Browsing: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 4

1. AA had discussed in more or less detail her thoughts on joining JA abroad in two recent letters that appear above, 5 Aug. (a Dft, of which the RC probably did not reach JA) and 3 Sept.; but the “arrangement of [her] affairs, and the person with whom [she] would chuse to come” are specified in neither. We must therefore suppose either that another letter of hers to JA on this subject was sent during the summer but is totally unrecorded, or that the missing RC of her Dft of 5 Aug. did add these details.

As for the “Mr. Smith” who was willing to come with her, the best conjecture the editors can make is that he was her cousin William Smith (1755–1816), the young Boston merchant, on whom see above, vol. 3:96; also Adams Genealogy.