Adams Papers Digital Edition

Adams Family Correspondence, volume 4

John Adams to John Quincy Adams

James Lovell to Abigail Adams
81 image John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 18 February 1781 JQA JA John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 18 February 1781 Adams, John Quincy Adams, John
John Quincy Adams to John Adams
Honoured Sir Leyden Feby. 18th. 1781

The other day I received your letter, of the 12th of this month, in which you ask me whether my Master would choose that I should have Terence with a translation? I believe that he had rather I should not; because when I shall translate him he would desire that I might do it without help.

I should be glad if you would bring me Mr. Cerisier's history of this Country, if you can spare it.1 There is a gentleman in this city whose name is Keroux who has also wrote a history of this Country in four volumes in octavo. Perhaps you have heard of it.2

I should be much obliged to you if you would be so good as to desire Stephens to buy me a penknife, I want one very much, and can't get one here.

I am your most dutiful Son, John Quincy Adams

RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “A. Monsieur Monsieur Adams, chez Madame la veuve Hendrik Schorn a Amsterdam”; docketed in Thaxter's hand: “Johnny 18th. Feby. 1781.”

1.

This work, issued anonymously, was currently in progress: Tableau de l'histoire générale des Provinces-unies, 10 vols., Utrecht, 1777–1784. Two sets remain among JA's books in MB. Antoine Marie Cerisier (1749–1828), a journalist of French birth who had long resided in the Netherlands, was a leading propagandist for the Patriot or anti-Orangist party and became an enthusiastic supporter of JA's efforts to win recognition for the United States. See a documented sketch of Cerisier in JA's Diary and Autobiography , 2:454.

 2.

Louis Gabriel Florence Kerroux, Abrégé de l'histoire de la Hollande et des Provinces-unies ..., 4 vols., Leyden, 1778. The copy at MQA contains JQA's bookplate.