1From John Adams to Richard Cranch, 2 September 1755 (Adams Papers)
I promised to write you an account of the scituation of my mind. The natural strength of my facultys is quite insufficient for the task. Attend therefore to the invocation. Oh! thou goddess, Muse, or Whatever is thy name who inspired immortal Miltons pen with a confusion ten thousand times confounded, when describing Satan’s Voyage thro’ Chaos, help me in the same cragged strains, to sing...
2From John Adams to Richard Cranch, 29 August 1756 (Adams Papers)
I am set down with a Design of writing to you.—But the narrow Sphere I move in, and the lonely unsociable Life I lead, can furnish a Letter with little more than Complaints of my hard fortune. I am condemnd to keep School two Years longer. This I sometimes consider as a very grievous Calamity and almost sink under the Weight of Woe.—But shall I dare to complain and to murmur against Providence...
3To John Adams from Richard Cranch, October 1756 (Adams Papers)
Tho’ I acknowledge that one ought never to be asham’d to speak the truth; yet I find my self much inclin’d to it, when I’m about to tell you that I have two of your very kind and ingenious Letters by me unanswer’d. I assure you sir, that my neglect arises not from any want of esteem for my Friend, but (to tell another ungratefull truth) from downright dullness; I must wait with patience for...
4From John Adams to Richard Cranch, 18 October 1756 (Adams Papers)
In my last you remember I desired your sincere Opinion of the new Resolution I had taken, but as you have not yet been so kind as to send it, I must beg your patience while I tell you my sincere opinion of it. The Law, I take to be a very difficult and a very extensive Science and to acquire any considerable degree of knowledge in the Theory and of skill in the Practice, a serene head, a large...
5From John Adams to Richard Cranch, November – December 1758 (Adams Papers)
Braintree October–December? 1758. Printed: JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p. 69–70 , from a draft, with the principal variations from text of RC ( Adams Papers ) recorded in notes. Printed ( JA, Earliest Diary The Earliest Diary of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1966. , p.
6Richard Cranch and John Adams to Mary Smith, 30 December 1761 (Adams Papers)
I was at Boston yesterday and saw your Brother who was well. I have but a moments notice of an oportunity of sending to you the enclos’d which I took at your Unkle Edwards’s. Here we are Dick and Jack as happy as the Wickedness and folly of this World will allow Phylosophers to be: our good Wishes are pour’d forth for the felicity of you, your family and Neighbours.—My—I dont know what—to Mrs....
7John Adams to Richard Cranch, 29 June 1766 (Adams Papers)
I have been determined, a long Time, to write you by the first Opportunity that should present, of sending a Letter. Two or Three Opportunities have presented; but so suddenly, that I could not obtain Time to write one Line. I now write intending to have my Letter in Readiness, against another Bearer appears. I rejoiced very heartily last Night, at Hearing of your Welfare by Mr. Grosvenor. I...
8John Adams to Richard Cranch, 23 September 1767 (Adams Papers)
I have but a few Moments, to congratulate you on the fresh Blessing to your Family.—Another fine Child and Sister comfortable! Oh fine! I know the Feeling as well as you and in Spight of your earlier Marriage, I knew it sooner than you.—Here you must own I have the Advantage of you.—But what shall we do with this young Fry?—In a little while Johnny must go to Colledge, and Nabby must have fine...
9John Adams to Richard Cranch, 18 September 1774 (Adams Papers)
I thank you most kindly for your obliging Letter. And beg the Continuance of your Correspondence. Every Line from Boston is a Cordial, and of great Use to us in our Business. It is a grief to my Heart that I cannot write to my Friends so often and particularly as I wish. But Politicks I cant write, in Honour. I send the Votes of Yesterday, which are ordered to be printed, and this is the only...
10To John Adams from Richard Cranch, 15 October 1774 (Adams Papers)
I hear that a letter from one P——s, a clergyman in Connecticut, has been intercepted, and that an attested copy of it is now before our congress. The contents of it are very extraordinary—he informs the person to whom it is addressed, that he has received advice that several regiments more from England, and a number of men of war, are expected, and that when they arrive, hanging work will...