Adams Papers Digital Edition

Adams Family Correspondence, volume 3

Abigail Adams to Charles Adams

Abigail Adams to Oliver Wendell
John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 19 January 1780 JQA AA

1780-01-19

 John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 19 January 1780 Adams, John Quincy Adams, Abigail
John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams
Hond. Mamma Bilbao Jay. the 19th 1780

I can never keep my pen out of my hand when ever there is an oportunity of writing and as there is one now by a Captn. Lovett I will make the best of it.

I am Sorry to inform you that the Jason and Monmouth are taken and Manly for a third time is in a british prison but you very probably will have heard of this before this reaches you but what more than makes up for it is that there are 50,000 Men in arms in Ireland all united in the generous intention of freeing themselves from the yoke of that Tyrant George the 3d.

271

We are anxious about the Confederacy having heard nothing of her Since we Left America.1 The last papers from France mention nothing of her arrival but I must conclude in Subscribing myself your most dutiful Son,

John Quincy Adams

PS Excuse the writing I being a little unwell and not having a very good pen.

RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “To Mrs. Adams Braintree near Boston”; endorsed: “J Q Adams 19 Jan 1780.”

1.

The Continental frigate Confederacy, Capt. Seth Harding, had sailed from the Delaware late in October bound for France, with C. A. Gérard, Mme. Gérard, John Jay, and Mrs. Jay among the passengers. Eleven hundred miles at sea it was dismasted in a storm but managed to creep into St. Pierre, Martinique, in mid-December, whence the diplomats took passage in a French vessel. See Morris, Peacemakers , p. 1–6.