Adams Family Correspondence, volume 11
I recd Yesterday together your Letters of the 28. 29. and 30th of January.
It is impossible for me to give any Directions about our affairs at Quincy. I shall be hurried here with Business and Ceremony. I like your Plan to get Mears but fear he will not agree to it.
When you come here I hope you will bring all the Women you want. I would not have any other than N. England Women in the House on any Account. Why cant Becky and Betcy too come here.
But I can determine nothing, untill the H. of Representatives Shall determine— I cannot even receive the Furniture belonging to the Public, without their Act.1 If I have an House to furnish—I will have no House before next December, if then. I will live at Lodgings at Francis’s Hotel.
The Governors Retirement does him Honour. I wish I could retire too: but it is now too late. I am in the Cage and cant get out as yet. The Examination is to be tomorrow after which We shall soon see what turn Things are to take.
I am with the tenderest Affection yours / & only yours forever
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A”; endorsed: “Feb’ry 7th / 1797.”
On 2 March George Washington signed an act appropriating $14,000 “for the accommodation of the household” of the president and authorizing the sale of presidential furnishings that were “decayed and out of repair” (U.S. Senate, Jour., 4th Cong., 2d sess., p. 343;
Annals of Congress, 4th Cong., 2d sess., p. 2307–2308).