You will find in your Fathers Library, the Works of Mr. Hobbes, in which among a great deal of mischievous Philosophy, you will find a learned and exact Translation of Thucidides, which will be usefull to you.

But there is another Translation of him, much more elegant, intituled "The History of the Peloponnesian War, translated from the Greek of Thucidides in two Volumes Quarto, by William Smith A.M. Rector of the Parish of the holy Trinity in Chester, and Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl of Derby."

If you preserve this Letter, it may hereafter remind you, to procure the Book.

You will find it full of Instruction to the Orator, the Statesman, the General, as well as to the Historian and the Philosopher. You may find Something of the Peloponnesian War, in Rollin.

I am with much Affection your Father,

John Adams

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Adams, John. Letter to John Quincy Adams, August 11, 1777. Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society. Published in Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 2: June 1776 - March 1778 (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963). Pages 307-308.

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