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Note on the text:

John Thaxter is JQA's schoolmaster from Massachusetts; he accompanies the Adamses on their second voyage to Europe.
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When we left Prussia we entered into the province of Courland, which belongs to Poland, here all the Farmers are in the greatest slavery imaginable, their masters having the right of life and death over them, which they have not in Russia, tho' the common people are all Slaves.

The city of Petersbourg is the finest I ever saw, it is by far superior to Paris, both for the breadth of its streets, and the elegance of the private buildings, which are for the most part made of brick, and plastered over in imitation of Stone; but the police of the city is very bad, for almost every night, we hear of some robbery or murder committed.

As to the climate, the season is not yet far enough advanced for us to be able to form a judgement about it, but as yet, we don't find that it is colder here than it is in our country at this time; they

have

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.