This edition of The Adams Papers is sponsored by the massachusetts historical society to which the adams manuscript trust by a deed of gift dated 4 April 1956 gave ultimate custody of the personal and public papers written, accumulated, and preserved over a span of three centuries by the Adams family of Massachusetts

These two volumes are dedicated to the memory of Adams Papers Editor Marc Friedlaender (1905–1992)

His fellow editors will miss the wisdom, scholarship, and ever-present good humor, which he generously shared with us for twenty-seven years