251From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 22 December 1808 (Adams Papers)
I know not whether I shall make you smile or weep, excite your ridicule or pity or contempt when I reveal to you the mistery of my long delay to answer your last Letters. But before I unriddle that unusual negligence, I must say a few words concerning our Friend Whartons Attachment to Prophecies and his habit of applying them to passing events. I have no objection to the Study, but I am aware...
252From John Adams to Josiah, III Quincy, 23 December 1808 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for all the fine Speeches you send me and especially for that of Mr Loyd and the letter of the 14th. inclosed with it. The Speech is a chaste, neat composition, very Sensible, candid, frank and manly. I conclude with him “remove the Embargo, authorize the Merchants to arm their Vessels, put the Nation in a State of defence and assert your well established and indisputable Rights or...
253From John Adams to Joseph Bradley Varnum, 26 December 1808 (Adams Papers)
I receive very kindly your obliging letter of the 15th. of this month. Ever since my return from Europe, where I had resided ten years and could not be fully informed of the state of affairs in my own Country, I have been constantly anxious and alarmed at the intemperance of party spirit and the unbounded license of our presses. In the same view I could not but lament some things, which have...
254From John Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 31 December 1808 (Adams Papers)
In answer to your kind Inquiries concerning my health, in your favour of the 14th, I can inform you that I enjoy as good health as a Man in his fifteenth Lustre, can reasonably expect, except a little paralytic trembling in the hands, which does not much incommode me however in Writing. I have been engaged this Summer as you have in reading History. Voltaires Moeurs et Esprit des Nations and...
255From John Adams to William Cunningham, 3 January 1809 (Adams Papers)
I have your favours of December 17, and 21st. I hope you will not insinuate a comparison between John Q. Adams and Coriolanus. Whatever injustice or ingratitude may be done him, he has none of the Roman’s revenge, much less his treachery. Of Mrs. Warren’s History I have nothing to say. The Count De Vergennes was an accomplished gentleman and scholar, and a statesman of great experience in...
256From John Adams to Joseph Bradley Varnum, 9 January 1809 (Adams Papers)
The following comments were written, within a few days after the appearance in public of this Text “The Proclamation of the King of Great Britain requiring the return of his Subjects, the Seamen especially, from foreign Countries, to aid, in this hour of peculiar danger, in defence of their own. But it being an acknowledged Principle that every Nation has a right to the Service of its Subjects...
257From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 January 1809 (Adams Papers)
What Signify Clamours against Commerce Property Kings Nobles Demagogues Democracy, the Clergy Religion? For to each and all of these has the Depravity of Man been imputed by some Philosophers. Rousseau says the first Man who fenced a Cabbage yard ought to have been put to death. Dr but Diderot says the first Man who Suggested the Idea of a god ought to have been treated as an Enemy of the...
258From John Adams to Henry Guest, 29 January 1809 (Adams Papers)
I am favoured with your kind Letter of the 20th. At your age and mine, as the Body fails to Supply Such plentifull provisions of animal Spirit, as it commonly does in youth and middle Age. We are usually Subject to more frequent dejections and gloomy Apprehensions. In the present dreary times you are not alone but accompanied by the whole Nation as far as I know it, in your depression. But not...
259From John Adams to James Lovell, 7 February 1809 (Adams Papers)
If our friend as you say is writhing in a Fox trap those who as you say nibbled when I sent Elsworth to France have woven the meshes with great art. They have composed the snares of the cords of a man and the bands of Love. They have exerted themselves with success equal to thier zeal and activity to get his son Theodore elected, into the senate and his son in Law Bailies into the H——of R——of...
260From John Adams to William Cunningham, 11 February 1809 (Adams Papers)
I have your favour of 14 ult. The Mirror was never read—and if it ever should be it will be willfully misunderstood—Seventeen Wheels within one wheel. Seventeen Empires within one empire Seventeen sovereignties within one sovereignty. Seventeen Imperia in one Emperio will tell in time we have had a Chaise’s disturbance: a Gallatin’s disturbance a Fries’s disturbance; and why may we not have a...