CFA’s letters to ECA and to Mrs. JA2 are in the Adams Papers (2 and 3 Jan., LbCs). In the letter to Mrs. JA2, which reveals perhaps a stiffness remaining from their earlier relationship (see vol. 3:7), the circumstances in which the debt to her was incurred and in which it had again come to his notice are recounted. “May it please your Ladyship. Some time in the course of the last Summer ... in a Carriage ride to Boston you incidentally alluded to some pecuniary assistance rendered to me many years ago by yourself when I was at Philadelphia wanting funds to get to Washington. I had utterly forgotten the circumstance and was particularly disturbed by the idea thrown out that it had never been paid. This determined me to make some investigation among my papers to find a clue to the transaction. Very fortunately I found a letter from my father dated ... 15 Sept. 1826 in which he not only mentions the sum ... to be fifty dollars but remits me the money to pay it. How it should have happened that I did not use it as I ought, I cannot at this moment divine. I hope there are some circumstances at present forgotten by myself which palliate this gross breach of trust.... I must be allowed to insist upon repairing my negligence at this late hour.”

However, as will appear below (entry of 16 Jan.), CFA had misunderstood Mrs. JA2’s remark during the carriage ride. She returned his draft to him with a letter (not found) making clear that he had indeed repaid the debt at the time. He brought the matter to a close with a letter (16 Jan., LbC, Adams Papers): “My dear Mrs. John ... Under these circumstances I owe to you an apology for misunderstanding you. Although I cannot admit myself not to have had some reason for so doing.... I shall regret it much if the subject has been unpleasant to you, but in taking leave of the subject forever I must say that I could not have been satisfied without going through a process of explanation.”

Rev. Joseph Barlow Felt was the husband of AA’s niece Abigail Shaw; see vol. 6:343.

The lecture, “Rival Chiefs, D’Aulnay and La Tour, Governors of Nova Scotia,” was one of a course of lectures given at the Masonic Temple by members of the Massachusetts Historical Society for the benefit of the Society (MHS, Procs. , 2 [1835–1855]:80). The long and bitter conflict between Charles Amador de la Tour and Charles d’Aulnay Charnisay for dominion in Acadie began upon the death in 1636 of Commodore Isaac de Razilly, under whom both had served as commandants. It was a conflict with overtones from the Huguenot-Catholic struggles in France and in which each side sought aid and involvement from the newly established English settlements in Boston and Massachusetts Bay. A principal figure in the drama, intrepid and adroit, was the remarkable wife of La Tour. She died in 1646 within weeks of the betrayal which forced the surrender of Fort St. John, which she was defending following her husband’s flight. After d’Aulnay died in 1650, and La Tour had successfully defended his record before the French Court in 1651 and received a new commission as governor, the feud was concluded in 1653 with La Tour’s marriage to d’Aulnay’s widow. The text of the Rev. Felt’s lecture has not been found, but the documents upon which it seems likely he relied were printed in MHS, Colls. , 3d ser., 7:90–121. A detailed recounting is in Beamish Murdoch, A History of Nova-Scotia or Acadie, 2 vols., Halifax, 1865, 1:73–123.