Adams Papers

John Adams to Abigail Adams, 20 February 1777

John Adams to Abigail Adams

Baltimore Feb. 20th. 1777

This Morning I received yours of the 26th. Ult. It is the first I have received from you, and except one from Gen. Palmer of the 28th.1 it is the first I have received from our State.

Yours made me very happy. Dont be uneasy about my Waiter. He behaves very well to me, and he has not the least Appearance of a Spy or a Deserter. He has not Curiosity, nor Activity nor sense enough for such a Character. He does his Duty extreamly well however in his station. But if he was a Spy he would learn nothing from me. He knows no more, from me, than the Horse he rides, nor shall he know. . . .2 I have no Conversation with him upon Politicks, nor shall he come to the Sight of Papers.

I hope our Soldiers for the new Army will be all inoculated at Home before they begin their March. The Small Pox is so thick in the Country that there is no Chance of escaping it in the natural Way. Gen. Washington has been obliged to inoculate his whole Army. We are inocculating soldiers here and at Philadelphia.

RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “Mrs. Adams at Mr. John Adams’s Braintree”; docketed in pencil by AA.

1. In Adams Papers. JA’s reply, of the present date, is in NN and is printed in part in Burnett, ed., Letters of Members description begins Edmund C. Burnett, ed., Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, Washington, 1921–1936; 8 vols. description ends , 2:268.

2. Suspension points in MS.

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    Adams Papers
    Title
    John Adams to Abigail Adams, 20 February 1777
    Author
    Adams, John
    Recipient
    Adams, Abigail
    Date
    20 February 1777

    Reference

    Cite as
    “John Adams to Abigail Adams, 20 February 1777,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-02-02-0120. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 2, June 1776 – March 1778, ed. L. H. Butterfield. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 164–165.]

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