Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
ante8 March 1802
]1
Richard has just brought me your note and I am very happy to hear
you are all well.2 Betsys Mother must
be mistaken as to her having had the Measles as she is now confined to her room which
we hope she will leave tomorrow she has had them very favorably and at her age I think
it a happy thing to have got through the disorder3 George we expect will have them next Sunday it
is unfortunate as he has four more teeth almost through from which he appears to
suffer though not very much I think he will go alone in another month if the measles
should not weaken him too much I am very unwell myself I believe this damp weather
does not suit me Mr. Adams is very well Epps is to be
married the 24th she requests you to let Becky and Richard
come to town on the occasion she has got a couple of chambers and intends to try the
mantua making business should you be able to recommend her both me and herself will me
much obliged to you—4
Mr. Adams is not at home therefore I
cannot let him know about the horse but as we expect George will be sick on Sunday I
do not think he will be able to accept your
go
remember me affectionately dear Madam to the President / and believe me your very affectionate daughter
Should you be able to recommend me a cook I would be very much obliged to you I do not mean to part with Betsy
RC (Adams
Papers); addressed: “Mrs: Adams.”
The dating of this letter is based on AA’s 8 March reply, below.
Not found.
Genealogical Memoir of
the Newcomb Family, Elgin, Ill., 1874, p. 458, 459; Genealogical Memoir of the Newcomb
Family, Elgin, Ill., 1874, p. 476; Sprague, Braintree Families;
LCA’s and JQA’s servants, Elizabeth
Epps 184 and Tilly Whitcomb, married on 24 March.
LCA later commented of Epps, “She was a dreadful loss to me, which
although I have had many kind and good Servants, never has been replaced”
(D/JQA/24, APM Reel 27; LCA, D&A
, 1:166,
169).
th1802
The Mountains have vanished, and the ground is again bare in most places. the roads are excessive rough, and the weather uncommonly cold for March. I hope it will Soften & the Roads become Smoother, before Saturday when I shall send in the carriage for you. I do not think that George will have the Measles.
I thought that Eepps Voyage to England, would end in a matrimonial
engagement in Boston I wish her much happiness and Satisfaction. Whitcomb, & she Epps [ha]ve lived long enough together to know
each others tempers dispositions & habits; and have the better chance for
accommodating their tempers to each other. I hope they will meet with encouragement and
Success.
as to finding you a cook in this place, I have not the least chance; We have not any such persons; I cannot find one for myself— I might find you a young Girl of ten or Eleven years old capable of attending George & running after him now he has got so large. and You might find it convenient to keep Betsy in the cooks place, and take a Girl who under Lyda might attend George1 You will judge of this yourself— I want to have George come up I am affraid he will forget us:
affectionatly Yours
RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “Mrs Louissa Adams / Boston.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed.
JQA and LCA hired Lydia Pray (ca.
1784–1864) as a servant in Dec. 1801 at the rate of $1 per week (LCA, D&A
, 1:163; Boston Daily
Advertiser, 4 Aug. 1864; M/JQA/11, APM Reel 208).
We feel, my dear Sir the Want of your Society on sundays and hope
the Weather and Roads will soon bless us with it. Never at the Age of 18 when I was a
great Reader and Admirer of Tragedies did I take more pleasure in them, than I have
lately in Reading La Harps […]ent of Corneille Racine Voltaire Moliere La Fontaine
&c1 did not mean to express a Wish
that you should make a serious study of Greek & Italian at present: But Dr Kippis’s method of reading a few 185 Paragraphs every day, if it were only a Part of a Chapter in the New Testament would
keep alive what you have.2 Your
Professional Learning will soon come. I am delighted with your Experiments. hope you
will state them in Writing and communicate them to the Accademy.3 For myself I never was more busy. I am impatient
to read La Harp’s History of the Resurrection of Epicureanism in the 18 Cent.— Oh! how I
enjoyed his basting of Diderot.4
My Love to yours
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “J. Q. Adams Esq.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed.
Jean François de La Harpe offered critiques of the literature of
Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Voltaire, Molière, and Jean de La Fontaine in his Lycée; ou, Cours de littérature ancienne et moderne. He
devoted more than a volume to Voltaire’s tragedies and detailed analyses of Racine’s
tragedies to show that love was unfairly characterized as a weakness by Corneille.
JA’s translations of passages from Lycée
on Racine and Voltaire are in the Adams Papers (M/JA/9, APM Reel 188) (Andrew Hunwick, “La Harpe:
The Forgotten Critic,” The Modern Language Review,
67:287–288 [April 1972]).
That is, Rev. Andrew Kippis, whom the Adamses had known in London
(vol. 7:155, 156; JA, Papers
, 20:169).
JQA wrote to JA on 2 March (Adams Papers) stating his aspirations to gain “a familiar and intimate acquaintance” with Greek and Italian but noting that his time was “engrossed by the pursuit of professional learning.” JQA also wrote that he and members of the Society for the Study of Natural Philosophy were engaged in electrical experiments on positive-negative attraction. Those experiments took place weekly between February and May, and on 19 March JQA lectured “on the subject of the electrical spark” (D/JQA/24, 9, 12, 18 Feb., 5, 12, 19, 26 March, 2, 9, 23, 30 April, 7 May, APM Reel 27).
La Harpe, in his profiles of classical figures in the early
volumes of Lycée; ou, Cours de littérature ancienne et
moderne, criticized Denis Diderot’s treatment of Seneca as “pêle-mêle” and
lacking precision and exactitude (vol. 3, part 2, p. 161–167, 261–268, 303–309,
327–345). In the volumes on eighteenth-century philosophers that were published in
1804 and 1805, for which see
JA to JQA, [Feb.
1802], above, La Harpe questioned Diderot’s morals and blamed him in part
for the excesses of the French Revolution, dedicating more pages to him than to any
other philosopher (R. N. C. Coe, “The Fortunes of the Code de
la Nature between 1755 and 1848,” French Studies,
11:119, 120 [April 1957]).
JQA wrote to JA on 22 March, enclosing
a 12 Jan. letter from Rufus King to JA and accompanying documents that
discussed King’s negotiations regarding British depredations on U.S. shipping (both
Adams Papers). JQA wrote
again on 4 April (private owner, 2009), first letter, updating JA on his
accounts with Wilhem & Jan Willink and asking his father about his participation
in a 1777 maritime case in New Hampshire (JA, Legal Papers
, 2:378–395). JA
replied on 6 April 1802, confirming his participation (CSmH).