211Richard 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....
212Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 6 October 1766 (Adams Papers)
I wrote to you a week ago, and sent my Letter part of the way, but like a bad penny it returnd, to me again. This I write in hopes that it will reach you this week by Sister. Your Letter I received and it gave me both pleasure and pain, it rejoiced my heart to hear from you, and it pained me to hear how Ill Mr. Cranch had been, and how low he still was. Many are the afflictions of the...
213Abigail and John Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 12 January 1767 (Adams Papers)
Mr. Etter was so good as to come this morning and inform me that his Sons would go to Salem tomorrow. By them I gladly embrace this Opportunity of inquiring after the welfare of you and your family. It has been a very long time since I heard any thing from you; the roads have been so block’d up with Snow here; that I assure you I have not been to Weymouth since mother came from Salem. They...
214Isaac Smith Jr. to Mary Smith Cranch, 20 October 1774 (Adams Papers)
If it was possible to tell you, my dear Mrs. Cranch, how much I think myself obliged to you, for your kind, sensible and polite letter of the last week I would do it with the sincerest pleasure. As it is not easy to me, to express the sense I have of your own, and the benevolent intentions and wishes of other of my good friends with regard to me, I must only beg you, to accept my thanks in...
215Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 31 January 1767 (Adams Papers)
I have just returnd from Weymouth, where I have been for a week past. It seems lonesome here, for My Good Man is at Boston; after haveing been in a large family, for a week, to come and set down alone is very solitary; tho we have seven in our family, yet four of them being domestick when my partner is absent and my Babe a sleep, I am still left alone. It gives one a pleasing Sensation my Dear...
216John 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...
217From 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...
218From 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...
219John 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...
220From 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...