Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
post2 September 1801
]1
I received your kind and Friendly Letter of the 2d, and beg you to accept my thanks for your kind invitation to your Hospitable Mansion. I know not any Visit from which I could promise my self more pleasure “from Friends of more than 20 summers ripening grow not thick on every Bow,”2 Friends whom no change of political Sentiments have warped, nor party Spirit deluded—
I have frequently inquired after you Since my return and was sure You went a Route quite distant from Quincy or we should have seen you here; where you would have found Your old Friends attending to the buisness of Farming, enjoying a tranquility undisturbed by the responsibility of Public Life, having neither addresses or Remonstresse to reply to, nor paying any Homage but to the Great Ruler of the Universe by whom Kings Reign and Presidents, should decree justice.
I dare not promise you My dear Madam that I shall make you the visit I so much wish to, yet Should I see two or three days when I can absent my self from Home with Louissa who is equally desirious of paying you her Respects I really feel as tho I would strive to. I have been very unwell this very warm weather with a return of the old fever, but through the Summer I have had better Health than formerly, but whether I accomplish my wishes or not be assured my dear Madam that it will afford both to mr Adams and myself the highest gratification to see the good judge and yourself at Quincy. I heard his old Friend express a wish a few days since, that the judge might live to the Age of His Father and retain in vigor the office he now sustains, for mo[re] than ever is it of concequence that no unclean thing be admitted amongst the Sons of God3
if the fountain of Justice should become impure, our only Sheet Anchor is gone—
my Sincere Regards to the judge and affectionate attachment to you both / I am your Friend
Dft (Adams
Papers); notation by CFA: “Copy. Mrs
Cushing.” and “1801.” Some loss of text due to a torn manuscript.
The dating of this letter is based on Cushing’s letter to AA of 2 Sept., in which she praised William Cranch’s appointment to the federal judiciary and commented on the consequences of the presidential election of 1800, noting that William Cushing was “done with Politicks.” She also wrote that she hoped to visit Quincy in October (Adams Papers).
A conflation of Edward Young, The
Complaint; or, Night Thoughts, Night II, lines 563, 586.
AA was quoting 2 Corinthians, 6:17, in referring to
William Cushing’s father, John Cushing (b. 1695), who died on 19 March 1778 at the age
of 82 (Lemuel Cushing, The Genealogy of the Cushing
Family, Montreal, Canada, 1877, p. 21, 31).
dSepr 1801
In our absence from home, you was so obliging as to address a
line to Mrs Gerry, which she has desired me to
acknowledge, & to inform you, that in leiu of the first volume of Wraxall, that of
Volneys travels was by mistake enclosed to her. this is sent to Mr Smiths, & if the volume of Wraxall should be sent
there, or at Mrs Catharine Davis’ in tremont Street, I
will order my servant to call for it.1
please to present our best respects to the President, accept them
yourself, & be assured I remain dear Madam With the highest esteem your friend,
& / very huml sert
at N. York we had the pleasure of frequently seeing Colo & Mrs Smith: whose absence
the day before we left it prevented our receiving their orders for their friends
here—
RC (Adams
Papers); internal address: “Mrs Adams—”; endorsed:
“Mr Gerrys / Rect Sepbr 3d.”
AA’s letter to Ann Thompson Gerry has not been found
but was intended to accompany the first volume of Nathaniel William Wraxall’s Memoirs of the Courts of Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw, and
Vienna, 2 vols., London, 1799, rather than one of Constantin François Volney’s
Travels through Egypt and Syria, 2 vols., N.Y., 1798,
Evans, No. 34949, a copy of which
is in JA’s library at MB.
Boston shopkeeper Catharine Davis (1742–1805) was a distant cousin of
AA’s through the Quincy family. She was also connected to the Gerry
family through marriage (
Catalogue of JA’s Library
;
Boston
Directory
, 1800, p. 36, Evans, No. 37024; New-England Palladium, 17
July; Barrett Wendell, “A Gentlewoman of Boston, 1742–1805,” Amer. Antiq. Soc., Procs.
,
29:242, 243, 248 [Oct. 1919]).
r:1801.
After a passage of 58 days from Hamburg we have this day landed here, where we purpose to stay five or six days— My wife will then go to spend a few weeks with her parents at Washington, and I shall 117 hasten towards Quincy where I hope within three weeks to present myself before you—1 Her health though yet very infirm is better than we could have expected, and your little Grandson is as hearty as any sailor of his age that ever cross’d the ocean.
My brother Thomas is with us, and we have so much to say to each other that I have scarcely been able to snatch a minute to inform you of our arrival, and to renew the assurance of our ever faithful and dutiful affection
RC (Adams
Papers); internal address: “J. Adams Esqr.”
The ship America, Capt. Wills,
carrying JQA, LCA, and GWA, arrived on 4 Sept.
in Philadelphia, where they were reunited with TBA, who had booked
accommodation for them in Martha Roberts’ boardinghouse. The trio’s arrival was
reported in the Philadelphia Gazette of the United
States, 4 Sept., and other city newspapers. JQA and LCA
parted on 12 Sept., with LCA and GWA leaving for Washington,
D.C., to visit the Johnsons and JQA departing for Quincy.
JQA was reunited with AA2 in Newark, N.J., the following
day and on 14 Sept. they traveled to New York City, where they saw WSS.
JQA departed New York aboard the packet Fame, Capt. Justin, on 18 Sept., landing at Newport, R.I., on the 19th. The
next day he secured passage to Providence, R.I., “in a trading sloop, from Albany.” On
the 21st he took the stage to Boston and a chaise to Quincy, where he was reunited
with JA and AA. AA wrote to Catherine Nuth
Johnson on 21 Sept. (Adams Papers) for the
purpose of “expressing to you the joy and thankfullness I feel at the Safe return of
our dear Children to their Families and Friends. I hope e’er this reaches you that you
have folded to your Bosom, Your long absent Daughter, and the dear Boy for whom She
had So Severely Sufferd” (vol. 13:470, 471; Philadelphia Gazette, 4 Sept.; Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser, 5 Sept.;
D/JQA/24, APM
Reel 27; LCA, D&A
, 1:157–158, 2:779–780).