 | Letters of Mrs. Adams, |  |
TO JOHN ADAMS,
I have received a good deal of paper from you. I
wish it had been more covered; the writing is very
scant, yet I must not grumble. I know your time is
not yours nor mine. Your labors must be great and
your mouth closed; but all you may communicate, I
whence it arises, nor can I stop now to find it out,
but I say there is a degree of pleasure in being able
to tell news, especially any that so nearly concerns
us, as all your proceedings do.
I should have been more particular, but I thought
you knew every thing that passed here. The present
state of the inhabitants of Boston is that of the
most abject slaves, under the most cruel and despotic
of tyrants. Among many instances I could mention,
let me relate one. Upon the 17th of June,
printed handbills were posted up at the corners of
the streets and upon houses, forbidding any inhabitants
to go upon their houses, or upon any eminence
on pain of death; the inhabitants dared not to look
out of their houses, nor to be heard or seen to ask
a question. Our prisoners were brought over to the
Long Wharf, and there lay all night, without any
care of their wounds or any resting-place but the
pavements, until the next day, when they exchanged
it for the jail, since which we hear they are civilly
treated. Their living cannot be good, as they can
have no fresh provisions; their beef, we hear, is all
gone, and their own wounded men die very fast, so
that they have a report that the bullets were poisoned.
Fish they cannot have, they have rendered it
so difficult to procure; and the admiral is such a
villain as to oblige every fishing schooner to pay a
dollar every time it goes out. The money that has
been paid for passes is incredible. Some have given
ten, twenty, thirty, and forty dollars, to get out with
and believed, that they have taken up a number of
persons and committed them to jail, we know not for
what in particular. Master Lovell is confined in the
dungeon; a son of Mr. Edes is in jail, and one Wiburt,
a ship carpenter, is now upon trial for his life.
God alone knows to what length these wretches will
go, and will I hope restrain their malice.
I would not have you be distressed about me.
Danger, they say, makes people valiant. Hitherto
I have been distressed, but not dismayed. I have
felt for my country and her sons, and have bled
with them and for them. Not all the havoc and
devastation they have made, has wounded me like
the death of Warren. We want him in the Senate;
we want him in his profession; we want him in the
field. We mourn for the citizen, the senator, the
physician, and the warrior. May we have others
raised up in his room.
I have had a very kind and friendly visit from our
dear friends Colonel Warren, lady, and son. Mrs.
Warren spent almost a week with me, and he came
and met her here, and kept Sabbath with me. I
suppose she will write to you, though she says you
are in her debt.
You scarcely make mention of Dr. Franklin.
Surely he must be a valuable member. Pray, what
is become of your Judas?[1]
I see he is not with
and see you. I never suffer myself to think you are
about returning soon. Can it, will it be? May I
ask—may I wish for it? When once I expect you,
the time will crawl till I see you. But hush! Do
you know it is eleven o'clock at night? We have
had some very fine rains since I wrote you last. I
hope we shall not now have famine added to war.
Grain, grain is what we want here. Meat we have
enough, and to spare. Pray don't let Bass forget my
pins. Hardwick has applied to me for Mr. Bass to
get him a hundred of needles, number six, to carry
on his stocking weaving. We shall very soon have
no coffee, nor sugar, nor pepper here; but whortleberries
and milk we are not obliged to commerce
for. Good night. With thoughts of thee do I close
my eyes. Angels guard and protect thee; and may
a safe return ere long bless thy
| Letters of Mrs. Adams, | |