Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
You will be so anxious to hear the state of your mother’s health that I cannot forbear writing you a line— Since I wrote you last no material change has taken place— The danger has not apparently increased, neither can we flatter ourselves that it has diminished— Her pain is not so severe as it was, and she has now little fever; but her weakness is the most formidable symptom— She has little or no expectation of her own recovery, but her spirits have sunk with her strength— Yet none of us dare indulge hopes— We can but wish and pray for the best.
She directs me to remind you of the advice she gave you in her last Letter, and to say she repeats it now—1 The subject is such however, as being confidential from you to her, she has not thought herself at liberty to explain to me— I shall wait your own time for the explanation, well aware that as confidence is a sacred trust when bestowed, it ought not lightly to be sollicited.
We are in hourly expectation of the arrival of your sister Smith, who left New-York to come here, this day week— Your mother is apprehensive she has been detained at Newport, and is anxiously desirous to see her.
In the present State of things, I am unable to employ much of my time, in your service— But I have three Articles, enough to supply my customary contribution for six weeks, ready for delivery when an 300 opportunity for conveyance shall present itself.— I have written nothing these three weeks, for a heavy heart dams up all the fountains of the muses— When lord Lyttleton wrote his monody, he had lost his affliction; unless it was all poetical fiction.2
I did not close my letter last Night; that I might give you the account of your mother’s situation to the latest moment possible— She had last night some rest— But it was with the assistance of an opiate— There is no material change since yesterday—3 Last Evening your Sister Smith arrived, after a detention of four days in quarantine at Newport.4
RC (Adams
Papers); endorsed: “J Q Adams Esqr: / 21—2—August
1803 / 26 Recd: / Ansd.”
AA to TBA, 20 June, above.
George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton, wrote his celebrated poem,
“To the Memory of a Lady Lately Deceased: A Monody,” after the death of his first
wife, Lucy Fortescue, Lady Lyttelton, on 19 Jan. 1747 (
DNB
).
Concern for AA prompted letters from Hannah Phillips Cushing and Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody. Cushing wrote to AA on 8 Aug. 1803, inquiring about her recovery, inviting her to visit, and reporting that the U.S. Circuit Court duties of her husband William would soon resume. In a letter of 15 Aug., Peabody asked about AA’s health, conveyed news of William Smith Shaw, and discussed local events (both Adams Papers).
AA2 was fleeing an outbreak of yellow fever in New
York that had killed 46 people since 17 August. Vessels arriving at Newport, R.I.,
from New York were subject to a quarantine of eight days from the date of their
departure, with passengers and crew restricted to disembarking at a health office
outside the city. AA2 likely sailed on one of three New York vessels
recently quarantined at Newport: the brig Harriot, Capt.
Earl; the sloop Ann & Sarah, Capt. Marshall; or the sloop Semiramis,
Capt. Justin. She remained in Quincy until 23 Oct. (Boston Columbian Centinel, 27 Aug.; Newport Rhode-Island
Republican, 20 Aug.; Newport Mercury, 9, 23 Aug.;
AA to
JQA, 22 Oct., below).
st:August 1803.
Your favour of the 24th: is before me,
and I most ardently hope the information respecting the prospect of my mother’s recovery
may not prove delusive.1 I expected a
letter from my brother by this day’s mail, but am disappointed. My suspence &
anxiety have been extreme for ten days past, and nothing but your letter, which assures
me, that my mother was considerably better, has relieved my distress. My brother’s last
letter left me hardly a ray of hope and I am yet fearful of having flattered myself too
much, that I may still have a mother living.2 I would have instantly set out for Quincy, on
the receipt of the first intelligence of her dangerous state, but the crisis of her
disorder seemed to be so near, that I had no expectation of being 301 able to reach home before it should bee too late. God grant, that my apprehensions
may not be realized.
You may readily conceive how troubled my spirit has been, when in
addition to the threatened calamity of my Mother’s death, I had to encounter the
impression of your’s also; for having read seen in
the New England Repertory, the death of William Shaw Esqr:
of Quincy, announced, without date or age, I believed, for a short time, that you must
be the person as I could recollect no other of that name in Quincy— I soon after the
first panick, remembered, that a Mr: Shaw had bought the
place of old Capt Beale and of course concluded to
fix that he was the person, whose death was reported.3
I thought that I had acknowledged the receipt of the note of hand
against Lt Cox— It came too late for me to take any steps to
enforce payment—the Philadelphia frigate, having gone down the River, a few days before,
with all the crew on board. Shall I retain or return the Note?4
I thank you for your attention to my friend—in sending your file of the P F— The punctuality, you have practised in forwarding my letters, has my thanks— I never doubted, that you had always availed yourself of the best & safest conveyance—
Present me kindly to all—the Mail will close in a quarter of an hour, or I would write more largely—
Your’s faithfully
RC (MWA:Adams Family Letters); addressed: “William S Shaw Esqr / Boston”; internal address: “W S Shaw Esqr”; endorsed: “Th B Adams—”
Not found.
JQA to TBA, 21 Aug., above.
The Newburyport New-England
Repertory, 20 Aug., reported the death, “at Charlemont, County of Hampshire,
William Shaw, Esq. of Quincy.” Shaw (b. 1756) was a
justice of the peace in Gouldsboro, Maine, before purchasing an eighty-acre Quincy
farm from Nathaniel Beale on 19 April 1799 (Sprague, Braintree Families
; “Francis Shaw and
Family,” Maine Historical Magazine, 7:94–95 [Oct.
1891]).
Shaw may have met Lt. John S. H. Cox of the U.S. frigate Philadelphia when the lieutenant was in Boston in April and
May 1803. Cox’s vessel later sailed to Delaware Bay, and he was probably among forty
seamen who were on leave in Philadelphia before the frigate departed for the
Mediterranean on 28 July (Philadelphia American Daily
Advertiser, 28 July; United States Office of Naval Records and Library, Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the
Barbary Powers, 6 vols., Washington, D.C., 1939–1944, 2:390–391, 405–406;
3:14–15).
TBA wrote to Shaw again on 25 Sept. (MHi:Misc. Bound Coll.), describing fears of yellow fever in Philadelphia and reporting on his court business. He also mentioned plans to see JQA as his brother traveled to Washington, D.C. TBA wrote again on 13 Oct. (MWA:Adams Family Letters), reporting that JQA and LCA were delayed in their travel by LCA’s illness and declaring a firm resolve to leave Philadelphia for Quincy.