1To John Adams from Wilhem & Jan Willink, 30 April 1789 (Adams Papers)
We had the pleasure of waiting on you in may & in Oct r. A o . D o: in forming you by the latter of your good luck of your number 995. of the Obligat s. of 4 per C t. wh ch. had a price drawn of f 1000:— one thousand Guild s. among those drawn Last Year conform the agreem t. wh
The President of the United States wishes to avail himself of your sentiments on the following points— 1 st Whether a line of Conduct, equally distant from an association with all kinds of Company on the one hand, and from a total seclusion from Society on the other ought to be adopted by him?— and in that case how it is to be done? 2 d: What will be the least exceptionable Method of bringing...
3Abigail Adams to John Adams, 1 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
I received your kind favours of the 19 & 22 of April. the printers were very obliging in taking particular care to supply me daily with the paper’s by which I learnt the arrival and Reception of the Pressident, & vice Pressident. if I thought I could compliment in so courtly and masterly a stile, I would say that the address to the Senate was exactly what it ought to be, neither giving too...
4Abigail Adams to John Adams, 5 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
Mr Dawes sent me word that he was going to Newyork this week. I would not omit any opportunity of writing to you, tho I know I must sometimes perplex you with domestick matters I would not do it, but that I wish your advise and direction. I wrote you in my last that the wall was compleated between mr Bass & you, and Barley has been sown. the Hill before the window, your Brother has had cleard...
5Abigail Adams to John Adams, 6 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
Brisler arrived last Evening and brought yours of May the 1 st I have not time to notice all I want to in it, I wish to know whether you would like that I should engage Daniel as coachman who drove you to Newyork when you get to House keeping, and what are the wages given. Tom we can never keep if we wish fer peace— would not the House out of Town be most agreeable to you and most for your...
6Abigail Adams to John Adams, 7 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
our parson has been praying for you to day that you may be enabled to discharge the high and important Trust committed to you with equal integrity and abilitis as you have heretofore excercised in Negotiations at Foreign courts & embassies abroad, and with equal Benifit & satisfaction to your Country. I have been reading with attention the various addresses to the Pressident & his replies....
7To John Adams from Mercy Otis Warren, 7 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
Presuming on the Confidential & unremiting Friendship that has long subsisted between us; Grounded on the close connextion commenced with mr Warren in the early part of your life; I again address you without waiting an answer to my last, which according to your usual politeness & punctuallity I doubt not will be noticed as soon as the particular engagments that have lately occupied your...
8To John Adams from Thomas Jefferson, 10 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
Since mine of Jan. 14. yours of Jan. 2. & Mar. 1. have been handed to me; the former by mr̃ Jones, whom I am glad to know on your recommendation and to make him the channel of evidencing to you how much I esteem whatever comes from you. the internal agitations of this country & the inactivity to which England is reduced by the State of imbecillity in which the madness of the king has...
9From George Washington to John Adams, 10 May 1789 (Washington Papers)
The President of the United States wishes to avail himself of your sentiments on the following points. 1st Whether a line of conduct, equally distant from an association with all kinds of company on the one hand and from a total seclusion from Society on the other, ought to be adopted by him? and, in that case, how is it to be done? 2d What will be the least exceptionable method of bringing...
10From Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 10 May 1789 (Jefferson Papers)
Since mine of Jan. 14. yours of Jan. 2. and Mar. 1. have been handed to me; the former by Mr. Jones, whom I am glad to know on your recommendation and to make him the channel of evidencing to you how much I esteem whatever comes from you.—The internal agitations of this country and the inactivity to which England is reduced by the state of imbecillity in which the madness of the king has...
11To John Adams from Samuel Allyne Otis, 11 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
You will pardon me a few observations upon some apprehended arrangements, by a Committee of conference now in being— When M r Thomson was my competitor, it was a doctrine, that the Secretary of the Senate and the Secretary of State were inseparably blended by the Constitution, and to elect other than M r Thomson Secretary of the Senate, would be an exclusion of him— The doctrine was admitted,...
12To John Adams from James Searle, 11 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
I persuade myself that even surrounded as you are with the Plaudits of a gratefull & Sensible Country, you will not be displeased to receive the heartfelt expressions of respect and esteem of an old friend, of one who has never ceased to love and admire you from the time he first saw you in Europe in the Service of his Country. I am my dear Sir now happily settled in business in this City in...
13To John Adams from Joseph Willard, 13 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
I have just received a letter from D r Price, enclosing one to your Excellency, which he desires me to convey to you, and I now transmit it. Your Excellency may remember the application to you, respecting D r Minto.— So many and weighty are the national affairs, in which you are engaged, that the Corporation can hardly expect that you should have opportunity to attend to the matter yourself;...
14To John Adams from John Bondfield, 15 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
Permit me join in the United Voice of America. Accept my sincere Congratulation on the Nomination to the High Office Confer’d on you by the Choice of a free People An Honor superior to any in the Gift of Europe I hope in a few days to receive the Journals of the Opening and proceedings of Congress much more interesting than the Mock scheens of present Assembled States General of many of the...
15Abigail Adams to John Adams, 16 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
I yesterday received yours of May the 3 d by Captain Beal’s in which you request that I would come on imediatly Yours of May the first mentions several articles which you suppose it will be necessary for me to send forward, but add all is as yet uncertain, so that I am in doubt what to do, particularly as I have laid before you Since, a state of my difficulties to which I could have wish’t...
16To John Adams from Benjamin Lincoln, 18 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
I have just been honoured by the receipt of your favor of the 8 th. instant— I have not time, as I must soon leave town, to observe now on that part of it which is in answer to a sentiment of mine on which we seem to differ— There is no proposition, to which I can more fully accede than to the one which affirms how important it is to People that the President, the vice President, the Senate...
17To John Adams from William Tudor, 18 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
Your very obliging & confidential Letters of the 3 d. and 9 th. of May I received on the 15. I mention their coming to my Hands together only to mark the Difference between the Dispatch of the Post & the Punctuality of Individuals. I am rejoiced to find You, Sir, pronouncing the upper House of Congress a wise, mild and noble Body of Men. From such a Body we must find dignified, firm & national...
18To John Adams from Jabez Bowen, 19 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
On the 6 th. of this Month was held our General Election for Officers for the Ensuing Year; they are nearly the same as the last, saving a few more Federal Charecters in the Lower-house. Their was Instructions from the Towns of Newport & Providence to their Deputies to use their Influence for a State Convention the Business was taken up, but we soon found Their was no probability of succeding,...
19To John Adams from William Smith, 19 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
As the Revenue Act has past the House & it is probable may now be before the Senate, I will take the freedom to hint to you the uneasiness that prevails here respecting the duty of 5 Cents fixed on Molasses, without permitting a drawback on the Rum exported to foreign Markets. 6 to 7000 Hh ds of Rum are exported from this State annually to foreign ports, & the quantity is encreasing, as New...
20Abigail Adams to John Adams, 26 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
I hope Barnard has arrived with the things which I sent by him. if there is any person in the House they had better be sent immediatly to it there to lie untill I arrive on the Recept of your Letter May 3’d I sent directly to Town and finding Barnard almost ready to sail I got him to take as many things as I could get ready, they are carpets linnen &c. after I had done this I sat out to visit...
21To John Adams from Paul R. Randall, 27 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
I take the liberty of laying before you a memorial epistle, I have presented to the President stating my right to presume upon the publick attention— As I have availed myself of an opportunity of mentioning your name, I think it my duty in apprising you of it, to solicit your patronage in support of those pretensions which you sir in a great measure have put it in my power to claim. My long...
22To John Adams from Richard Peters, 28 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
Until I met with your Letter to Day I could not conceive I had been so remiss as not before this Time to have acknowledged the Favour of it. It lay in Town for some Days & I was mortified at not receiving it soon enough to pay the wished for Attention to M r Beal who left the Letter at a Friend’s House in the City & tho’ I made every Enquiry after that Gentleman I had not the Pleasure of...
23To John Adams from Jeremy Belknap, 30 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
I should not have thought of troubling you with the inclosed sermon, if it had not been suggested to me by a friend who heard it that it seemed to be formed on the principles which were advanced in your defence of the American Constitutions & to recommend such Checks and Balances in Ecclesiastical as you had thought necessary in civil Government. If in this view of it, or any other it may be...
24To John Adams from James Bowdoin, 30 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
The attachment of M r. Boid to the American Cause has, as you are Sensible, occasioned the forfeiture to the British Government of all his Lands upon the Schoodac: to which river they have extended their Province of New Brunswick.— The Papers that relate to his Case, as well as to that encroachment, were by order of Congress, as I have understood, transmitted to you, during your residence in...
25Abigail Adams to John Adams, 31 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
I received yesterday your Letter of May the 24 th and shall begin tomorrow to get such things in readiness as will enable us to keep House. I feel a reluctance at striping this wholy at present, because I am well persuaded that we shall in some future period if our lives are prolonged return to it, and even supposing a summer recess, we might wish to come & spend a few months here. an other...
26To John Adams from Samuel Barrett, 1 June 1789 (Adams Papers)
On Advice of my very excellent Friend the hon be Mr Bowdoin I inclose you Copies of my Letter to Major General Knox & his Answer, with a rough Draught of a Letter to his Excellency the President of the United States; requesting you to peruse them & to give me your opinion as to the best Mode of Conducting my intended Application, & if you approve of this mode & see any Prospect of Success to...
27To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 4 June 1789 (Adams Papers)
I find you, & I must agree , NOT to disagree , or we must cease to discuss political questions. I could as soon believe that the British parliament, never had once a right to tax America, as believe that a fourth major part of the citizens of New york were federal , or that many of the federal minority were so, from proper motives.— I know from good authority that some of the leading...
28To John Adams from Thomas Brand Hollis, 6 June 1789 (Adams Papers)
your long silence gave me much uneasiness but I endeavour’d, to assign a thousand reasons which must have prevented you & some of them most natural at last however your favor restored my calm. I should have been surprised indeed, had Cato’s house stood uninjured in the general conflict for Existence life & liberty. remember the glorious contest the Anxious fears the painful doubts the dreadful...
29To John Adams from William Tudor, 6 June 1789 (Adams Papers)
That I was right in my Position “that a considerable Time must elapse before the united States can arise to Greatness” I find confirmed by your last Letter. That our Situation, Resources and Population may & ought to rank Us high on the Scale of Nations is indisputably true. But the heterogeneous Materials which compose our extensive federal Republic; the Jealousies, the Ignorances, & the...
30Abigail Adams to John Adams, 7 June 1789 (Adams Papers)
I this day received the Federal Gazzet, tho I got no Letter from you, I was in hopes to have heard this week in replie to what I wrote on Sunday last. Since that time mr Smith has been in Treaty for me, with two conneticut sloops one of which demanded 50 pounds freight for 2 thirds of his vessel. the other 40, each of them were about 70 Tuns he then applied to Blagett, Barnards owner & has...