uated, so much pleased with your journey and present accommodations. Don't be solicitous about me. I shall do very well. If I am cold in the night, and an additional quantity of bed clothes will not answer the purpose of warming me, I will take a virgin to bed with me. Ay! a virgin.

What? Oh! Awful! what do I read?

Don't be surprised. Do you know what a virgin is? Mr. Bridgen brought me acquainted with it this morning. It is a stone bottle, such as you buy with spruce beer and spa water, filled with boiling water, covered over or wrapped up in flannel, and laid at a man's feet in bed. An old man, you see, may comfort himself with such a virgin as much as David did with Abishag, and not give the least jealousy even to his wife, the smallest grief to his children, or any scandal to the world. Tell Mr. Bridgen, when you see him, that I am indebted to him for this important piece of knowledge, which I would not sell for a great deal of money.

Tell Colonel Smith I am half disposed to be almost miffed with him, for going off without giving me his letter about the Indians; and what completes the mischief is, that he has all the books locked up in his room. Pray him to write me if it is possible to get at the letter or the books; both are what I want. My love to Abby Smith and her knight, and to all the Mr. Shippen is with you ere now. He was

party.

1 Mrs. Adams was at Bath, an account of her visit to which place is given in her letter to her sister, vol. II., p. 162.

so good as to pick a bone with me once, and Mr. Cutting is very good. We now talk politics all alone, and are much cooler and more rational than when we dispute in company.

Yours forever,

JOHN ADAMS.

LETTER CC.

MY DEAREST,

Grosvenor Square, 27 December, 1786.

MR. MURRAY, whom I am glad to see out again, will carry to Bath this memorandum, that we are all very well. He will arrive, for what I know, before Mr. Bridgen. The weather is very cold, but by a good fire and a good walk, I have not yet been obliged to recur to my expedient of an immaculate virgin bottle of hot water. I sent yesterday packets to Colonel Smith, from Paris.

The news from Boston is very well. The court has set at Cambridge in great pomp, guarded by three thousand men and a train of artillery. The General Court have passed an amnesty, with some exceptions, to all who will take the oath of allegiance in a certain time. The governor reviewed the troops and made them a speech. In short, government appears now in its majesty, supported by those in whom all majesty originally resides, the people. I have not seen the pa

pers, but Colonel Trumbull gives me this account. Colonel Smith's toast, "Common sense to the common people," is already verified.

Make your observations. Keep your journal, and make Abby Smith do so too, and let me see all when you return.

Yours evermore,

JOHN ADAMS.

LETTER CCI.

Amsterdam, 11 March, 1788.

MY DEAREST FRIEND,

I HAVE passed through the ceremonial of taking leave of the States General, the prince and princess, &c., to the satisfaction of all parties, and have been feasted at court, and all that; made my compliments to the prince on the 8th of March, his birth day, and to the princess at her drawing room, &c., &c., &c., and should have been in London at this hour, if you had not laid a plot which has brought me to this

Mr. Jefferson, at the receipt of your letter, came post to meet me, and he cuts out so much business for me, to put the money matters of the United States upon a sure footing, that I certainly shall not be able to get into the packet at Helvoet before Saturday, and I much fear not before Wednesday, the nineteenth. This delay is very painful to me, and

you must blame yourself for it altogether. I thought myself dead, and that it was well over with me as a public man; but I think I shall be forced, after my decease, to open an additional loan. At least, this is Mr. Jefferson's opinion and that of Mr. Van Staphorst.

I hope you will have every thing ready, that by the twenty-first or second of March, we may set off together for Falmouth from London. My love to Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and kiss my dear boy. Compliments to all friends. I am very impatient under this unforeseen delay; but our bankers, as well as Mr. Jefferson, think it absolutely necessary for the public. I must, therefore, submit; but if, in consequence of it, you should meet southwesters on the coast of America, and have your voyage prolonged three weeks by it, remember it is all your own intrigue which has forced me to open this loan. I suppose you will boast of it as a great public service.

Yours forever,

LETTER CCII.

JOHN ADAMS.

MY DEAR,

Amsterdam, Friday, 14 March, 1788.

I HAVE received yours of the 7th. I have written you on every post day. Mr. Jefferson is so anxious

to obtain money here to enable him to discharge some of the most urgent demands upon the United States, and preserve their credit from bankruptcy for two years longer, after which he thinks the new government will have money in their treasury from taxes, that he has prevailed upon me to open a new loan by virtue of my old power. I was very much averse to this, but he would take no denial. I shall, therefore, be detained here till Monday, but if my health continues, I shall cross over in the packet of next Wednesday. I hope every thing will be ready for us to take post for Falmouth.

The rich complain at present in Holland, that the poor are set over them in the regencies, and the old families that they are set aside by new ones. Discontent rankles deep in some places and among some sorts of men, but the common people appear to be much pleased. The patriots in this country were little read in history, less in government; knew little of the human heart and still less of the world. They have, therefore, been the dupes of foreign politics and their own indigested systems. Changes may happen and disorders may break out, though at present there is no apparent probability of either; but as there is no sense of the necessity of uniting and combining the great divisions of society in one system, no changes can happen for the better.

My love to the children, and believe me very anxious to see you.

JOHN ADAMS.