Papers of John Adams, volume 20
I cannot give up my dear Latin and Greek although Fortune has never
permitted me to enjoy so much of them as I wished.— I dont love you the less however for
your Indifference or even Opposition to them. Pray do you carry your Theory so far as to
wish to exclude French Italian, Spanish and Tudesque?— I begun to fear that your
multiplied phisical and other Engagements had made You forget me— But am much obliged to
you for introducing Mr Andrew Brown, to whom I wish
success.—1 I congratulate You, on the
Prospect of a new Constitution for Pensilvania.—2 Poor France I fear will bleed, for too exactly
copying your old one.
When I See Such miserable Crudities approved by Such Men as Rochefaucault & Condorcet I am disposed to think very humbly of human Understanding. Experience is lost on poor Mankind! O how I pitty them without being able to help them.
Write me when you can
Yours &c
RC (NN:Harkness Coll.); internal address: “Dr
Rush.”
Rush wrote to JA on 26 Jan. to recommend printer
Andrew Brown, publisher of the Philadelphia Gazette, who
had been “very instrumental . . . in circulating federal sentiments thro’
our state” (Adams Papers). Brown
(ca. 1744–1797), originally from Ireland, opened a “young ladies’ academy” in
Lancaster, Penn., that was “more liberal than had before been contemplated in this
country” (New York Diary, 16 Feb. 1797).
For the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1790, see Rush’s reply of 12 Feb., and note 2, below.