1From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 6 April 1813 (Adams Papers)
Other parts of your letter of yesterday may be remembered hereafter; but “ Brimborion ” must not be delayed nor trifled with. I shall produce an authority or two. Deletanville’s Dictionary. Brimborion SM. A trifle, A thing of little value. Lallemonts Dictionary. Brimborions. S.M.PL. Bagatelles choses de peu de valeur. Apinæ arum. Crepundia orum Children’s Playthings. Baubles as Bells Rattles....
2From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 30 May 1815 (Adams Papers)
You made that Westphalian Couplet yourself, Sleeping or waking, nobody but you could have dreamed or thought of Hogs of Westphalia are a saving brood What one lets drop, the other takes for food. It so perfectly and summarily comprehends the whole Genius and history of Party and Faction from the Ipso dixit of Pythagoras to the disciples of the Scottish Creolian of Nevis. And does “Jonathan”...
3From 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...
4From 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,...
5From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 2 April 1806 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of March 30th I received last Evening. The Subject of it is of great importance I have been absent from my Country and my home for So great a part of the last two and thirty Years, that I have never had an opportunity to be intimately Acquainted with the Affairs of the University or the Characters of the Gentlemen who have the immediate or mediate Government of it. This I have seen...
6From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 27 February 1817 (Adams Papers)
Are the works of Apuileus in Harvard College Library or in any other collection in America Have you read his Metamorphosis which he calls his Ass of Gold, his Assinus Aureus, or Asinus Runi.” Among these novels, fables, tales or whatever you please to call them, is his Amours of Cupid and Psyche. Have you read Molier’s Psyche? Have read La Fontaines Psyche? Have you seen a splendid translation...
7From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 14 January 1802 (Jefferson Papers)
The inclosed letter was written to you on the day of it’s date. I wrote to Dr. Currie of Richmond on the same day. by mistake I put your letter under his address, and probably I put the one for him under cover to you. he has returned the one addressed to you, which discovers to me my mistake. I forward it now to you for the purpose of rectifying it with you. Accept my respects and best wishes...
8From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 15 October 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
I am much indebted to the rainy morning at Newport for your acceptable letter of Sep. 14. it gives me information of the state of religion in Boston and Cambridge of which I had not a just idea. I could not have concieved that a Congregationalist, after the pollution of his pulpit by the prayers of an Unitarian, would have again officiated in it, without lustrations, purifications & exorcisms...
By request of My Father I have the pleasure to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the Instant and the Essay on the Whooping Cough presented to the “Adams Library of the Town of Quincy.” As this is the first occasion, by donation , to that Library, I may be permitted, as one of the Trustees , to thank you in their behalf, for this valuable Treatise, upon a disorder, which I have always...
10From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 25 December 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
I am indebted to you for several favors unacknoleged . I have waited till I could inform you that some variolous after vaccine inoculations had proved that I had preserved the matter of the cow pox in it’s genuine form. Dr. Coxe of Philadelphia has ascertained this, having recieved his vaccine matter from hence. to this is added your information that the matter I sent you produced the genuine...
11From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 31 March 1813 (Adams Papers)
“The History” is of no value, except on account of its date. It was written and printed in Edes and Gills Boston Gazette, in the Interval between the first Congress in 1774 and the Second Congress in 1775 under the Signature of Novanglus. In this View it is a Document; an historical Memoir. To me personally, it is of Some importance as it is a record of the Principles on which I engaged in the...
12From 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...
13From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 4 September 1805 (Adams Papers)
De la Marre, tells us, that in the North of Holland they make use of Fucus to support their Dikes. In other places, they employ these plants to fertilize their lands. on Several of the french Coasts of the ocean, they call "Cluys" those of these plants which the Sea casts upon the Shore; and Vraicq, those which they go and pull off from the rocks, in the months of January and February, an...
14James Madison to Benjamin Waterhouse, 12 March 1829 (Madison Papers)
I recd in due time, with your favor of the 14th. Ult: a copy of your Inaugural Discourse prepared in early life. I was not at leisure till within a few days, to give it a perusal; and I ought not now to hazard a critique on the merits of its Latinity. If I were ever in any degree qualified for such a task, a recollection of my long separation from classical studies would arrest my pen. I am...
15James Madison to Benjamin Waterhouse, 27 May 1831 (Madison Papers)
I recd. in due time your letter of the 9th. and with it the Vol. on the authorship of "Junius". Altho’ it found me but little at leisure & in crippled health, I felt too much respect for the writer, not to say curiosity for the subject also, not to give it an entire reading. Whether you have untied the knot at which so many ingenious hands have tugged in vain, I will not make myself a Judge. I...
16From 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...
17From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 13 September 1805 (Adams Papers)
(To be added to those on Sea Weeds) If the gentleman from the Isle of Fromme mentioned in your Letter of the Eighth give you a Portugese Man of War, I beg you to keep it and not present it to me as you generously propose. I have no use for it and no incentive to preserve it. I only want to know whether it has a distinguishable animal in it. If you part with it at all I hope you will give it to...
18From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 16 August 1812 (Adams Papers)
You are So waggish and roguish with your Woofs and your Warps and your Webs, that I am almost afraid to write or Speak to you. Yet I wish We were nearer together. I was a little alarmed at the Story of the pacific Commission. Some body was pleased to call the Sarcasms in the Repertory, “Severe.” They ought to have been called the Snarlings of Park the Puppy, and the Squealings of Park the...
19From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 29 June 1806 (Adams Papers)
I rejoice to find by your Letter of the 26. and by my Sons Conversation, that his commencement of a residence at Cambridge has been agreable to you and to him. He could not in his present Circumstances have been So hapily situated as he is. Two such Men as Dr Waterhouse and J. Q. Adams will find in the society of each other, and in the sciences and Litterature an inexhaustible fund of...
20John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 8 September 1784 (Adams Papers)
I received your friendly Letter of the 19. June, by my dear M rs Adams, with great Pleasure and Shall ever be obliged to you for a Line when you have Leisure.— I am very glad our University has so able a Professor of Physick, and I doubt not you will soon Silence all Opposition. I should be obliged to you for your two orations. All Paris, and indeed all Europe, is at present amused with a Kind...
21From 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...
22From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 6 August 1813 (Adams Papers)
The Talents and qualities of the Tumble Bugg, are Strength Industry, Patience, Foresight of Futurity, care to provide for Posterity and for individual Wants, at a future day. Now, which of these mental Faculties or bodily qualities, has this “the most enlightened, the best informed, the most Sagacious, and the most virtuous Nation on the Globe” discovered during the last 13 Years? A tumble...
23From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 1 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
The report that John Quincy Adams has written to his father, or any one else that “the war which the United States has declared, and is waging against England is in his opinion unjust and unnecessary;” whether fabricated in Halifax or Boston is altogether groundless. Mr Quincy’s resolve is slacking. Louis 14th Fistula drained his brain of vapours. Vide Talk of a tub. You have not acknowledged...
24From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 3 October 1805 (Adams Papers)
I duly recd your favour of the 21. Sept.—I Sent you two pretty large Packetts the first of Six sheets of Paper, another of five or Six more, and have written two or three Short Letters, besides. You have acknowledged the receipt of the first Packet, but the Second large one you have not mentioned. It related to the Kali and the Medusa &c. &c. I only wish to know that you have it. I return with...
25From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 19 August 1812 (Adams Papers)
The History of Queen Ann’s reign and of the Treaty of Utrecht is So instructive, that it is worth while to look into the Life of Mesnager, and into that of the Abby Gautria. Mesnager was a Merchant of Rouen; in great Commerce but preferring Politicks of to trade Louis 14th. informed of his Talents, Sent him twice into Spain, to regulate the commerce of the Indias; and after wards into Holland...
26From 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...
27From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 19 February 1805 (Adams Papers)
When I wrote you a line of Acknowledgment for your Lecture upon Tobacco, I kept no Copy of it, not expecting to ever hear any thing more of it, and I really remember very little that was in it. Tobacco, I have found by a long experience, having learned the use of it upon Ponds of Ice, when Skating with Boys at Eight years of Age, to be a very dangerous Vegetable, extremely apt to Steal upon a...
28From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 28 October 1814 (Adams Papers)
Your Letter of the 10th is too delicious, to be disgraced by Ceremonies and Apologies in my Answer. You might as rationally ascribe the Events of this Annus mirablis, or any Annee la plus chetive et meprisable to the Power of Animalcules in Cayan Pepper Water, as to the Power or Policy of Men. I see nothing in the History of Napoleon more wonderfull or inexplicable, than in that of Zingis, of...
29From 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...
30From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 21 March 1803 (Jefferson Papers)
Th: Jefferson returns his acknolegements to Doctr. Waterhouse for his letter of the lst. inst. & the book accompanying it, which he recieved & will have the pleasure of perusing here, where he is on a visit of a fortnight, engaged in the rural operations of the season. the small pox having got into a neighborhood about 30. miles from this, he was enabled yesterday, with some vaccine matter he...
31From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 18 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
Permit me to sympathize with you and your Children on the loss of your amiable and excellent Consort. As my reflections on this mournfull Event can be no other than your own I shall spare you the pain of reading them. I thank you for your Letter of the 14th and the Pamphlet inclosed. Do you know the Meaning of the Words “ Awakenings ”? and “ Revivals ”? I am old enough to have attended the...
32From 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...
33From James Madison to Benjamin Waterhouse, 27 December 1822 (Madison Papers)
I have received your favor of the 12th. instant, and with it the “Botanist,” and the Sheets containing “Heads of a Course of Lectures.” A glance over them has satisfied me that the Volume on Botany very happily opens the door to the subject, and gives enough of an Inside view to attract curiosity, and guide investigation. From the heads selected for the Lectures, they must have embraced a...
34From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 11 February 1812 (Adams Papers)
In answer to your Letter of the Eighth I can only say that Societies Since as I have never been of any Use to any of our learned Societies Since their Institution, except perhaps in a present of Books to one of them. I should be extremely unhappy to have reason to suspect that I had done them any harm. My Course of Life and perpetual Avocations have been such that I never could turn my...
35From 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...
36From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 15 September 1811 (Adams Papers)
I receive no Letters with So much pleasure as yours and Rushes. The Shortest of them always contains Something new and Solid; Some thing witty and a good deal that his humerous. How many more hot Nutts for the Monkeys you will See, I know not. They will lie, and laugh and joke: but they will not make much Noise, because that might provoke Some of their own Party to peep at the Patriot which...
37From 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...
38From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 9 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
I enclose you sketches of Naval history and a letter from the Author Make what use of them you think probono publico. MHi : Adams Family Papers, Letterbooks.
39From 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...
40From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 8 January 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of Dec. 20. is recieved. the Professors of our University, 8. in number, are all engaged. those of antient & Modern languages are already on the spot. three more are hourly expected to arrive, and on their arrival the whole will assemble and enter on their duties. there remains therefore no place in which we can avail ourselves of the services of the rev d mr Bertrum as a teacher. I...
41From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 12 December 1811 (Adams Papers)
What is common Law in England has been Subject to disputes enough. In Blackstones Commentaries and Fortescue Alands Preface to his Reports you may find the most intelligible Account. In general, Usage from time immemorial practiced and approved, is the Criterion It is denied by many and doubted by more whether The United States have any common Law There may be some Principles and Rules of Law...
42From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 9 May 1813 (Adams Papers)
Our Boston Rulers must be acknowledged to be profound Politicians. They appear to have Studied the Uses of Solomons Temple and its furniture, and the Rites and Ceremonies of the Hebrew Polity. The final Causes of the Temples and Altars of Jupiter, Bacchus and Venus &c and the Festivals in honour of Such Gods among the Greeks and Romans, appear to be well understood. The History of the Rise and...
43From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 9 March 1805 (Jefferson Papers)
Legerat hujus Amor titulum nomenque libelli. Bella mihi, video, bella parantur, ait. So Ovid introduces his book Remediorum amoris, a lecture against tobacco was calculated to excite a similar alarm in a Virginian, & a cultivator of tobacco. however being a friend neither to it’s culture nor consequences, I thank you for the pamphlet, and wish a succesful opposition to this organ of Virginia...
44From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 25 January 1813 (Adams Papers)
I will join with Vice President Gerry and Lt. Governor Gray in any reasonable representation. But higher interests than yours or mine are at stake. What is your family & mine & twenty others to eight Million of people? How much less to mankind? The salvation of both, seems to be staked both by republicans and federalists, upon the opinion of Washington. the Boston junto of republicans appeal...
45From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 16 March 1813 (Adams Papers)
I have just recd your Favour of Yesterday. It has been a Rule of the Government from 1789 to this day to answer no Solicitations or Recommendations for Office. The necessity of this Rule must be obvious to evry enquiring Mind. The Hyperfederalists, or the Ultrafederalists, have a more exalted System, than the Simple Federalists. They dare not, openly and publickly avow or attempt to Support...
46From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 3 January 1806 (Adams Papers)
I have derived as much consolation in Life, from Horace as from Epictetus. I say Buvons, ecrivons, vivons, cher Horace, as well as that all our Happiness depends upon ourselves with the Stoick. I thank you for calling Horace to my Aid in your favour of Decr. 28. Alphius was Such a Philosopher as Seneca, who griped the Britons, or as Brutus who was So angry with Cicero when he was Governor of...
47From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 25 December 1800 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved last night, and have read with great satisfaction your pamphlet on the subject of the kine-pox, and pray you to accept [my] thanks for the communication of it. I had before attended to your publications on the subject in the newspapers, and took much interest in the result of the experiments you were making. every friend of humanity must look with pleasure on this discovery, by...
48From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 12 July 1811 (Adams Papers)
The Charge of “Change of Politicks” hinted in your Letter of the 8th, deserves no other answer than this, “ The Hyperfederalists are become Jacobins, and The Hyperrepublicans are become Federalists . ” John Adams remains Semper Idem, both Federalist and Republican in every rational and intelligible Sense of both those Words. What shall I say of Mr Dexter? Rara Avis in Terris nigroque Similima...
49From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 21 August 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
I had the pleasure of informing you on the 14th. inst. that I supposed the inoculation of the kine pox to have taken effect in two subjects. these were from the matter you were kind enough to send July 24. that of July 26. succeeded with 2. others. that of Aug. 1. with 4. on the 16th. inst. we inoculated from the 2. first subjects 15. others, 14. of whom very evidently have the infection, so...
50From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 26 June 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of the 8th. inst. came safely to hand with the several matters accompanying it. as the longer the vaccine matter should be unemployed, I knew the chance of it’s success would be the less, I thought it would be more likely to answer your benevolent views by having it employed here rather than risking it by a further mission to Virginia. I therefore put it immediately into the hands...