Louisa Catherine Adams to John Quincy Adams, 1 October 1804
Louisa Catherine Adams to John Quincy Adams
Washington Octbr: 1st 1804
My best friend
Your three last letters have arrived at the promised time1 I am concern’d to learn that mine have fail’d however as the news they contain’d was not of the most pleasing nature I should be grateful for their detention as in all probabily you will recieve three of them by the same opportunity which will be the means of saving you from a state of extreme anxiety and Solicitude—
I am excessively provoked at Mr.
Dickens’s impertinence though it has not excited the smallest degree of astonishment in
me as I have constantly expected to see such a publication any person who could afford
to purchace the Port Folio I presume might have done the same thing the fault certainly
orriginated with your Brother and I had Mr. D. simply published the letters without adding prefixing your name to them I imagine he might
have passed uncensured this opinion is perhaps erronious being totally unequal incapable of forming a judgement the
circumstance of those passages being reprinted is certainly disagreable but I venture to
assert that they have long since been perused by the persons to whom they were most
likely to prove painful and he is not a man likely
to whose sensibility will suffer considerably from any thing of this nature
these letters have already occasion’d you a
sufficient anxiety and I sincerely hope you will not permit your mind to dwell upon this
subject but pass it over with that philosophical indifference on which I know you pique yourself—
I am sorry you have not made the proposed alterations in the house
too much inured to such disappointments to feel them very sensibly I make no doubt I
shall live as happily in the house as it stands at present as I should if it were three
times as large my whole and sole desire at this moment is to see and embrace you and
untill this dearest wish is gratified every thing else is to me indifferent you will
find me much alter’d in person Women at my age rarely improve and I in addition have
lost one of my front teeth however as I never could boast great personal
charms as no alteration change can ever take place
in my affections I flatter myself yours will never be alienated and that the remaining
years of our lives may be productive of encrease of happiness and esteem—
I omitted to offer you & Mr.
Boylstone congratulations when you gain’d so favorable a judgement I offer them now
& with great sincerity as knowing how much you
interest yourself in affairs of your clients and the extreme pleasure you feel when your
exertions prove successful such a service should be handsomely rewarded—
Adieu my best beloved friend I fondly anticipate the period of your return and hail each coming day Our beloved little ones are well George talks of Papa incessantly though he has never forgiven you for your desertion John calls every body papa he sees poor little fellow he was too young when you left us to remember you I am very impatient to hear from you as I enclosed a paper to you for Mrs. Whitcomb which I trust she has recieved but which you do not mention in your last
I have been order’d to ride on horse-back and have been out twice upon a hired horse but Mr. Hellen does not like my venturing upon a common hack and has been looking out for a little poney for me he has seen one little thing that would answer very well at fifty five Dollars which he thinks very cheap it is only four years old he says I ride very well I believe I shall take it as Mr. H. says he is almost sure he could get the same money for him if I wished to sell him
Farewell make my best wishes acceptable to your friends and believe me unalterably yours
L C Adams
P.S. I am ashamed to send this scrawl It is not improbable you may be at a wedding this Winter but you must guess whose.2
RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “J. Q. Adams Esqr.”; endorsed: “Louisa— 1. Octr: 1804. / 9. Octr: recd: / 14. do: Ansd:.”
1. JQA’s 2 and 23 Sept. letters to LCA are both above; for his of 16 Sept., see note 1 to the 23 Sept. letter.
2. LCA was referring to her cousin Catherine (Kitty) Walker Johnson (ca. 1786–1822) and William Brent (1775–1848) of Stafford County, Va., who married in Washington on 6 Jan. 1805 (LCA to AA, 11 Feb., Adams Papers; Chester Horton Brent, The Descendants of Collo. Giles Brent, Capt. George Brent and Robert Brent, Gent. Immigrants to Maryland and Virginia, Rutland, Vt., 1946, p. 138; Washington, D.C., National Intelligencer, 7 Jan.).