Adams Family Correspondence, volume 13
We Stopped at the Governors to take Leave and he told Us the News
of last night, which has regaled Us on the Road.1 We watered at Watertown and reached this Inn
at half after one.2 We hope to reach
Williams’s at Marlborough, and Sleep there this night. I strive to divert the
melancholly thoughts of our Seperation, and pray you to do the Same. Mrs Smith I hope will keep Up her Spirits and the Sprightly
charming Caroline will be a cordial to you both. William is very good attentive and
obliging and sister may make herself easy on his Account. He will do very well. I pray
God to bless you all and restore you to your full strength and Spirits. But you must
ride a little every day.
I am your ever affectionate
I wish Mr Porter to cart the Manure
from the yard up the Hill, for planting next Spring, as soon as possible.4
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A.”
JA and William Smith Shaw departed Quincy on the
12th for Philadelphia. After stops in Eastchester, N.Y., and New York City, they
arrived in Philadelphia on 23 November. While visiting Gov. Increase Sumner,
JA learned of Rear Adm. Horatio Nelson’s defeat of Napoleon at the
Battle of the Nile. Rumors of Nelson’s victory were reported in the Boston press
throughout mid-October and confirmed in Russell’s
Gazette, 12 Nov.: “Anticipation has proved the
precursor of Truth :— FOR BUONAPARTE HAS BEEN DEFEATED BY
THE ARABS;—AND HIS FLEET CAPTURED BY ADMIRAL NELSON” (Boston Russell’s Gazette, 15, 18, 22 Oct., 15 Nov.;
JA to AA, [22] Nov.; Shaw to AA, 25 Nov., both below).
John Flagg (1731–1809) was the proprietor of Flagg’s Tavern in
Weston, Mass. (D. Hamilton Hurd, comp., History of Middlesex
County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and
Prominent Men, 3 vols., Phila., 1890, 1:504; Boston
Commercial Gazette, 16 Jan. 1809).
JA wrote a second letter to AA of the same date, reporting his arrival at George Williams’ tavern in Marlborough, Mass., after socializing with several acquaintances, who inquired after AA’s health. He also discussed Nelson’s victory in Egypt and Joseph Bradley Varnum’s reelection to Congress (Adams Papers).
The postscript was written vertically in the left margin.