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John Quincy Adams to John Adams
Docno: AFC05d073
Recipient: JA
Date: 1783-04-22
[dateline] Hague April 22d. 1783
[salute] Honoured Sir
I arrived here in very good health yesterday morning at about 6. o'clock, after having spent some days at Amsterdam. I found here a letter from you,1 by which you leave to my choice to stay here [or]
2 go to Leyden: if you return to America this summer I think I had best stay here; because, if I go to Leyden; I shall only stay there a few weeks at most. You advise me yourself to stay here until you return.
Mr. D[ana] gave me when I left him two letters; one for you,3 and the other for Mr. Livingston4 which he enjoined me to deliver into your hands myself; but he has since wrote me to give the one for Mr. Livingston, to Mr. Ingraham, to be forwarded to America, but he forbids me absolutely to send yours by the post.5 I hope however to see you pretty soon here, as Mr. Oswald is said to be at present at Paris, to finish the Definitive treaty of Peace.
[salute] I am your Dutiful Son
[signed] J. Q. Adams
1. Of 18 Feb., above.
3. That dated 15 Oct. 1782, marked “Secret & confidential,” and endorsed by JA: “Letter by my Son” (Adams Papers). The date is evidently old style (26 Oct. N.S.), from the dating of other letters around it in Dana's letterbook. The text is in Wharton, ed., Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev.
, 5:815–817.
4. Probably that dated 14 Oct. 1782, O.S., in Wharton, ed., Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev.
, 5:812–814.
5. See Dana to JQA, 1 Nov. 1782, N.S. (Adams Papers, filed and filmed under 21 Oct., O.S.). Dana repeated his injunctions on 21 Nov. 1782 (Adams Papers).
Cite web page as: Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, ed.C. James Taylor. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2007.
http://www.masshist.org/ff/
http://www.masshist.org/ff/