1John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 13 February 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
As you was so well acquainted with the philosophers of France I presume the name and character of Mademoiselle De Lespinasse is not unknown to you. I have almost put out my eyes by reading two volumes of her letters which as they were printed in 1809 I presume you have read long ago. I confess I have never read any thing with more ennui, disgust and loathing. The eternal repitition of mon dieu...
2John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 19 February 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
As you know I have often been ambitious of introducing to your acquaintance some of our literary characters, I now send you in the same spirit, some mathematical papers by our M r Bowditch who has translated La Place ’s mechanique coeliste & has written commentaries upon it as voluminous as the book—; which are thought by our scientific people to be one of the greatest astronomical productions...
3John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 24 February 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
I am dill diligently & laboriously occupied, in reading & hearing your “political economy”—I call it yours because I do not believe that Tracy s is more of an original in point of purity , perspicuity or precission—I have read as yet only to the 90 th page—it is a connected chain of ideas and propositions, of which I know nothing not which link to strike out. His philosophy appears to me to roll
4John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 2 March 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
I have taxed my eyes with a very heavy imost impost to read the senator Tracy ’s Political Economy & been amply rewarded for the expense. When I first saw the volume I thought it was impossible I should get through it, but when I had once made a begg beginning I found myself led on in so easy a train from proposition to proposition, every one of which appeared to me self evident, that I could...
5John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 2 April 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
Your Letter of March 21 st I will communicate to Mr Bowditch , and Pickering — You may put my Letters upon the Subject of Tracy ’s Book into any hands you please, with or without any verbal alterations, as you may think fit —“what you would have them, make them.” or as James Otis used to say to Samuel Adams —here take it. and “ Quicu Wuicu ” it — I am obliged to borrow the hand of a friend to...
6John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 21 May 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
All the Literary Gentlemen of this part of the Country have an Ambitious Curiosity to see the Philosopher and Statesman of Monticello —and they all apply to me for Introductions—and if I had ever received one introduction from you, I should have less scruple of Conscience in granting their requests—in the Stile of our New-England —the Reverend Mr Greenwood the successor of M r Thatcher and D r...
7John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 27 May 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
I have transmitted your letter to Samu el Adams Welles Esq r in Boston as you desire This gentleman is a singular character he is I beleive the only surviving male of his Grandfather the late govenor of Massachusetts Samuel Adams who never had but two children a son and a daughter; his son who bore his name died early a surgeon in the army of the Revolution without issue; his daughter married a
8John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 22 June 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
May I inclose you one of the greatest curiositys and one of the deepest Mysterys that ever occoured to me—It is in the Essex Register of June the 5 th 1819.— it is entitled from the Raleigh Register Declaration of Independence— How is it possible that this paper should have been concealed from me to this day— had it been communicated to me in the time of it—I know, if you do not know, that it...
9John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 21 July 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
I am greatly obliged to you for your Letter of the 9 th It has entirely convinced me that the Mecklenburg Resolutions are a fiction, when I first read them in the Essex Register, I was struct with astonishment—It appears appeared to me utterly incredible that they should be genuine; but there were so many circumstances calculated to impose on the public; that I thought it my duty to take...
10John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 28 July 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
I inclose you a National Register, to convince you that the Essex Register is not to blame for printing the Mecklenburg County Resolutions, on the Contrary I think it to be commended—for if those Resolutions were genuine they ought to be published in every Gazette in the world—If they are one of those tricks which our fashionable Men in England call hoax’es and boares —they ought to be printed...