Adams Family Correspondence, volume 2
Your very polite favour was handed me this Evening.1 I esteem myself much obliged for the enclosed plan, but I cannot describe to you the distress and agitation which the reception of your Letter threw me into. It was some time before I could get resolution to open it, and when I had opend it I dared not read it. Ten thousand horrid Ideas rushd upon my Soul. I thought it would announce to me the sickness or death of all my earthly happiness.
As I could not read the Letter I opened the paper enclosed and upon finding it a plan, was releaved from my distress.
Your professions of esteem Sir are very flattering to me. No person possessed with common Humanity can be an inattentive unconcernd Spectator of the present contest. The suffering virtue of individuals if recorded upon the faithfull page of History will astonish future ages, and demands from the present gratitude and veneration. A large share of each will ever be retained for the unfortunate Mr. L
Lovell's letter of 29 Aug., above. This might, of course, have been received (and the present letter might therefore have been drafted) a day or two before the 17th, when AA wrote JA the letter in which she enclosed her reply to Lovell.
An allusion to Lovell's sufferings as a prisoner of the British in Boston and Halifax, 1775–1776; see
DAB
.