As I was closing my last Friday’s Letter to you, I received yours of 23d: August, and acknowledged its receipt upon the margin.—By way of variety to the humours of the Post-Office, they brought me last Evening your’s of 19. August, and this morning that of the 25th. I know not how it happens that there is still so much irregularity in the transmission of your Letters to me, as it appears that...
I did succeed in filling my four pages for you last Tuesday in time to dispatch them by that Evenings Post, under cover to Amsterdam. Before the British Plenipotiaries came, I bespoke your indulgence in case I should after their arrival remit in the frequency, or abridge the length of my subsequent Letters to you. Since they have been here, we have at different times had a great pressure of...
If you keep the file of my Letters, and will look back to that of 5. August. you will find it contains an incartade against the Post-Office, for treating you and me so ungraciously, by its caprices and delays in the transmission of our Letters to each other.—It is very agreeable to me to find that my next Letter after that, to you, was delivered at the proper day the Wednesday, for the first...
Who of all the world should bolt into my bed-chamber yesterday-morning before 8 O’Clock, but George Boyd!—He comes as bearer of Dispatches to us, and to Mr Crawford, from the Department of State—Left Washington the 12th: and New-York the 16th: of August. in one of the swift-sailing Baltimore Schooners, arrived at Bordeaux, the 17th: of this Month, at Paris the 23d: and here about 6 O’Clock...
145From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 4 October 1814 (Adams Papers)
As news like those of the Catastrophe at Washington, seldom linger on the way, instead of a fortnight, which I anticipated in my last Letter as the term—in the course of which the account of that event would reach us, it came within twenty-four hours after I had given you my expectation of it—It was on Saturday Evening the first of this Month that we received the first accounts, and they came...
146From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 7 October 1814 (Adams Papers)
Captain Bates arrived here yesterday morning, from Amsterdam, and has lent me a number of American Newspapers, of the month of August, and to the first of September inclusive—They were brought by the Dutch vessel, the Prince of Orange, arrived at the Texel—The same that had touched at Havre de Grace—The Dutch Minister, Mr Changuion had gone in her to America, conveyed by the Ajax, a Dutch...
No letter from you, since that of 10. September, which I received, this day week—The next Post-day was Saturday, when there came one from Mr Harris of 14 September; but none from you. I have some apprehension, that on receiving mine of 19. August, and the newspaper accounts from England which must have reached you about the same time, you ceased writing to me, on the persuasion that I should...
Mr Boyd returned last Evening from Amsterdam, and is to proceed in the course of two or three days to Paris—As you are acquainted with his character and disposition you will not be surprized to learn that he found nothing congenial to them in Holland—He says he would not live at Amsterdam for all the money in the Country, and he complains of having been cheated and imposed upon from the hour...
First for the news from America. I had not closed my last Friday’s Letter to you, when the Times , of the 10th. and 11th. were brought to me. They had been sent to us by the British Plenipotentiaries, who receive the Newspapers by their special messengers, twice a week, sooner than they can come by the Post, and who very obligingly communicate them to us. The papers of which I now speak were...
Nothing from you since your Letter of 13. September, from which I conclude that you ceased writing, after receiving mine of 23. August. I cannot expect that you wrote again, until you received mine of 23. September, so that I have the prospect of being a full month without hearing from you—I have a Letter of 21. September from Mr Harris, and it reached me the twenty-second day from its...
Your Letter of 30. September, not numbered, was brought to me yesterday, after I had given up the hope of hearing from you for several weeks. That which you had previously addressed to Dresden, conformably to my request, I presume is there, waiting for me, and may possibly still wait for Months.—On Saturday last we received from the British Commissioners a Note more distinctly marked than any...
We have been very much occupied since I wrote you last in dispatching Mr Connell, who goes off this morning to Ostend, there to embark in the Chauncey for New York—During the same time we have been undergoing another sort of fatigue, which is more tedious and wearisome to me, that of banqueting—On Wednesday we dined with the British Plenipotentiaries—No other company than ourselves, but a Mr...
Mr: Connell went on Friday to Ostend to embark, but the Chauncey has not yet sailed. Last Evening we sent Mr Todd there, with a copy of a Note, which we received yesterday from the British Plenipotentiaries. It is of the same shuffling, captions and equivocating character, as all their other communications have been since the first, and shew that they are not yet prepared either to conclude...
Your favour of 30. September is still the latest that I have received from you, and it has left me in a solicitude more than ordinary to hear from you again—first because it complains that both yourself and Charles were unwell; and secondly because it expresses some displeasure at what I had written you in the Letter of 6. September, to which it is an answer—It could be my earnest wish to...
The Evening before last, Mr Russell received, enclosed in a letter from Mr Beasley a scrap of an English Newspaper, containing the President’s Speech, or Message, at the commencement of the Session of Congress, and immediately under it a paragraph asserting that the Letters from Liverpool affirmed in the most positive terms, that the American fleet on Lake Ontario was totally destroyed, and...
My calculation of the date of the next Letter I should receive from you, after the renewal of your writing at my request was sufficiently exact. I had fixed the 15th: of October for the date, and the 8th: of this month, or between that day and this, for me to receive it—The Letter is dated 16. October, but in your next, of 18. October, which I also now possess, you say it was by mistake...
Mr. William Willink (the father) of Amsterdam, with his Lady arrived here from England, the Evening before last—They have been upon a visit to one of their sons, who is settled at Liverpool, and after spending the Summer there, are now upon their return home—They dined with us yesterday, with Mr: and Mrs: Smith, and Mr: and Mrs: Meulemeester, and are to proceed this morning upon their journey....
Since you recommended writing to me, you have dropp’d the thread of the numbers of your Letters—That of 23. October, which I received as I was closing mine of last Tuesday, I have numbered 37. having left one number for that which I suppose to be waiting for me at the Post-Office of Dresden. It is the eighth day since we sent our last Note to the British Plenipotentiaries—Their reply to our...
We have not yet received from the British Plenipotentiaries a reply to the Note which we sent them on Thursday the 10th: instt: but we find some notice of it in the English Newspapers—The Courier on Evening and ministerial paper, on Monday the 14th: after referring to a paragraph, in the Gazettes of this Country which had stated that nothing was known of the state of the Negotiation at Ghent,...
160From Antoine Claude Juste de Noailles to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 23 November 1814 (Adams Papers)
J’ai appris, Madame, qu’une malle renfermant des papiers appertenants à l’ambassade Française avoit été deposée chez vous par le Genéral Loriston lors de son départ de Petersbourg. Veuillez, Madame, donner order que cette malle me doit remise, & recevoir à la fois mes excuses de mon importunité & mes respectueux hommages. MHi : Adams Papers.
161From Antoine Claude Juste de Noailles to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 24 November 1814 (Adams Papers)
Le soussigné reconnait avoir reçu de Madame Adams deux malles renfermant des papiers de l’ambassade française à St. Petersbourg, qui avaient été déposées chez elle par Mr. Le General Comte de Lauriston. MHi : Adams Papers.
The Evening before last Coll: Milligan arrived here from England. He had left London on Saturday Morning the 19th: and came by the way of Margate, Dover and Calais—Before he cross’d the Channel he saw at Margate and Dover, the London Evening Papers of Saturday, announcing the arrival from New-York of the long-expected Fingal—She landed four passengers on Thursday the 17th: at Portsmouth, and...
My letter of Friday last informed you of the arrival of the Fingal at Havre, and of the dispatches from the Government, brought by her that we had received—I should at the same time have told you that the Ajax, the Dutch vessel in which Mr. Changuion went to America, arrived on the 21st: instt: at the Texel, after a passage of 34 days from Boston. I now add, by way of episode that the Dutch...
Yesterday morning your Letter of 6. November, which I mark number 41 was delivered to me—Why it had been so long on the road I know not—That of the 3d: I had received a full week sooner—It always give me some uneasiness to be more than a week without hearing from you, but as the time for the freezing of the Russian rivers has come I was attributing the delay of your Letters to some such...
Mr: Shaw, an American Gentleman, belonging to New-York has just called upon me, and informs me that he shall proceed in the course of this day for St: Petersburg. He has a Courier’s Passport from Count Lieven, and has obligingly offered to take anything I have to forward—I therefore send the packet for Mrs. Krehmer, which I sometime since received from Miss du Roveray, and two letters from...
On Saturday last, I wrote you a few lines by Mr. Shaw, a Gentleman of New-York, whom you may perhaps recollect, although I did not, until he reminded me that he had once dined with us, at our house in the Adelphi–Buildings, in company with Mr. Boylston—I remembered perfectly well that dinner, and a circumstance of the ludicrous kind, which occurred between him and Boylston—But he mentions...
It is no small satisfaction to me to know that the Post-Office has become regular in the delivery of my Letters to you, and I should feel equally grateful for the favour, if they would with the same punctuality deliver yours to me—But I receive them only once a week, and most commonly on Tuesday’s, after my letter to you of the same day is closed, and then two at a time—Thus it was last...
168From Grand Master of Ceremonies of the Russian Court Narischkin to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 11 December 1814 (Adams Papers)
Mr Narischkin Grand Maître des Cérémonies a l’honneur d’annoncer à Madame d’Adams qu’ Elle est invitée au bal qui aura lieu chez Sa Majesté l’Impératrice Mère demain Samedi 12. du Courant à huit hures & un quart du Soir. On arrive à la Cour par le grand Perron du coté de la Neva. Le Grand Maître des Cérémonies Saisit cette Occasion avec empressement pour prier Madame d’Adams d’agréer...
Last Evening I received a letter from Mr William Wyer, (I suppose a brother of the Consul at Riga) dated the 4th: instant, at Bordeaux. He informs me that he embarked at New-York on the 24th: of October, in the Swedish Ship Gustaf Adolph, and arrived at Le Rochelle—This is the vessel by which the rumour at New-York of the capture of Drummond’s army, was brought—Mr: Wyer mentions it in his...
This appellation reminds me of an occurrence on Monday last, which I may tell you exactly as it happened, and which will shew you the sort of tone which my colleagues observe with me, and I with them.—We had been three hours in Conference with the British Plenipotentiaries; and it had been perhaps the most unpleasant one that we have held with them—We had returned home, and were in Session...