Adams Family Correspondence, volume 1
1769-06-29
I embrace with Joy, this Opportunity of writing you. Mr. Langdon, who is to be the Bearer, was so good as to call this Morning, to know if I had any Letters to send. You'l therefore of Course, treat him civilly and give him Thanks. We are now but beginning the Business of Falmouth Court. The Weather has been for three days, so hot, as to render the Business of the Court very irksome, indeed, but we are in hopes it will now be cooler. How long I shall be obliged to stay here, I cant say. But you may depend I shall stay here no longer, than absolute Necessity requires. Nothing but the Hope of acquiring some little Matter for my dear Family, could carry me, thro these tedious Excursions.—How my Business at home may suffer I cant tell.—I hope to be in Boston before July C
That is, the first week of Cumberland co. Superior Court, sitting at Falmouth (now Portland, Maine). The year is determinable for JA's allusion at the close of this letter to his 2d daughter, Susanna, born in Dec. 1768, died in Feb. 1770. The day of the month is determinable from the fact that Cumberland Superior Court opened in 1769 on Tuesday, 27 June, and JA's letter was written on the following Thursday.
1769-07-01
We have lived thro the Heat, and Toil, and Confusion of this Week. We have tried three of the Kennebeck Proprietors Actions and have been fortunate enough to obtain them all. Mr. Bowdoins great Case with Lord Edgcumbe, and Dr. Gardiners great Cause with William Tyng the sherriff of this County particularly.2 There are about 60 or 70 Actions now remaining on the Dockett, and When we shall get loose from this Town I cant yet foresee. However, I am determined not to stay at York Court and therefore shall be at home, the latter End of the Week after next. If I can be at home sooner I shall. I hope you are all well. God preserve you and all our Family.—The good Man waits for this Letter and it is late Saturday night. I am yr ever affectionate
MS: “Mr.”
James Bowdoin v. Thomas Springer et al., and Silvester Gardiner v. William Tyng. Among JA's legal papers there are notes on both these cases tried in the current Superior Court term for Cumberland and Lincoln counties, held at Falmouth (Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 185).
1770-01-04
I Congratulate you upon the fine weather we have had since your absence; if it has been as favourable to you, as it has been here, you will long Ere this reaches you be safely arrived in Carolina.1 When you left us, you did not tell me, nor did I know till a few days agone, that you designd a visit to our (cruel) Mother Country, shall I say. I highly approve your design. Now is the best Season of Life for you to travel; Ere you have formed connections which would bind you to your own little Spot.
68Your Parents and Friends have placed great confidence in you; at so Early an age to commit you to yourself, with no Guardian but your own Honour, and no Monitor but your own Conscience. And with pleasure I say it. Still suffer them, in spite of every temptation to the Contrary, to maintain the same power over you, which they have had from your Early infancy. Still keep them faithful to you; and you will not need any other.
The Stage you are entering upon is large and Capacious. You will have temptation of various kinds to encounter, but you will we hope, we expect it from you, be superiour to them all. Vice and imprudence are no necessary attendants upon Youth, tho too frequently its inseperable Companions. If your Gay acquaintance assault you with ridicule for persisting in any Laudable practice, dispise their contempt, and be only fearful of encurring your own. If you would be secure from the arrows of Calumny, be careful never to part with the Shield of Innocence. Tis Expected from you who have a prudence far surpassing your years, that you will make improvements Eaquel to your prudence. From you I expect not the mere common place observation and remarks, but those that will not only please but instruct. What ever occurs curious or remarkable in the Course of your travels remit to your Friends. Here might I be permitted to give my advice, it would be to keep a dayly journal. You will find it
both useful and pleasent. Permit me also to call to your remembrance those lines of Shakespears, that Excellent advice of Polonius to his Son Laertes
I have written a great deal. Receive it in the Spirit of real Friendship. Thus it is designed by Your affectionate Cousin and Friend,
PS Your Friends here are in as good health as when you left us and desire to be remember'd to you. Mr. and Mrs. Cranch send their Love, regard also from me to all my kindred in Carolina. Forget not a token of remembrance when you have opportunity to yours,
I have been reading the foregoing Instructions and Exhortations of Dame Adams, and have no Doubt at all of their Orthodoxy, the only Question with me is, what occasion, a Gentleman of your Character, has for them.—Am very glad to hear You intend a Voyage to Fog land.—There you will find every Object that
Isaac was visiting his Kinsmen in Charleston. AA's first American forebear in the paternal line, Thomas Smith, a butcher of Charlestown, Mass., had a son Thomas, a sea-captain, who married in South Carolina and whose grandsons, Benjamin and Thomas Smith, became very prominent in business and colonial affairs there. (One of Benjamin's sons, DAB
.) Among the Smith-Carter Papers (MHi) are numerous letters from these “Loving Cousins” throughout most of the 18th century. For the full genealogical details see George C. Rogers Jr., Evolution of a Federalist: William Loughton Smith of Charleston (1758–1812), Columbia, S.C., 1962.
A word is missing in the MS.
For the events alluded to, see Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, ed. Mayo, 3:171 ff.; Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, 1763–1776, New York, 1918, ch. 4.