Adams Family Correspondence, volume 12
I received an hour ago your Letters of the 22d and 27th. I have been anxious enough for you since I saw the proclamation. I advised you to take for your cough Rhubarb & calomil. do not omit it, but take it immediatly. it will serve You for the complaint which usually afflicts you in the spring as well as for your cough.1 I will obey the summons as soon as possible but there are many arrangements to make, or deliver all up to destruction, at once. I Shall endeavour to send mrs Brisler on first by the Stage with her Children. I will See her tomorrow, and consult with her about it. I must find a Family which I can place here.
I expected you would find every thing in disorder in the House, tho not so bad as you represent— I have as I wrote you, had three
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hundred Dollors, of Gen’ll Lincoln for the purposes mentiond, and one Hundred more I was obliged to take, to enable me to pay my Labourers as I went on; O I had got a going so cleverly. Billings will compleat his circle of Wall in two days more, and it is a Beauty, Stutson in the Garden, and Tirril and Bracket have been carting manure & plowing. I had employd Pratt to compleat and finish a cart begun by Billings. it is Done and painted. I had got new ploughs and tools, and a Man to come next week, for the season. I expected to have got all things in order for your reception when you should be able to return to the Domestick joys of Peace Feild.
All these pleasing Ideas must yeald to new arrangements. I will do the best I can and come as soon as I can. I write this now only to assure you that I shall tomorrow take some measures for executing the system proposed
Yours most affectionatly
th
I hope to get this Letter in early enough for the post. I have been in Bed it is true but the multitude of my Thoughts have allowd me but a small portion of sleep. I am determined to feel as little Despondency as possible. the situation of poor mary Smith dejects all our spirits. I do not know by your Letter whether to send on all my Domesticks or whether I may hope to return in the summer this is a very incoherent jumble.
I will write again when my thoughts are more collected two Days past have been very oppressive with heat. I am told that most minds are prepared for any measure consistant with the honour and Dignity of the Country, that they have not a mind like Israel Asses to crunch beneath two burdens—2
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Mrs A. April 6. & 7. / ansd. 14. 1797.”
Rhubarb and calomel were purgatives and considered effective treatments for some intestinal disorders (Buchan, Domestic Medicine
, p. 215, 239, 267–268).
“Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens” (Genesis, 49:14).
I recd. to day your favour of March 29th. I write you every Post day and send my Letter to the office. If they do not come regularly to you it must be owing to the office.
It would hurt me to refuse the request of my Nephew Elisha Adams: but you gave him and his Mother all the Answer in your Power. If Dr Tufts has any Money of mine in his hands, I should be glad if he would Supply my Nephew and take his Security. I never was in greater Straits for money in my Life, than at this time. I know not how to get along and expect to be obliged to borrow at the bank. But it is in vain to talk to the People about these Things
I want Physick and I want Exercise: but I want your assistance more than either. You must come and leave the Place to the mercy of Winds.
I will let them, the Places all out next Year for what they will fetch in money. reserving the house and Garden.
You must come here and see, before you will have an Idea of the, continual Application to Business, to which I am called. I should not have believed it possible for my Eyes to have read the Papers which are brought me every day and every hour of the day. I wonder not that my Predecessor was weary.
Adets Visit was not in a public Capacity. He solicited a private Interview and I consented. The Purport was to clear up his Character. But it was of no Consequence.— I shall not write about it. He is now soliciting Permission to call on me to take Leave before his Departure. It is hardly consistent to grant it— But I wont make difficulties & give them handles about such Trifles—dont mention this.1
You must come, at all Events and leave the Place as you can—nay if you leave it common and bring Mrs Brisler & her Children. You must hire Horses as I wrote you. tell Louisa We shall have a pretty Chamber for her. she will have the honour of sleeping & dressing and reading & writing in no less an Apartment than that in which the celebrated Washington transacted all the Business of the Govt. But this must not be whispered. it will be tho’t too irreverent.
On the 4th. I inclosed a Post note for 600— make the best bargain you can for Horses.— You must go for the Hot months to East Chester, and keep your Horses at the Tavern & pay for your board—and I must go to the Feoderal City2—that must be my farm in future: and I shall have as much more plague as less Pleasure, in it, than I had in the Quincy farm. You must get my Brother to board Billlngs— But I believe you must get Mears at least for this summer. I am determined not to be perplexed with Farms. Dr Tufts may Let all but the House for a Rent or upon shares or any Way.
Come away and leave it to Chance. My Duty to my Mother & love to my Brother and Neighbours and friends. it would give me 64 great Pleasure to see them— But I fear it will not be possible this Year.
Cousin Boylston was in the right.— My farm would give me more Pleasure in a Week than my office in four Years— Except that all the Pleasure of Life that is solid consists in doing ones duty. You invite me to write and you must take such Trash and I can write without thinking.
Yet I think a great deal about you— I wish I could come to escort you but that is impossible.
affectionately
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A.”
In her letter to JA of 29 March (Adams Papers), AA reported that rumors of a meeting between JA and Pierre Auguste Adet were causing a stir in Boston. The meeting had taken place on 14 March at Adet’s request (Adet to JA, 13 March, Adams Papers; JA to Adet, 13 March, LbC, APM Reel 117). There is no mention of a second meeting in JA’s correspondence.
JA did not visit Washington, D.C., at this time. He and AA did visit AA2 at Eastchester, N.Y., in July but only for a few days while en route to Quincy (AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 21, 29 July, both below). A more extended visit with AA2 did not occur until the fall, for which see AA to Mercy Otis Warren, 1 Oct., and note 2, below.
JA also wrote to AA the previous day repeating many of the comments made here but also explaining that his desire to know “what Criticisms are made, upon my little harrangues” stemmed from a need to gauge public opinion accurately (Adams Papers).