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Browsing: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 4
Docno: ADMS-04-04-02-0055
Recipient: Adams, John
Date: 1781-02-18
John Quincy Adams to John Adams
[dateline] Leyden Feby. 18th. 1781
[salute] Honoured Sir
The other day I received your letter, of the 12th of this month, in which you ask
me whether my Master would choose that I should have Terence with a translation? I
believe that he had rather I should not; because when I shall translate him he would
desire that I might do it without help.
I should be glad if you would bring me Mr. Cerisier's history of this Country, if
you can spare it.1 There is a gentleman in this city whose name is Keroux who has also wrote a history
of this Country in four volumes in octavo. Perhaps you have heard of it.2
I should be much obliged to you if you would be so good as to desire Stephens to buy
me a penknife, I want one very much, and can't get one here.
[salute] I am your most dutiful Son,
[signed] John Quincy Adams
RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “A. Monsieur Monsieur Adams, chez Madame la veuve Hendrik Schorn a Amsterdam”;
docketed in Thaxter's hand: “Johnny 18th. Feby. 1781.”
1. This work, issued anonymously, was currently in progress: Tableau de l'histoire générale des Provinces-unies, 10 vols., Utrecht, 1777–1784. Two sets remain among JA's books in MB. Antoine Marie Cerisier (1749–1828), a journalist of French birth who had long resided in the Netherlands, was a leading
propagandist for the Patriot or anti-Orangist party and became an enthusiastic supporter
of JA's efforts to win recognition for the United States. See a documented sketch of Cerisier
in JA's Diary and Autobiography, 2:454.
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, 2017.
http://www.masshist.org/apde2/
http://www.masshist.org/apde2/