FAMILIAR LETTERS

OF

JOHN ADAMS AND HIS WIFE.

1. JOHN ADAMS.

Boston, 12 May, 1774.

I AM extremely afflicted with the relation your father gave me of the return of your disorder. I fear you have taken some cold. We have had a most pernicious air a great part of this spring. I am sure I have reason to remember it. My cold is the most obstinate and threatening one I ever had in my life. However, I am unwearied in my endeavors to subdue it, and have the pleasure to think I have had some success. I rise at five, walk three miles, keep the air all day, and walk again in the afterThese walks have done me more good than anything. My own infirmities, the account of the return of yours, and the public news coming altogether have put my utmost philosophy to the trial.

1

1 Four of the spring fleet of merchant ships, designated in the newspapers according to custom, only by the names of their respective commanders, Shayler, Lyde, Maratt, and Scott, had just arrived. They brought accounts of the effect upon the mother country of the destruction of the tea. The ministry had carried through Parliament their system of repressive measures: the Boston Port Bill, the revision of the charter, materially impairing its popular features, and the act to authorize the removal of trials in certain cases to Great Britain. General Gage, the commander-in-chief of his Majesty's forces in America, appointed Governor to execute the new policy, in the place of Hutchinson, who had asked leave of absence, was on his way, and arrived in his Majesty's ship Lively, Captain Bishop, in twenty-six days from London, on the 13th, the day after the date of this letter.

We live, my dear soul, in an age of trial. What will be the consequence, I know not. The town of Boston, for aught I can see, must suffer martyrdom. It must expire. And our principal consolation is, that it dies in a noble cause the cause of truth, of virtue, of liberty, and of humanity, and that it will probably have a glorious resurrection to greater wealth, splendor, and power, than ever, Let me know what is best for us to do. It is expensive keeping a family here, and there is no prospect of any business in my way in this town this whole summer. I don't receive a shilling a week. We must contrive as many ways as we can to save expenses; for we may have calls to contribute very largely, in proportion to our circumstances, to prevent other very honest worthy people from suffering for want, besides our own loss in point of business and profit.

Don't imagine from all this that I am in the dumps. Far otherwise. I can truly say that I have felt more spirits and activity since the arrival of this news than I had done before for years. I look upon this as the last effort of Lord North's despair, and he will as surely be defeated in it, as he was in the project of the tea.

I am, with great anxiety for your health,

I HAVE a great deal of leisure, which I chiefly employ in scribbling, that my mind may not stand still or run back, like my fortune. There is very little business here, and David Sewall, David Wyer, John Sullivan and James Sullivan, and Theophilus Bradbury, are the lawyers who at tend the inferior courts, and consequently, conduct the causes at the superior.

I find that the country is the situation to make estates by the law. John Sullivan, who is placed at Durham in New Hampshire, is younger both in years and practice

1 In Maine, at this time and long afterwards a part of Massachusetts. Law vers were in the habit of following the circuit in those days.

than I am. He began with nothing, but is now said to be worth ten thousand pounds lawful money, his brother James allows five or six or perhaps seven thousand pounds, consisting in houses and lands, notes, bonds, and mortgages. He has a fine stream of water, with an excellent corn mill, saw mill, fulling mill, scythe mill, and others, in all six mills, which are both his delight and his profit. As he has earned cash in his business at the bar, he has taken opportunities to purchase farms of his neighbors, who wanted to sell and move out farther into the woods, at an advantageous rate, and in this way has been growing rich; under the smiles and auspices of Governor Wentworth, he has been promoted in the civil and military way, so that he is treated with great respect in this neighborhood.1

James Sullivan, brother of the other, who studied law under him, without any academical education (and John was in the same case), is fixed at Saco, alias Biddeford, ir our province. He began with neither learning, books, estate, nor anything but his head and hands, and is now a very popular lawyer and growing rich very fast, purchasing great farms, etc., and a justice of the peace and a member of the General Court.

David Sewall, of this town, never practices out of this county; has no children; has no ambition nor avarice, they say (however, quære). His business in this county maintains him very handsomely, and he gets beforehand.

Bradbury, at Falmouth, they say, grows rich very fast. I was first sworn in 1758. My life has been a continual scene of fatigue, vexation, labor, and anxiety. I have four children. I had a pretty estate from my father; I

1 All the persons named in this etter reached eminence, both professional and political, in Massachusetts.

Of John and James Sullivan much information has been furnished in the memoir of the latter by Mr. T. C. Amory.

David Sewall, a classmate of John Adams at Harvard College, was made a Judge of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, and afterwards transferred to the District Court of the United States for Maine. He died in 1825 at a very advanced age.

Theophilus Bradbury graduated at Harvard College in the year 1757. He served as a representative in the Congress of the United States in the fine Congress, and afterwards as one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Mas achusetts. He died in 1803.

have been assisted by your father; I have done the greatest business in the province; I have had the very richest clients in the province. Yet I am poor, in comparison with others.

This, I confess, is grievous and discouraging. I ought, however, to be candid enough to acknowledge that I have been imprudent. I have spent an estate in books. I have spent a sum of money indiscreetly in a lighter, another in a pew, and a much greater in a house in Boston. These would have been indiscretions, if the impeachment of the Judges, the Boston Port Bill, etc., etc., had never happened; but by the unfortunate interruption of my business from these causes, those indiscretions became almost fatal to me; to be sure, much more detrimental.

John Lowell, at Newburyport, has built himself a house like the palace of a nobleman, and lives in great splendor. His business is very profitable. In short, every lawyer who has the least appearance of abilities makes it do in the country. In town, nobody does, or ever can, who either is not obstinately determined never to have any connection with politics, or does not engage on the side of the Government, the Administration, and the Court.1

Let us, therefore, my dear partner, from that affection which we feel for our lovely babes, apply ourselves, by every way we can, to the cultivation of our farm. Let frugality and industry be our virtues, if they are not of any others. And above all cares of this life, let our ardent anxiety be to mould the minds and manners of our children. Let us teach them not only to do virtuously, but to excel. To excel, they must be taught to be steady, active, and industrious.

1 Mr. Lowell signed the address to Governor Hutchinson, in common with nost of the members of the bar. But he had studied his profession in the office of Oxenbridge Thacher, and did not forget his master's principles. In the Revolutionary struggle he took his side with his countrymen, and labored faithfully for the cause. He was a delegate to the Congress of the Confederaion, during the war, was most efficient in the convention which matured the Constitution of Massachusetts, and finally served with great credit as Judge of Appeals in admiralty causes before, and as the first judge of the District Court of the United States for Massachusetts, after the adoption of the Federal Con stitution.

3. JOHN ADAMS.

York, June 30, 1774.

I HAVE nothing to do here but to take the air, inquire for news, talk politics, and write letters.

I regret that I cannot have the pleasure of enjoying this fine weather with my family, and upon my farm. Oh, how often am I there! I have but a dull prospect before me. I have no hope of reaching Braintree under a fortnight from this day, if I should in twenty days.

1

I regret my absence from the county of Suffolk this week on another account. If I was there, I could converse with the gentlemen 1 who are bound with me to Philadelphia; I could turn the course of my reading and studies to such subjects of Law, and Politics, and Commerce, as may come in play at the Congress. I might be furbishing up my old reading in Law and History, that I might appear with less indecency before a variety of gentlemen, whose educations, travels, experience, family, fortune, and everything will give them a vast superiority to me, and I fear even to some of my companions.

This town of York is a curiosity, in several views. The people here are great idolaters of the memory of their former minister, Mr. Moody. Dr. Sayward says, and the rest of them generally think, that Mr. Moody was one of the greatest men and best saints who have lived since the days of the Apostles. He had an ascendency and authority over the people here, as absolute as that of any prince in Europe, not excepting his Holiness.2

This he acquired by a variety of means. In the first place, he settled in the place without any contract. His professed principle was that no man should be hired to preach the gospel, but that the minister should depend upon the charity, generosity, and benevolence of the

1 Thirteen days before, the writer had been chosen with four others, J. Bowdoin, W. Cushing, Samuel Adams, and R. T. Paine, to go to Philadelphia, for >he purpose of meeting delegates of other colonies for consultation.

2 Samuel Moody, born in 1675, graduated at Cambridge in 1697, and d'ed 1747; one of a class peculiar to colonial times, the like of whom are ne longer to be found in the rural districts.