John Quincy Adams to John Thaxter

St: Petersbourg September 8/19 1781

Sir

We arriv'd here the 16th of August old stile, (which is universally used yet, all over this Country;) having left Berlin, the 2d. of the same month, new stile, and rode the whole way, day and night, stopping only at the principal towns which lay in our way, viz: at Dantzic, three days, at Konigsberg, one, at Memel, one night, at Riga, four days, and at Narva, two: between these places, which are distant from one another, from one to four hundred English Miles there is hardly a Village to be seen. The whole route from Berlin here may be call'd a barren desart; and except for a few places in Pomerania, Courland and Livonia, the road is pretty much like that between Bayonne and Bordeaux.

When

 

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Adams, John Quincy. Letter to John Thaxter, September 8/19, 1781. Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society. Published in Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 4: October 1780 - September 1782 (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1973). Page 214.

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