Abigail Adams to Hannah Phillips Cushing, 2 September 1801
Abigail Adams to Hannah Phillips Cushing
[post 2 September 1801]1
my Dear Madam
I received your kind and Friendly Letter of the 2d, and beg you to accept my thanks for your kind invitation to your Hospitable Mansion. I know not any Visit from which I could promise my self more pleasure “from Friends of more than 20 summers ripening grow not thick on every Bow,”2 Friends whom no change of political Sentiments have warped, nor party Spirit deluded—
I have frequently inquired after you Since my return and was sure You went a Route quite distant from Quincy or we should have seen you here; where you would have found Your old Friends attending to the buisness of Farming, enjoying a tranquility undisturbed by the responsibility of Public Life, having neither addresses or Remonstresse to reply to, nor paying any Homage but to the Great Ruler of the Universe by whom Kings Reign and Presidents, should decree justice.
I dare not promise you My dear Madam that I shall make you the visit I so much wish to, yet Should I see two or three days when I can absent my self from Home with Louissa who is equally desirious of paying you her Respects I really feel as tho I would strive to. I have been very unwell this very warm weather with a return of the old fever, but through the Summer I have had better Health than formerly, but whether I accomplish my wishes or not be assured my dear Madam that it will afford both to mr Adams and myself the highest gratification to see the good judge and yourself at Quincy. I heard his old Friend express a wish a few days since, that the judge might live to the Age of His Father and retain in vigor the office he now sustains, for mo[re] than ever is it of concequence that no unclean thing be admitted amongst the Sons of God3
if the fountain of Justice should become impure, our only Sheet Anchor is gone—
my Sincere Regards to the judge and affectionate attachment to you both / I am your Friend
A A
Dft (Adams Papers); notation by CFA: “Copy. Mrs Cushing.” and “1801.” Some loss of text due to a torn manuscript.
1. The dating of this letter is based on Cushing’s letter to AA of 2 Sept., in which she praised William Cranch’s appointment to the federal judiciary and commented on the consequences of the presidential election of 1800, noting that William Cushing was “done with Politicks.” She also wrote that she hoped to visit Quincy in October (Adams Papers).
2. A conflation of Edward Young, The Complaint; or, Night Thoughts, Night II, lines 563, 586.
3. AA was quoting 2 Corinthians, 6:17, in referring to William Cushing’s father, John Cushing (b. 1695), who died on 19 March 1778 at the age of 82 (Lemuel Cushing, The Genealogy of the Cushing Family, Montreal, Canada, 1877, p. 21, 31).