Adams Papers Digital Edition

Adams Family Correspondence, volume 3

John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 1 October 1778 JQA Adams, Thomas Boylston John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 1 October 1778 Adams, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Boylston
John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams
My Dear Brother Passy october the 1st. 1778

As my thoughts are Principally busied upon the French tongue, & as I wish you to turn yours the same way, earlier than I did, I cannot 100think of a Subject to write to you upon more agreable & useful both to you & me than this: Pappa who has an opportunity of Conversing with many men of Learning in this Kingdom, among the phisiciens & Lawyers, as well as eclesiasticks, of various orders, particularly with several very learned abbys,1 he has made it his buisiness to enquire after the best books, & other helps for learning the language of this nation2 in some future letters to my brother Charles & you, I will give you a List of the grammers, Dictionarys, & treatisies upon the French tongue which he has collected as I have the use of this little library if I do not make myself master of French it will not be for want of opportunity or of books but that this talent with which Providence has intrusted3 me may be improved to the best advantage it is necessary to be a good husband of my time.

I cannot impress too strongly upon my mind or recommend too warmly to you the importance of a sentence4 which I lately read in a French writer “tous les momens de 1'enfans sont precieux”5 with which I take my Leave of you and subscribe myself your affectionate Brother

John Quincy Adams

RC (Adams Papers); docketed by CFA. LbC (Adams Papers); at foot of text: “to my brother Tommy.” RC was doubtless enclosed in JA's letter to AA of 2 Oct., below. Text is given here in literal style. There is a second RC in Adams Papers, dated at Passy, 10 Feb. 1778 [i.e. 1779]; it was copied from LbC and may have been sent either as a duplicate or because JQA thought he had not previously made a copy to send; see descriptive note on JQA to CA and TBA, 3 Oct., below.

1.

The inseparable Abbés Arnoux and Chalut, warm friends of the Adamses and of the American cause; see JA, Diary and Autobiography , 2:317 and passim.

2.

See JQA to CA and TBA, 3 Oct., below.

 3.

JQA here first wrote “instructed” and then altered it to “instrusted”; but the correct form appears in LbC and is given here.

 4.

LbC: “sentiment.”

 5.

LbC adds translation: “every moment of infancy is precious.”

 William Smith to Abigail Adams, 1 October 1778 Smith, William (1755-1816) Codman, John Jr. Codman & Smith (business) AA William Smith to Abigail Adams, 1 October 1778 Smith, William (1755-1816) Codman, John Jr. Codman & Smith (business) Adams, Abigail
William Smith to Abigail Adams
Madam Boston 1st. Octr. 1778

I have received your Letter, respecting the Bill for £50.1 The way that you propose is as agreable to us as any. The Credit of the Bill no one can dispute. It will be proper to have the Bill drawn in the proper form. I have inclos'd 4 Bills of the same Tenor and Date for the £50 which you have only to sign. You mention some Bills that will become due in November if you have not engag'd them We shou'd be glad to have them and what other Bills you may receive.

Yr. affectionately, Wm. Smith 101

PS 3rd. October. We have left a Blank in the Bills for the Place where Mr. Adams resides, as also for the manner in which you may choose to subscribe, both which, you will let us know, that it may be filld up, by the same hand, or draw other setts, yourself if you should Incline, in which the Inclosed may be some guide. If you should choose the time of payment, twenty or thirty days after sight we have no Objection, & are Madam, with great Respect & Esteem Yr. Most Obedt. Hume. Servts.,

Codman & Smith2

Should be obliged by their Return as soon as Convenient, as intend writing by the Counts Express.

RC (Adams Papers). Postscripts are in an unidentified hand, possibly that of John Codman Jr.; see note 2. Enclosures not found.

1.

Letter not found, but see AA to JA, 29 Sept. 1778, above, and 2 Jan. 1779, below.

 2.

This was a mercantile partnership that lasted some years between AA's cousin William Smith and John Codman Jr. (1755–1803). Codman had been “brought up to business in the counting house of Isaac Smith in Boston” and later formed a partnership with his brother Richard (Cora C. Wolcott, The Codmans of Charlestown and Boston, Brookline, 1930, p. 13–14).