John Adams to His Wife

John Adams

Prince Town New Jersey Aug. 28th, 1774

My Dear,

I received your kind letter, at New York, and it is not easy for you to imagine the pleasure it has given me. I have not found a single opportunity to write since I left Boston, excepting by the post and I don't choose to write by that conveyance event conveyance, for fear of foul play. But as we are now within forty two miles of Philadelphia, I hope there to find some private hand by which I can convey this.

The particulars of our journey, I must reserve, to be communicated after my return. It would take a volume to describe the whole. It has been upon the whole an agreeable jaunt. We have had opportunities to see the world, and to form acquaintances with the most eminent and famous men in the several colonies we have passed through. We have been treated with unbounded civility, complaisance, and respect.

We yesterday visited Nassau Hall College, and were politely treated by the scholars, tutors, professors and president, whom we are, this day to hear preach. Tomorrow we reach the Theatre of Action. God almighty grant us wisdom and virtue sufficient for the high trust that is devolved upon us. The spirit of the people wherever we have been seems to be very favourable. They universally consider our cause as their own, and express the firmest resolution, to abide the determination of the Congress.

I am anxious for our perplexed, distressed province--hope they will be directed into the right path. I beg you, my dear, to make yourself as easy and quiet as possible. Resignation to the will of heaven is our only resource in such dangerous times. Prudence and caution should be our guides, I have the strongest hopes, that we shall yet see a clearer sky, and better times.

Your account of the rain refreshed me. I hope our husbandry is prudently and industriously managed. Frugality must be our support. Our expenses, in this journey, will be very great-our only reward will be the consolatory reflection that we toil, spend our time, and tempt dangers for the public good.-happy indeed, if we do any good!

The education of our children is never out of my mind. Train them to virtue, habituate them to industry, activity, and spirit. Make them consider every vice, as shameful and unmanly: fire them with ambition to be useful-make them disdain to be destitute of any useful, or ornamental knowledge or accomplishment. Fix their ambition upon great and solid objects, and their contempt upon little, frivolous, and useless ones. It is time, my dear, for you to begin to teach them French. Every decency, grace, and honesty should be inculcated upon them.

I have kept a few minutes by way of journal, which shall be your entertainment when I come home, but we have had so many persons and so various characters to converse with, and so many objects to view, that I have not been able to be so particular as I could wish-I am, with the tenderest affection and concern, your wandering.

John Adams