11From John Adams to Harrison Gray Otis, 17 March 1823 (Adams Papers)
I have received your kind letter of the 12th. march instant—The contents of which are entirely satisfactory to me—Your memory is quite as particular as I could expect any Gentleman of the company to retain, except myself. I must confess I was very s ure on the subject of my mission to France I was attacked by two armies, a french army and an English army—each warring upon me to conquer me into...
12From John Adams to Harrison Gray Otis, 28 March 1823 (Adams Papers)
Since my last letter to you fate, or fortune as Jefferson says, has thrown into my hands two Volumes of amusing Travels, entitled a Journal of a Tour and residence in Great Britain by a Native of France; who it seems has resided a quarter of a Century in America, by the name of Simond.—in page 247. of the first Vol I read as follows.— “ Since 1801. The United States have had a philosophical...
13From John Adams to Harrison Gray Otis, 29 March 1823 (Adams Papers)
Voltaire at eighty, raved Tradgey; And I fear that you will think that I, at eighty seven and a half, am raving politicks and history. Be it so. but a regard to my own family and above all, to the sacred regard to the honour, the interest and duty of my Country, imperiously, demand of me that I should rave on—I must confess to allude to some former figures, when I was running the gantlet, and...
14From John Adams to Harrison Gray Otis, 4 April 1823 (Adams Papers)
Ridendo dicere verum quid vetat. Mr. Simon has given us a factitious sketch of the last years of the last Century, and the first years of the present—And why should not I add a few commentary’s, still ridendo, for I cannot review that tragicomico farce, grave as it was to me, without laughing—I was President a mere cipher, the Government was in the hands of an oligarchy consisting of a...
15From John Adams to Harrison Gray Otis, 9 May 1823 (Adams Papers)
The amount of my former letters to you is this that all the sovereignty there existing in the nation was in the hands of Alexander Hamilton & that his conduct of it was delirious or in the strong language of my last letter stark mad I am now to justify these conclusions. The manner in which this oligarchical triumvirate was introduced into power is to be explained hereafter; but in the manner...