To John Adams from Richard Price, 2 March 1786

From Richard Price

Newington-Green March 2d 1786

Dear Sir

I have been wishing to call upon you all this week, but the weather has been so discouraging as not to Suffer me to go much from home. I have communicated your request to the Gentlemen who manage the affairs of the meeting at Hackney.1 They agree with me in thinking the Society much honoured by your attendance; and they have directed me to inform you that, as the pew lately made is a permanent improvemt: of the meeting-house, they do not chuse to let you bear any part of the expence.

Their usual expences are a quarterly collection at the door towards paying Clerk, pew-openers, repairs &c. to which all Sums are given from Shillings to five Shillings, and, I believe, Sometimes half guineas; and a half-yearly Subscription for the ministers payable at Lady-day and Michaelmas to which all Sums are given from half-guineas to three guineas half-yearly; and two heads of families give one of them five guineas and the other Six guineas half-yearly, but the last of these is the master of a School that takes up the lower part of the meeting.

I am ashamed to mention these particulars to you; but I do it in compliance with your desire. Deliver my kind respects to Mrs Adams and Miss Adams. Wishing them and you all possible happiness I am, Dear Sir, with particular respect and affection, / Your very obedt: and humble Servt:

Richd: Price

I received a letter last night from Mr Robinson in wch: he tells me that he has writ to you—2 Deliver my respectful remembrances to Colo Smith when you See him.

RC (Adams Papers description begins Manuscripts and other materials, 1639–1889, in the Adams Manuscript Trust collection given to the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1956 and enlarged by a few additions of family papers since then. Citations in the present edition are simply by date of the original document if the original is in the main chronological series of the Papers and therefore readily found in the microfilm edition of the Adams Papers (APM). description ends ).

1. Until their departure in spring 1788, the Adamses regularly traveled six miles to attend Sunday meeting at Price’s nonconformist church, Gravel-Pit Meeting Place in Hackney. JA’s choice of church did not go unnoticed in the London press; at least one newspaper accused the American minister of adopting Price, a dissenting theologian, as his “political father-confessor.” Throughout Jan. and Feb. 1786, the Adamses enjoyed Price’s series of sermons systematizing a “chain of Universal being” (vol. 17:533; AFC description begins Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Richard Alan Ryerson, Margaret A. Hogan, and others, Cambridge, 1963– . description ends , 6:196, 209, 286; 7:20, 265, 266). They also attended Unitarian services at Essex Street Chapel, where they heard both Dr. Joseph Priestley and Theophilus Lindsey preach (JA, D&A description begins Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. description ends , 3:190).

2. Matthew Robinson-Morris’ letter to JA was of 27 Feb., above.

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Source Project: Adams Papers
Title: To John Adams from Richard Price, 2 March 1786
Author: Price, Richard
Recipient: Adams, John
Date: 2 March 1786

Reference

Cite as: “To John Adams from Richard Price, 2 March 1786,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-18-02-0099. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 18, December 1785–January 1787, ed. Gregg L. Lint, Sara Martin, C. James Taylor, Sara Georgini, Hobson Woodward, Sara B. Sikes, Amanda M. Norton. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016, pp. 195–196.]

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