Adams Family Correspondence, volume 14
th[
1799]
I rejoice in the fine weather you have had. accounts from
N york & Philadelphia are rather unfavourable, but I hope Frosts will
make the city fit for Breathing by Nov’br
1 I shall sit out on Wednesday
the 9th for several reasons. in the first place, I shall avoid the parade of
the 10th which would be very inconvenient, as I wish to put my House in
order to leave it. in the next place Mr & Mrs otis will wait for me at
Westtown, where they go this week—& proposed leaving on Wednesday next.
it will be pleasenter to me to have some gentleman in company, and Mrs otis
is next to a Sister; So you need not feel anxious about me—2
The Leiut Goveneur is to
Breakfast with Me on monday morning on his way to Plimouth— o how Mortified
he was, that you was at westtown & he to know nothing of it untill you
were gone. he is much delighted with his Tour & his Reviews,
particuliarly in the counties of Berkshire which he speaks of in terms of
Rapture—3
I inclose Some Letters received Since your absence4 Love to William
yours affectionatly
RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “President of United states / Trentown.”
The Boston Russell’s
Gazette, 3 Oct., reported nine recent yellow fever deaths in
New York and 55 in Philadelphia.
AA departed Quincy on 9 Oct. and
traveled in the company of Samuel Allyne Otis Sr. and Mary Smith Gray
Otis. After visiting AA2 in Eastchester, N.Y., she arrived
in Trenton, N.J., on 7 Nov. and on the 8th traveled to 3 Philadelphia with JA
(vol. 13:551;
AA to
JA, 13 Oct.; to Mary Smith Cranch, 15
Nov., both below; Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser, 14 Nov.).
Lt. Gov. Moses Gill became the acting governor of
Massachusetts upon the death of Gov. Increase Sumner in June. Gill had
visited western Massachusetts as part of a statewide review of militias.
He continued with an 8 Oct. inspection of Plymouth County troops and, as
AA noted, a 10 Oct. militia review at Milton. On 10
Jan. 1800 Gill informed the Mass. General Court that the commonwealth’s
militias were in good order (vol. 13:xiv; Massachusetts
Spy, 9 Oct. 1799; New Bedford, Mass., Medley, 20 Sept.; Boston Columbian
Centinel, 9 Oct.; Mass., Acts and
Laws
, 1798–1799, p. 643–644).
Possibly TBA’s letter to JA of 26 Sept., for which see vol. 13:563–565, or letters to JA of the 26th from Oliver Ellsworth and Elbridge Gerry and of the 27th from Gen. James Wilkinson (all Adams Papers).
AA wrote JA a second letter from Quincy on 5 Oct., forwarding additional letters received by the morning post and reporting that servant James was ill (Adams Papers).