11From John Adams to Jedidiah Morse, 18 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
In your favour of the 15th of November, you ask, in the Name of your eldest Son, the Liberty to take my Buste By Saturdays Mail I recd a Letter dated Philadelphia Decr. 6th. from Mr Joseph De la Plaine, a Gentleman whom I know not, who Says “A respectable Young Gentleman, Mr Morse, lately from London, Son of the Revd. Dr Morse is an excellent Artist I learn. I beg you to do me the honour of...
12To John Adams from Jedidiah Morse, 18 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
I thank you very sincerely for your two last very valuable communications, one of the 5th. inst—& the preceding one—They throw light on a very interesting period of our history—They contain many unrecorded facts, known probably to no other man living, except yourself, & whh a historian ought to know. I pray that your health may be continued, that you may be enabled to put into a State to be...
13From John Adams to Jedidiah Morse, 5 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
If such was the Spirit of the English Church in America, and especially in Virginia before the Revolution: Can you wonder, that Men So enlightened as Richard Henry Lee and his Brothers, Patrick Henry Chancellor Wythe Chief Justice Pendleton, Mr Jefferson Mr Madison &c, though they had been all educated in that Church, became afterwards Disciples of Lock, Blackburne, Fourneux and William Penn,...
14From John Adams to Jedidiah Morse, 2 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
If I ever comply with your request, I must make haste, & employ the few intervals of light which my eyes afford me. Where is the man to be found, at this day, when we see Methodistical Bishops, Bishops of the Church of England, & Bishops, Archbishops, & Jesuits of the Church of Rome, with indifference; who will beleive, that the apprehension of Episcopacy, contributed 50 years ago, as much as...
15To John Adams from Jedidiah Morse, 2 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
I am confined to my house with the epidemic cold—& much enfeebled by it. I cannot refrain, however, just thanking you for your two last very valuable letters—to me, with my views, peculiarly valuable—The No. of Histories published & in contemplation, of this country, & of our war, is no discouragement to me—as the one whh I contemplate is to be of a different character from either of them—it...
16From John Adams to Jedidiah Morse, 29 November 1815 (Adams Papers)
There are thirty or forty Histories of the American Revolution and consequent War now upon the Stocks and ready to be launched, as soon as the Weather and the tide will permit. The Chevalier Botta, an Italian Knight has already written one, which is Said to be the best that ever had appeared. Mr Mackean and Mr Pollard have written two others. Mr Randolph of Virginia has left one Soon to be...
17From John Adams to Jedidiah Morse, 20 November 1815 (Adams Papers)
The Pamphlet I lent you and the Letters from Governor Mackean you may retain for the time you mention. The Pamphlet I would give you, if I had or could procure another. The rise and progress of that pamphlet is this. On my return form Phyladelphia in November 1774, I found that Mrs Drapers Massachusetts Gazette had been long pouring forth torrents of scurrility against the Whigs, and dreadful...
18To John Adams from Jedidiah Morse, 15 November 1815 (Adams Papers)
I acknowledge my fault this day. I have two of your valued letters, of Sep. 11th. & Nov. 2d. now before me unanswered. My absence a part of the time, since they were recd. & continual & very pressing engagements the rest of the time, have occasioned the delay. The enclosures in yours of the 11th. of Sept. were to me very interesting & acceptable. I am extracting from them the information...
19From John Adams to Jedidiah Morse, 2 November 1815 (Adams Papers)
On September 11th. I wrote you a line inclosed in a pacquet with four original letters from Governor McKean and a pamphlet of my own. I requested the return of them: but have not been informed whether you have received them or not. Whether it was jocularly or ironically, or ludicrously, or vanity, that I promised you a specimen of the manner in which I would write the history of our country...
20From John Adams to Jedidiah Morse, 11 September 1815 (Adams Papers)
For some time past I have been unable to read write or See.—So that it has been impossible for me to answer your Expectations as I wished. And now it costs me more pain and time to write a time than it did but seven years ago to write a page.— you will find me but a miserable resource for information or advice in your great Undertaking. I can give you nothing but broken hints. At present I...