Adams Family Correspondence, volume 3
1778-05-29
I having wrote to my Mamma Sister and Brother Charles2 it is my duty to write to you also for if I do not write to you how can I expect that you will write to me for which reason I write to you as often as I can as you must also to me. Providence my dear Brother has seperated us so that we cannot expect to see one another very soon but there is yet one consolation Left us which is that we are not deprived of the Liberty of writing to one another which we must do as often as we can. I am &c.
This is the first entry in a folio letterbook purchased by JA of “Cabaret, Marchand Papetier Ordinaire des Bureaux du Roy” (see note 1 on JA to AA, 3 June, below), and given to JQA, who entered copies of his letters in it, somewhat spasmodically, through 20 Feb. 1779. In Nov. 1779, being about to return to Europe on his second mission, JA took over the book, and hence it has been placed in the Adams Papers among his letterbooks as Lb/JA/8 (Microfilms, Reel No. 96). For JQA's diverting remarks on his earliest efforts to keep a letterbook under his father's tutelage, see JQA to AA, 27 Sept., below.
No letters from JQA to either his sister AA2 or his brother CA prior to this date have been found.