Adams Papers Digital Edition

Adams Family Correspondence, volume 13

268 John Adams to Abigail Adams, 12 November 1798 Adams, John Adams, Abigail
John Adams to Abigail Adams
My Dearest Friend Flaggs at Weston Nov. 12. 1798

We Stopped at the Governors to take Leave and he told Us the News of last night, which has regaled Us on the Road.1 We watered at Watertown and reached this Inn at half after one.2 We hope to reach Williams’s at Marlborough, and Sleep there this night. I strive to divert the melancholly thoughts of our Seperation, and pray you to do the Same. Mrs Smith I hope will keep Up her Spirits and the Sprightly charming Caroline will be a cordial to you both. William is very good attentive and obliging and sister may make herself easy on his Account. He will do very well. I pray God to bless you all and restore you to your full strength and Spirits. But you must ride a little every day.

I am your ever affectionate

J. A.3

I wish Mr Porter to cart the Manure from the yard up the Hill, for planting next Spring, as soon as possible.4

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A.”

 1.

JA and William Smith Shaw departed Quincy on the 12th for Philadelphia. After stops in Eastchester, N.Y., and New York City, they arrived in Philadelphia on 23 November. While visiting Gov. Increase Sumner, JA learned of Rear Adm. Horatio Nelson’s defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of the Nile. Rumors of Nelson’s victory were reported in the Boston press throughout mid-October and confirmed in Russell’s Gazette, 12 Nov.: “Anticipation has proved the precursor of Truth :— FOR BUONAPARTE HAS BEEN DEFEATED BY THE ARABS;—AND HIS FLEET CAPTURED BY ADMIRAL NELSON” (Boston Russell’s Gazette, 15, 18, 22 Oct., 15 Nov.; JA to AA, [22] Nov.; Shaw to AA, 25 Nov., both below).

 2.

John Flagg (1731–1809) was the proprietor of Flagg’s Tavern in Weston, Mass. (D. Hamilton Hurd, comp., History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, 3 vols., Phila., 1890, 1:504; Boston Commercial Gazette, 16 Jan. 1809).

 3.

JA wrote a second letter to AA of the same date, reporting his arrival at George Williams’ tavern in Marlborough, Mass., after socializing with several acquaintances, who inquired after AA’s health. He also discussed Nelson’s victory in Egypt and Joseph Bradley Varnum’s reelection to Congress (Adams Papers).

 4.

The postscript was written vertically in the left margin.

 Abigail Adams to John Adams, 13 November 1798 Adams, Abigail Adams, John
Abigail Adams to John Adams
My dearest Friend Quincy Novbr 13 1798

Mrs Smith appeard so anxious and unhappy tho She Said nothing, that seeing it, I advised her to follow you, & sent Michial to Town hoping she would overtake you tomorrow. she appeard so 269 rejoiced at the proposal, that in half an hour, she was gone. I hope She will overtake you by tomorrow night.

I slept well last night & tho I feel very low spirited, I shall strive to be [co]ntent. I will follow you when I am able if you want me, but must leave it to future contingencies. I congratulate you upon the News which is now thought Authentic of the Capture of the French Fleet by Nelson. I inclose you some Letters received to day. the contents of one of them will remain as tho it had never been seen by me— I think it however, uncandid & severe forgive me that I opend it.1 it was in hopes of finding a Letter from Brisler— mr storer being here on his return to Hingham, I request him to address them and put them into the post office for you to be sent to N york.

Mr Cranch remains very sick indeed the dr says— Love to William Shaw & to all who feel interested / in the happiness of your

A A

RC (Adams Papers). Some loss of text where the seal was removed.

 1.

AA presumably read Timothy Pickering’s private letter to JA of 5 Nov. (Adams Papers), in which the secretary of state refused to comply with JA’s request to publish a 20 Oct. letter from Elbridge Gerry. There, Gerry defended his actions in France as represented publicly by Pickering and others. JA, who had advocated publishing Gerry’s entire correspondence from France, thought printing the letter would placate an agitated Gerry. However, Pickering, who favored publishing Gerry’s dispatches only with an accompanying report, replied that printing the 20 Oct. letter would “display, not his pusilanimity, weakness and meanness alone,—but his duplicity and treachery,” and he further recommended Gerry’s impeachment. This difference of opinion between JA and Pickering continued, and it was not until mid-Jan. 1799 that Gerry’s correspondence with Talleyrand was made public (Gerry to JA, 20 Oct. 1798, Adams Papers; JA to Pickering, 26 Oct., MHi:Pickering Papers; Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism , 610–611, 613–614). See also William Smith Shaw to AA, 15 Jan. 1799, and note 8, and 21 Jan., and note 2, both below.