Adams Family Correspondence, volume 3
1780-05-12
On the 10th. of this Month I had the pleasure of recieving Letters 340from Hingham dated in February, which informed me of the Health of all Friends at both my dear Homes. They contain the first News I have recieved of the Kind. They gave me Relief from a Burden of Anxiety I had been under respecting the Severity of the Winter there.
I have also Letters from Braintree, which inform me, that a Marriage (that most honorable and most happy of States on this Side that great Society above) is on foot between Miss B
Je vous prie, Madame, que vous voulez me faites de l'honneur presenter mes Respects a Madame C
Give me leave to intreat You, Madam, not to let any Eye run over this Scroll but yours—not even Miss Nabby's, who from her very inti-341mate Connection with Miss B.P. or Mrs. Cranch that it is now possibly, may mention these Observations to her; tho' perhaps with no Intention to injure me, yet it may have a contrary Effect, and it would give me pain to be the Occasion of ill will. You will oblige me much if You will be so good as to commit it to flames.
P.S. Tho' my Head and Heart have been for many years running upon Courtship and Matrimony, and more especially since the ten Years Affair, I had like to have forgot to enquire after the Weymouth Match. I wish it more success than I did another made there in the same House.2 Much Joy if married. What a miserable, forlorn Wretch I am, who have been fixed as Fate in my Affection and Choice for a long while, should be condemned to find the Grapes sour all my Life, whilst all my Cotemparies are settling down in Life in the most respectable and happy Connections. But so it is. But this is wild Talk, and perhaps there is more advanced than can be proved. I know not how it is. However no Body is the wiser or better for my affection, for nobody knows it but myself, and perhaps not even myself. I will rattle no longer. There is Jargon and Contradiction enough indeed in so few Lines.
See, however, Richard Cranch's letter to JA of 26 April, above, in which Nathaniel Cranch's sudden death is reported. The hints in Thaxter's “Observations” that follow are too cryptic for interpretation, although their general drift suggests that he had at one time considered himself, or been considered by others, a suitor for Betsy Palmer.
The editors have not identified the persons concerned in these two Weymouth matches.