Prospect of a union; Shall I creep or fly?

Prospect of a union. I am I an eastern educational radio network presence prospect of a union. A view of the American Revolutionary period and a series of readings from the letters of the second president of the United States John Adams and his wife Abigail. I am I am. Part three shall I creep or fly.

September 14 767. As for nudes I know of none. We do pretty much as we used to of old Mary and given marriage increase and multiply in the same old fashioned way. September 25th 1767. DEAR SIR I have but a few moments to congratulate you on the fresh blessing to your family. Another fine child and sister comfortable. Fine. I know the feeling as well as you. And in spite of your earlier marriage I knew it sooner than you here you must own I have the advantage over you. But what shall we do with this young fry in a little while. Johnny must go to college and now they must have fine clothes and so must Betsy too and the other and all the rest. And very cleverly you and I shall feel when we recollect that we are hard at work over our watches and lawsuits and Johnnie and Betsey at the same time of

raking and fluttering away our profits. And there must be dancing schools and boarding schools and all that or else you know we shall not give them polite educations and they will better have not been born you know they're not to have polite educations these anticipations are not very charming to me. And upon the whole I think it of more consequence to have children than to make them gay and genteel. So I conclude to proceed in my endeavors for the farmer and to let the latter happen as it will. I am as ever your faithful friend and affectionate brother John Adams. Even in 1767 such homely correspondence was misleading. John Adams must have felt it would be unwise to commit his political convictions to paper even in letters to his brother in law to whom he exclaimed What care I for newspaper politics. Actually he was deeply involved in newspaper politics. His

attacks on the current governor of Massachusetts Francis Bernard appeared frequently in the Boston Gazette Braintree June 29 1766. Dear Brother I have been determined a long time to write you by the first opportunity that you'd present of sending a letter two or three opportunities are presented but so suddenly that I could not obtain time to write one line. I now write intending to have my letter in readiness against another bear appears. I rejoiced very heartily last night at hearing of your welfare by Mr Grover that I wanted a line from you however to inform how you like the place the people and the business. I want to know how the clock and watch work go and how the card trade comes forward and how the cash that virtuous commodity which answers all things comes in. I want to know likewise whether that court atmosphere has not almost contaminated your patriotic heart and how many blessings and lamentations you have

heard over the lieutenant governor and how many curses and imprecations upon Jimmy since you have been there. Upon second thought I don't care whether I hear anything of the last matters or not. For to tell you a secret I am amazingly changed since the Stamp Act is repealed and the judges of the Superior Court taken out of that sink of partiality and hypocrisy and should carry the political Whirlpool which to the discouragement of learning the elevation of ignorance and nonsense. The disgrace of the province the debasement of the law and the general scandal of impartial men. They have been engulfed in that perfect ease about politics. I care not shilling who is in and who is out. I have no point that I wish carried. I purpose before I finish. To cut out the materials enough for you to write up in your letter to me. I want to know where about you live. In what street whether near the courthouse or not for I am meditating journeys to Salem CT but

by the way sister writes that you rise by four in the morning. I don't like that advice very well before I venture to say a lot. You must write to me express leave to lie abed till 8 o'clock in the morning absolutely until 9 upon condition I shall find it necessary for that lazy town of Boston and my squeamish wife keeping the shutters to have brought me into a vile habit of dozing in the morning. But pretty brother how sits this four o'clock practice upon by stomach. I used to love thy pillow with a verse and prose and history and mathematics and mechanics in the head till pretty late since I know the. My love to sister and Miss Betsy Wright to me soon. Come and see me soon. And believe me your real friend an affectionate brother. John Adams. The conflict between cash that virtuous commodity and the zeal of a patriotic was a constant theme of the letters he wrote to his wife while

following the court's progress and trying to drum up some business for his law practice then floundering on the shoals of his Whig politics. I have a zealot my heart for my country and her friends which I cannot smother or conceal. It will burn out at times and in companies where it ought to be latent in my breast this zeal will prove fatal to the fortunes and philosophy of my family. If it is not regulated by a cooler judgment than mine has heretofore been. Colonel Olu says phrase is the zeal pot boils over the retaliation against Boston for the Boston Tea Party in 1774 must surely have stoke the fires under this pot. The intolerable acts as they were called in America were passed by the British parliament in March under their provisions. The citizens of Boston were to pay for the tea that had been dumped and the plant was to be closed as an example to the other

colonies. This had of course the effect of helping solidify opposition to the crown in the Colonies in a number of which still the conservative loyalist element was dominant. Boston May 12th 1774 my dear. I'm 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 error. A great part of this spring. I'm sure I have reason to remember it to my cold is the most obstinate and threatening one I've ever had in my life. However I am unware it 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 that I have been constantly plied with teas and your specific my own infirmities. The account of the return of yours and the public knew it was

coming all together 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 virtue of liberty and of humanity. And that it will probably have a glorious reformation to greater wealth splendor and power than ever. Let me know what is best for us to do it. 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 and point of business and

profit. Don't imagine from all this that I am in the dumps otherwise I can truly say that I have held more spirits and activity since the arrival of this new 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 T. I am with great anxiety for your health your John Adams. YORK June 29 1774 my dear. I have a great deal of leisure which I chiefly employ in scribbling that my mind may not stand still or run back like my fortune. There is very little business here and David David John Sullivan and James Sullivan and the Alice Bradbury are the lawyers who attend the inferior courts and consequently conduct the causes at the superior. I find that the country is the situation to

make us States by the law. John Sullivan who was placed at Durham in New Hampshire is younger both in years and practice than I am. He began with nothing but is now said to be worth ten thousand pounds lawful money. His brother James allows five or six or perhaps even seven thousand pounds consisting in houses and lands notes bonds and mortgages. He has a fine stream of water with an excellent corn meal sawmill following the side of Mayo and others in all six mills which are both his delight and his profit as he has earned cash in his business at the bar. He has taken opportunities to purchase farms of his neighbors who wanted to sell and move out further into the woods at an advantageous rate. And in this way has been growing rich and under the smiles and auspices of the governor went west has been promoted in the civil and military way so that he is treated with great respect. In this neighborhood. James Sullivan brother of the other who studied law under him without any academic

education and John was in the same case is fixed at Sacco alias Biddeford in our province. He began with neither learning books state or anything but his head and hands and is now a very popular lawyer and growing rich very fast approaches in great firearms etc.. A justice of the peace and member of the General Court. David Sewell of this town never practices out of this county has no children has no ambition nor avarice They say however it is business in this county maintains him very handsomely and he gets before hand. Bradbury had found my face a grows rich very fast. I was first sworn in 1758 my life has been a continual scene of fatigue vexation labor and anxiety. I have four children. I had a pretty estate from my father. I have been assisted by your father. I have done the greatest business in the province. I have had the very

richest clients in the province. Yet I am poor in comparison of others. This I confess is grievous and discouraging. I ought however to be candid enough to acknowledge that I have been imprudent. I have spent an est in books. I have spent a sum of money in discreetly in a light or another in a pew and much greater in an house in Boston. These would have been indiscretions if the impeachment of the judges the Boston port bill etc. etc. had never happened but by the unfortunate interruption of my business from these causes these indiscretions become almost fatal to me. To be sure much more detrimental. John Lowe had no Bridgeport has built him in house like the Palace of a nobleman and lives in great splendor. His business is very profitable. In short every lawyer who has the least appearance of abilities makes it do in the country. In town nobody does or ever can. Who either is not obstinately determined never

to have any connection with politics or does not engage on the side of the government the administration and the court. Let us therefore my dear partner from that affection which we feel for our lovely babes. Apply ourselves by every way we can to the cultivation of our farm. Let frugality and industry be our virtues if they are not of any others and above all cares of this life. Let our ardent anxiety be to mold the minds and manners of our children. Let us teach them not only to do virtuously but to excel. To excel they must be taught to be steady active and industrious I am etc.. John Adams. YORK June 30 1774 my dear I have had a curiosity to examine what could have been the cause of Parson Lyman's

affection to the Tories. I find that in some former years while Hutchinson was chief justice that arch corrupter and deceiver lodged at the house of Dr. Lyman the parson's brother and professed great friendship for him as well as the parson made the doctor a justice of the peace etc.. The office of a justice of the peace is a great acquisition in the country and such a distinction to a man among his neighbors as is enough to purchase and corrupt almost any man. This laid an early foundation in the minister and the doctor. Add to this the continual correspondence between Hutchinson and say Would there a cinder and Lyman's deacon and also David soules assistance with whom Hutchinson afterwards boarded when he was of the court and all the rest of the judges ever since. And also the influence of the Multan family one of whom is sheriff and others are in office. In truth the offices which are held in every shire town of every county create a dependence

in the minds of the principal gentleman of the place upon the court which generally draws the parson and often the doctor into the vortex until they all become disposed to act upon the principle of Colonel Chandler. Now they have generally more policy then to avow it. That if the devil was governed as for them and their houses they would be governors men. Now let me wander to my family. I am very thoughtful and anxious about our Johnnie what school to send him to. What measures to take with him. He must go on learning his Latin to his grandfather or to you or somewhere and he must write. You must take care my dear to get as much work out of our tenants as possible. Belcher is in arrears he must work. Hayden must work. Harry Fielden must work in Joseph Curtis too must be made to settle. He owes something Joseph Terrill to rise to something and Isaac. I can't lose such sums as they owe me and I will not.

I shall not get enough at the York court to pay my expenses for the week. And in short I feel as if my business was at an end. If I understood any other I would be take myself to it the utmost parsimony and even penury is necessary for me to avoid running behind hand. You are John Adams. YORK July 2 1774 my dear I have concluded to mount my horse tomorrow morning at four and ride to Wells dear my old where they learned ingenious friend Hemenway whom I never was yet so happy as to hear Mr. Winthrop agrees to be my company. Wells is about fifteen miles from this place from thence we propose to ride after the evening service is over to Sakho that is Biddeford which is about thirty miles from hence which will leave us an easy journey to Falmouth on Monday. Safford my barber tells me that his minister Lyman is bribed

to be Atari. He says that whenever D can say a word as a vessel arrives he sends the parson 10 gallons of rum two or three hundred of sugar 10 gallons of wine a barrel of flour at cetera et cetera et cetera. He says he thinks that all Toryism grows out of bribery. I thought the barber's observation was just and as memorable as Parson Moody's doctrine that when men know not what they do they ought not to do. They knew not what I write you this tittle tattle my dear in confidence. You must keep these letters chiefly to yourself and communicate them with great caution and Reserve. I should advise you to put them up safe and preserve them. They may exhibit to our posterity a kind of picture of the manners opinions and principles of these times of perplexity danger and distress. D couldn't say a word said at table this week in my hearing that there was but one point in which he

differed in opinion from the late Governor Hutchinson and that was what To regard to the reality of witchcraft and the existence of witches. The governor he said would not allow there was any such thing. The deacon said he was loath to differ from him in anything he had so great a regard for him and his opinions that he was willing to give up almost everything rather than differ with him. But in this he could not see with him. Such is the cant of this artful selfish hypocritical man. Pray remember me to my dear little babes whom I long to see running to meet me and climb upon me under the smiles of their mother. I am etc.. John Adams. YORK July 1st 1774 I am so idle that I have not an easy moment without my pen in my hand. My time might have been improved to some purpose in mowing grass raking hay

or hoeing corn weeding carrots picking or shelling peas. Much better should I have been employed in schooling my children in teaching them to write cipher Latin French English and Greek. I sometimes think I must come to this to be the foreman upon my own farm and the schoolmaster to my own children. I confess myself to be full of fears that the ministry and their friends and instruments will prevail and crush the cause and friends of liberty the minds of that party are so filled with prejudices against me that they will take all advantages and do me all the damage they can. These thoughts have their turns in my mind. But in general my hopes are predominant. In a trial of a cause here today some facts were mentioned which are worth writing to you. It was sworn in by Dr. Lyman elder Bradbury and others that there had been a number of instances in this town of fatal accidents happening from sudden noises

striking the ears of babes and young children. A gun was fired near one child as likely as any the child fell immediately into fits which impaired is reason and is still living in it. Another child was sitting on the chamber floor. A man rapped suddenly and violently upon the boards which made the floor under the Child tremble. The child was so startled and frightened that it fell into fits which never work cured. This may suggest a caution to keep children from sudden frights and surprises. Dr. Gardner arrived here today from Boston brings us news from a battle at the town meeting between Whigs and Tories in which the Whigs after a day and a half's obstinate engagement were finally victorious by two to one. He says the Tories are preparing a flaming protest. I am determined to be cool if I can. I have suffered such torments in my mind heretofore as have

almost overpowered my constitution without any advantage and now I will laugh and be easy if I can let the conflict of parties terminate as it will lead to my own state and interests suffer wadded way o ne whether I stand high or low in the estimation of the world so long as I keep my conscience void of offense toward God and man. And thus I am determined by the will of God to do that what will become of me or mine or my country or the world. I shall arouse myself along I believe and exert industry frugality hard labor that will serve my family. If I can't serve my country I will not lie down and die in despair. If I cannot serve my children by the law I will serve them by agriculture by trade by some way or other. I thank God I have a head and heart and hands which if once

fully exerted altogether will succeed in the world as well as those of the mean spirited low minded defining obsequious scoundrels who have long hoped that my integrity would be an obstacle in my way and enable them to outstrip me in the race. But what I want in comparison of them are villainy and servility. I will make up in industry and capacity if i don't they shall laugh and triumph. I will not willingly see blockheads whom I have a right to despise elevated above me and insult the late triumphing over me. Nor shall knavery through any negligence of mine get the better of honesty nor ignorance of knowledge nor folly of wisdom nor advice of virtue. I must intreat you my dear partner in all the joys and sorrows prosperity and adversity of my life. To take a part with me in the struggle. I

pray God for your health and treat you to rouse your whole attention to the family that stock the farm the dairy. Let every article of expense which can possibly be spared to be retrenched keep their hands attentive to their business and let the most prudent measures of every kind to be adopted and pursued with alacrity and spirit. I am cetera John Adams. As early as 1759 John Adams had committed to his diary some reflections on the techniques of successful career making his prescriptions were meant for a gentler time and eighteen years later as he read these reflections. It must have seemed to him that he had achieved little of his ambitions. March 14th 1759 reputation ought to be the perpetual subject of my thoughts and name of my behavior how shall I gain a reputation.

How shall I spread an opinion of myself as a lawyer of distinguished genius learning and virtue. Shall I make frequent visits in the neighborhood and converse familiarly with men women and children in their own style on the common tittle tattle of the town and the ordinary concerns of our family. And so take every fair opportunity of showing my knowledge in the law. But this will require much thought and time and a very particular knowledge of the provinces and common matters of which I know much less than I do of the Roman. This would take up too much thought and time. And provinces shall I endevour to renew my acquaintance with those young gentlemen in Boston who are at college with me and to extend my acquaintance among merchants shopkeepers tradesmen etc. and mingle with the crowd upon change and traipse about the town house floor with one another in order to get a character in town. But this too will be lingering method and will require more

art and address and patience too. And I am master. Shall I by making remarks and proposing questions to the lawyers at the bar endevour to get a great character for understanding and learning with them. But this is slow and tedious and will be ineffectual for envy jealousy and self interest will not suffer them to give a young fellow a free generous character especially me. Neither of these projects will bear examination will avail. Shall I look out for a cause to speak to and exert all the so and all the body I own. To cut a flash strike amazement to catch the Volga. In short Shall I walk a lingering heavy pace or shall I take one bold determined leap into the midst of some cash and business. That is the question. How bold to push a resolute

attempt I determined enterprise or a slow silent imperceptible creeping. Shall I creep or fly. You know that right. It was your. Own. Prospect of a union is produced and written by Elizabeth Spiro for WFC are the four college radio station of Amherst Smith and Mount Holyoke colleges and the University of

Massachusetts from whose faculties the cast of prospect of a union was drawn. Stephen Coyle was hurt as John Adams and Beverly Mae as Abigail Marjorie Kaufman was the narrator. The letters of John and Abigail Adams were taken from the Adams Family correspondence published by the Harvard University Press. The song Free American Day was written by Dr. Joseph Warren and was recorded by Sawyer as Minute Man from the collection of early American songs of John and Lucy Allison. This program was distributed by national educational radio. This is the National Education already own network.