” with this note, which is written to assure you, that no disrespect was meant by the insertion...
87To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 12 June 1810 (Adams Papers)
Every moment of Amusement that I am able to afford you, is an Addition to my happiness, for which reason I send you from time to time all such numbers of Duanes papers as contain any new Speculations upon the state of our Country.—The enclosed, is I suppose of that nature, for I have read its title only. Have you seen Sillimans travels int o England, Scotland & Holland? They are gener ally...
88To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 20 June 1810 (Adams Papers)
Wealth, respect and friendship! from your grateful and affectionate friend. War with the “great hammer of the whole earth” to use the words of which the prophet Jeremiah applied to the king of Babylon, is now the order of the day in Philada.— MHi : Adams Papers.
89To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 4 July 1810 (Adams Papers)
I have no objection to your knowing that by the “great hammer of the earth” I meant Napoleon. George the 3rd: I believe to be the great hammer of the ocean. I consider them both as the scourges of the human race, and in the language of the souls under the altar, I feel disposed to cry day and night,—“how long—how long” O! Lord wilt thou suffer them to trample upon the rights of individuals and...
90To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 5 July 1810 (Adams Papers)
In Contemplating the facility with which our Once chaste & vi mistress “American liberty” admits embraces of some of the most profligate and unprincipled men in our Country, I feel disposed to address her in the Words of the Song. “I loved thee! beautiful and kind, And plighted an eternal vow, So altered are your face and mind, ’Twere perjury to love thee, now. ” MHi : Adams Papers.
91To John Adams from Benjamin Homans, 12 July 1810 (Adams Papers)
We have the honour to address you in conformity to a vote of the general Committee of the “Bunker Hill Association,” and request you to accept a Copy of the Oration delivered on the 4th. July last.— In commemorating the feelings and principles which led to the glorious event of our revolution, it is peculiarly congenial to our grateful sensibility on this occasion, to render homage to the...
92To John Adams from Dudley A. Tyng, 21 July 1810 (Adams Papers)
In pursuance of the permission given by your very obliging favour of yesterday I have notified the trustees &c to meet at your House in Quincy at one o clock on Saturday next the 28th instant.— The very sudden Departure of the late President of our University is I believe most heartily lamented by all the friends of Virtue and Science in our Country. His Death is peculiarly inauspicious at the...
93To John Adams from Henry Guest, 20 August 1810 (Adams Papers)
I have to acknowledge, that I have been a long time in arriere with you for your last letter; the reason is, that about receiving it, I understood that you were engaged in publishing your sentiments on public affairs, and was loth to interfere, with what amusement I could give you.—Supposing you more at liesure, be pleased to accept the following,—We have had sufficient accounts from Spain,...
94To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 8 September 1810 (Adams Papers)
Mr Denny is the principal writer in the portfolio. He is precluded from introducing politicks into it by its proprietor Mr Sam Bradford, but—not from traducing the works of Whig, and American Authors. One of his Coajutors is a Dr Chapman a former pupil of mine and who owes me many—very many Obligations. He is the son of a Virginia Tory. After failing in getting into business, and suspecting...
95To John Adams from William Bentley, 28 September 1810 (Adams Papers)
I have the great pleasure of sending you a portion of the Pears, collected from the Endicott Tree. It is an additional pleasure, that among the increasing demands, Capt E. assures me, that this is the only portion spared from the family, & that I have the direction of it. In Gratitude only are our exclusive faverers rich to us, & this gift I intend as the testimony of my grateful recollection...
96To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 2 October 1810 (Adams Papers)
Hate on, & call upon all the pedagouges in Massachussets to assist you with their hatred of me, but and I will after all, continue to say, that it is folly and madness to spend four or five years in teaching boys the latin & greek languages.— I admit a knowledge of the Hebrew to be useful to divines, also as much of the greek as will enable them to read the greek testament, but the latin is...
97To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 8 October 1810 (Adams Papers)
I enclose you a small publication which contains an account of a new auxillary or palliative remedy for madness. It will serve perhaps be acceptable to some of your medical friends. You will I have no doubt amuse yourself and your fire side by wishing that it could be applied for the relief of napoleon,—George the third, and all the mad federalists & democrats in our country.— From Dear Sir /...
98To John Adams from William Plumer, 30 October 1810 (Adams Papers)
Permit me to congratulate you on this your natal day —& to express my sincere wishes, that a life that has been so greatly important and so highly useful to his country, may yet experience the return of many revolving seasons, accompanied with sound health, the zest of life. We have reports that the American Minister at St. Petersburg does not enjoy good health—and that he will soon return to...
99To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 20 November 1810 (Adams Papers)
I Know you will permit me to indulge me Self in reviving mÿ drooping Spirits in writing a few lines to you—of whom’s health I had the last pleasing information from the N. papers, when I did See, that you paid ÿour last tribut of respect to deceased worth in attending the funeral of Cambridge’s President. You must now have nearlÿ reached the term of your fifteenth Lustre. I hope—this last year...
100To John Adams from Joseph Wheaton, 4 December 1810 (Adams Papers)
I am informed by Mr. Seaver member of Congress from Roxbury, that near your residence there is a respectable Manufactory of coach Lace & triming, and that they consign to various parts their articles of Manufactory for Sale—I am here in the Mercantile dry good line and am endeavouring to introduce all the articles of American Manufactory in my power—Coach Lace, & Coach triming I trust would be...