Boston, 12 May, 1774.
I am extremely afflicted with the relation your father gave
me of the return of your disorder. I fear you have taken some cold. We have had
a most pernicious air a great part of this spring. I am sure I have reason to
remember it. My cold is the most obstinate and threatening one I ever had in my
life. However, I am unwearied in my endeavors to subdue it, and have the
pleasure to think I have had some success. I rise at five, walk three miles,
keep the air all day, and walk again in the afternoon. These walks have done me
more good than anything. My own infirmities, the account of the return of
yours, and the public news1 coming altogether have put my utmost
philosophy to the trial.
We live, my dear soul, in an age of trial. What will be the
consequence, I know not. The town of Boston, for aught I can see, must suffer
martyrdom. It must expire. And our principal consolation is, that it dies in a
noble cause — the cause of truth, of virtue, of liberty, and of humanity, and
that it will probably have a glorious resurrection to greater wealth, splendor,
and power, than ever.
Let me know what is best for us to do. It is expensive
keeping a family here, and there is no prospect of any business in my way in
this town this whole summer. I don't receive a shilling a week. We must
contrive as many ways as we can to save expenses; for we may have calls to
contribute very largely, in proportion to our circumstances, to prevent other
very honest worthy people from suffering for want, besides our own loss in
point of business and profit.
Don't imagine from all this that I am in the dumps. Far
otherwise. I can truly say that I have felt more spirits and activity since the
arrival of this news than I had done before for years. I look upon this as the
last effort of Lord North's despair, and he will as surely be defeated in it,
as he was in the project of the tea. I am, with great anxiety for your health,
Your
John Adams.
_______________
1 Four of the spring fleet of merchant ships,
designated in the newspapers according to custom, only by the names of their
respective commanders, Shayler, Lyde, Maratt, and Scott, had just arrived. They
brought accounts of the effect upon the mother country of the destruction of
the tea. The ministry had carried through Parliament their system of repressive
measures: the Boston Port Bill, the revision of the charter, materially
impairing its popular features, and the act to authorize the removal of trials
in certain cases to Great Britain. General Gage, the commander-in-chief of his
Majesty's forces in America, appointed Governor to execute the new policy, — in
the place of Hutchinson, who had asked leave of absence, — was on his way, and
arrived in his Majesty's ship Lively, Captain Bishop, in twenty-six days
from London, on the 13th, the day after the date of this letter.
SOURCE: Charles Francis Adams, Familiar Letters of John
Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams, During the Revolution, p. 1-2
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