Adams Family Correspondence, volume 12
The Congress have passed the Law allowing 14,000 d to purchase furniture. The State Legislature have done nothing about their new House: so that I shall take the House the President is in, at a 1000£ or 2700 dollars rent, nothing better can be done.1
Mr Jefferson arrived Yesterday and came to visit me in the Evening.
Tomorrow will be a worse day than the 8th. of Feb. was. We are to take the oaths. and P. Washington Says he will be there.
8I shall purchase little furniture, before you come or give directions. All the World are of opinion that it is best for you not to come till next fall. I will go to you as Soon as I can but that is uncertain.
We shall be put to great difficulty to live and that in not one third the Style of Washington.
Mr Malcom Charles’s Clerk is with me as a private Secretary.
Oh how I long to go and see you I am with everduring and never ending affection your
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A.”
In 1791 the Pennsylvania legislature, in an attempt to keep the federal capital in Philadelphia, authorized the construction of a presidential mansion. Located on Ninth Street between Chestnut and Market Streets, the building was completed by the spring of 1797, and after the legislature failed to pass a bill offering the property to Congress, Gov. Thomas Mifflin wrote to JA on 3 March (Adams Papers) offering the house at a rent “for which you might obtain any other suitable House in Philadelphia.” Replying the same day (PHi: Ferdinand J. Dreer Autograph Coll.), JA declined the offer, citing “great doubts whether by a candid Construction of the Constitution of the United States, I am at Liberty, to Accept it without the Intervention and Authority of Congress.” Mifflin submitted this correspondence to the legislature on 8 March recommending it “designate some other use to which the building may be applied.” It was also published in the Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 10 March. Ultimately, the state senate authorized the sale of the property, and it was purchased in 1800 by the University of Pennsylvania (Dennis C. Kurjack, “The ‘President’s House’ in Philadelphia,” Pennsylvania History, 20:380, 382, 384, 389–390, 393–394 [Oct. 1953]; Journal of the Senate of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Commencing on Tuesday, the Sixth Day of December, in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety-Six, Phila., 1796, p. 141, 145, 186–187, 229, Evans, No. 32653; Journal of the First Session of the Seventh House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which Commenced at Philadelphia, on Tuesday, the Sixth Day of December, in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety-Six, Phila., 1797, p. 224, 233–234, 238, 240, 246, 281–282, Evans, No. 32651).
th1797
I received yesterday your obliging favour of Feb’ry 27th.1 I have been so little a favorite of fortune, that I never once examined my Numbers by the News papers, or otherways, concluding that those who were equally interested would take proper care for me. as I had formd no expectations, I meet with no dissapointment, and am quite pleased that my adventure should be appropriated to the promotion of Science and Literature.
The few shillings in your hands be so kind as to lay out, in the purchase of some little Books, and present them for me, to the Lovely Marcia as a token of approbation for the Sweet engageing simplicity of manners, which were so conspicuous in her.2
9For your Congratulations upon a late important event, accept my acknowledgments, considering it as the voluntary and unsolicited Gift, of a Free and enlightned people. it is a precious and valuable Deposit, and calls for every exertion of the Head, and every virtue of the Heart, to do justice to so sacred a Trust. Yet however pure the intentions, or upright the conduct, offences will come.3
As to a Crown my Dear Madam I will not deny, that there is one which I asspire after, and in a Country where envy can never enter to plant Thorns beneath it. the fashion of this world passeth away, I would hope that I have not lived in vain, but have learned how to estimate, and what value to place upon the fleeting and transitory enjoyments of it.
I shall esteem myself peculiarly fortunate, if at the close of my publick Life, I can retire, esteemed beloved and equally respected with my predecessor.5
Old Friends can never be forgotten by me. in that number I have long been accustomed to consider the Gen’ll and Mrs Warren. it will always give me pleasure to see them at Peace Field, or where ever else, they may meet, their Friend and Humble Servant,
RC (MHi:Warren-Adams Papers); endorsed: “Mrs. Adams. / March 1797 / No. 18.” FC (Adams Papers). Dft (Adams Papers).
For Warren’s letter to AA and the latter’s success in the Harvard College Lottery, see vol. 11:576–577.
That is, Warren’s granddaughter, Marcia Otis Warren, for whom see same, 11:404.
In the Dft, AA wrote and then canceled here, “and the more elevated the station, the more conspicious the mark for the darts of envy and Jealousy—”
Edward Young, Love of Fame, the Universal Passion, Satire I, line 237.
The Dft ends at this point.