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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO F. A. VANDERKEMP. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811) [1854]

Edition used:

The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1856). 10 volumes. Vol. 9.

Part of: The Works of John Adams, 10 vols.

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TO F. A. VANDERKEMP.

I had last night your letter of the 12th, the friendly sentiments of which have tenderly affected me. The affliction in my family from the melancholy death of a once beloved son, has been very great, and has required the consolation of religion, as well as philosophy, to enable us to support it. The prospects of that unfortunate youth were very pleasing and promising, but have been cut off, and a wife and two very young children are left with their grandparents to bewail a fate, which neither could avert, and to which all ought in patience to submit. I have two sons left, whose conduct is worthy of their education and connections. I pray that their lives may be spared and their characters respected.

Before this reaches you, the news will be familiar to you, that after the 3d of March I am to be a private citizen and your brother farmer. I shall leave the State with its coffers full, and the fair prospects of a peace with all the world smiling in its face, its commerce flourishing, its navy glorious, its agriculture uncommonly productive and lucrative. O, my country! May peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.