Adams Family Correspondence, volume 13

Abigail Adams to John Adams

Abigail Adams to John Adams

433 John Adams to Abigail Adams, 7 March 1799 Adams, John Adams, Abigail
John Adams to Abigail Adams
My dearest Friend Phyl. March 7. 1799

I have been so overwhelmed with Business at the Close of the session of Congress and Since, that I have not been able to write you for several Days.

Mr Grove desired me to tell you that Mr William Smith your Nephew is married to a very amiable young Lady the Daughter of a rich Father.1 What he means by a rich Father I dont know.— I congratulate you & Louisa on this Event.

I cannot Say whether I shall see you in March. I have much to do. but neither a sense of Duty nor the feelings of Inclination will be wanting to induce me to see you at Quincy as soon as possible.— I shall not go to Washington.— I cannot.

I am grieved and mourn for your Confinement.— In the Spring I will run about with you and in the fall bring you again to Phyladelphia.

You will have News enough without my giving you the trouble to read them in my scrawls. Yours ever

J. A

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A”; docketed: “J A to A A March 7 / 1799.”

1.

The Boston Columbian Centinel, 27 Feb., reported the marriage of William Smith and Sarah Jane Mallett in Fayetteville, N.C. Mallett’s father, Peter Mallett Jr. (1744–1805), was a successful merchant (vol. 11:362; William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., 1979–1996, 4:205–206).