This is a draft copy of a letter dated March 1846, from John Quincy Adams to Joseph Sturge, an English philanthropist and abolitionist who had visited the United States five years earlier. On page 3 of this letter, the 78-year-old Adams, recalls events that occurred near Boston in 1775, when he was eight years old. Adams was living in Braintree and recalls seeing Charlestown burn in the distance on 17 June 1775, during the Battle of Bunker Hill.