Adams Papers Digital Edition

Adams Family Correspondence, volume 7

Cotton Tufts to Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams
145 John Adams to Richard Cranch, 15 April 1786 JA Cranch, Richard John Adams to Richard Cranch, 15 April 1786 Adams, John Cranch, Richard
John Adams to Richard Cranch
My dear Brother London April 15. 1786

Can you give me any Information concerning the Persons named in the inclosed Paper?1

Mr Jenkinson, I presume, has, by his late Motions in Parliament, all of which are carried without opposition, convinced the People of America, that they have nothing but a ruinous Commerce to expect with England.

Our Crisis is at hand, and if the states do not hang together, they might as well have been “hanged Seperate,” according to Dick Penns bon Mot in 1784.2 Your Brother

John Adams

RC (NN: John Adams Papers); endorsed: “Letter from his Excelly. John Adams Esqr Apl 15th. 1786 Wth. Memo. about Enquirey for Messrs. MacAuliffs”; notation: “Mem: To Enquire of Mr. Bowers at Little Cambridge.”

1.

Not found.

 2.

JA's 1784 date for Richard Penn's response to this saying, commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, is either a mistake or its meaning to JA and Cranch is not evident.