Adams Family Correspondence, volume 13
th1798 Wednesday morn.
The president received two letters the latest dated 3d of Dec from you last Evening with a letter inclosed for
your son at Berlin which, I shall superscribe and deliver to Mr Pickering with your
respects with a great deal of pleasure.1 I am very sorry to see that you were not so well as you were when you wrote the
25th of Nov. You do not write in half so good
spirits.
I find Mr. Otiss family very friendly to me— I go and return when I please. I drank coffee last evening at a Mrs. Willings & there I heard Love defined in such a farcical manner by a lady, that I must tell you.2 Love she said was a very difficult thing to define, but she understood by it “a certain dizziness which kept one from minding his business.”
Mr Brisler and family are all well— he has a most excellent servant to supply Johns place & does not know what he shall do with Dexter. James the coachman has a legacy left him by a man who died with the yellow fever of fifteen hundrend pounds.
It would do you good to hear the affectinate enquires made after you by gentlemen and ladies, even Dr Logan was extremely sorry, he said that we were not to have the pleasure of Mrs Adams company this winter
I enclose to you with this, two of the Auroras, which is more inveterate than ever against the federal goverment—an excellent charge of Judge Cushings &c &c.3
I have been called below a dozen times since I began to write you, I have but little time as my own as yet. Please to excuse the carelessness of the writing &c &c & remember me to all who enquire after me. Where is Cousen L Is she so precious of her love that she can’t send a little at least to me.
Your affectionate nephew
Uncle is in tolerable good spirits
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “W Shaw decbr / 12 /
1798.”
That is, AA to JA, 29 Nov. and 2 Dec., and to JQA, 2 Dec., all above.
Probably Maria Benezet Willing (d. 1799), who lived at 80 Walnut
Street with her husband, George Willing (Thomas Willing Balch, Willing Letters and Papers Edited with a Biographical Essay of Thomas Willing of
Philadelphia (1731–1821), Phila., 1922, p. lix–lx; Boston Columbian Centinel, 17 Aug. 1799;
Philadelphia
Directory
, 1798, p. 154, Evans, No. 34593).
Shaw probably enclosed the Philadelphia 303
Aurora General Advertiser, 4 and 10 Dec. 1798. On 4 Dec.
an article briefly discussed Judge William Cushing’s 23 Nov. charge to the grand jury
of the circuit court for the district of Virginia, which criticized
Democratic-Republicans and the French Revolution, defended the Alien and Sedition
Acts, and praised George Washington and JA. On 10 Dec. the Aurora printed JA’s 8 Dec. message to
Congress, describing it as “less violent than that which preceded it” but also
labeling it an “unfortunate” form of “speechifying” that
was only useful as “a thermometer by which the heat of the political
atmosphere is to be ascertained.” The article also described the U.S. Navy as
“blustering,” praised Dr. George Logan for his mission
to France, and further criticized the 1792 appointment of Gouverneur Morris as
minister to France and JA’s account of whether the Directory sought peace
(
Doc.
Hist. Supreme Court
, 3:305–316).
Your Letters of Nov. 29 Dec. 2. and 3 affect me very tenderly. The low Spirits, Effects of long and exhausting sickness are apparent: but these are Evils of a serious nature. I pray you to banish as much as possible all gloomy Thoughts and be very cautious to avoid every thing which may endanger a return of your old Disorders.
To reconcile you to your fate I have a great mind to give you a
detail of mine. A Peck of Troubles in a large Bundle of Papers, often in a hand Writing
almost illegible, comes every day from the office of
You and I, seem to have arrived prematurely at the Age when there is no pleasure.—
All this is not the Resignation of Socrates.1
I cannot encourage the Idea of your coming on to Phyladelphia. The horrid Roads and cold damp Weather would put an End to you.
I hope our dear Thomas will arrive and chear you up.— I am with / unalterable affection
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A”;
endorsed: “J A december / 13th / 1798.”
JA was referring to Socrates’ state of mind
following his conviction and sentence to death in 399 B.C. for impiety and corrupting Athens’ youth, which is covered in detail in
Encyclopedia; or, A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and
Miscellaneous Literature, 18 vols., Phila., [1790]–1798, 17:590–594, Evans, No. 33676, a copy of
which is in JA’s library at MB (
Catalogue of JA’s Library
).
JA also wrote to AA on 10 Dec. repeating his concern for her health and conveying his worries about the Senate’s response to a second nomination of WSS (Adams Papers).