James Lovell to Abigail Adams, June 16, 1781

June 16. 1781

I have already acknowledged the Receipt of your Letter of May 10th covering a Copy of March
17th, and accompanied by one of May 14th. 1 I think
I told you I would be more particular, at some future
Day, in considering certain Parts of them. I meant to do it by Cyphers; but the present
Opportunity renders that mode needless. Genl. Ward will probably take a safe Road for himself
and consequently for my Scrawl. 2

“A captured Letter, not to Portia thank Fortune,—published by the Enemy—has made some Talk;
let the Writer’s Conscience tell him whether any Thing ought to escape his Pen, even to a
confidential Friend, that might be just Occasion of Pain to an affectionate Wife.” —“I have
not yet seen it, I fear it is not fit I should.” 3

As to the Letter Madam, there is one Expression or rather one
Mode of Expression that I wish was not there. I am very unwilling that it should be submitted
to the Eye of one so very much my Friend as you profess yourself to be. My Enemies are welcome
to read it a thousand Times over. It was an unbecoming Levity, and quite unfit for a
“Senator.” 4 But it is not that which will give
Pain to my affectionate Wife. She will be pained with what you would smile at. For she is more
apt to fear than to despise the Enmity of Little-GreatFolks. I should have submitted the
Letter, however to your severe anti-shandean Criticism, if I had not thought that an angried
Few would have wisely kept from saying any Thing about it, rather than to make spiteful
Interpretations of Parts that did not refer to themselves purely to vent that Malice which had
been put into a State of Fermentation by Jemmy Rivington’s marginal Notes upon those Parts
which did really appertain to their Worthyships. 5 I am persuaded Madam I thus hit upon the authors— original Authors
I mean, of those Suggestions which have troubled you. I did not want to aggrivate their
Feelings by giving Communications of what I imagined they would chuse to stifle; that is to
say the marginal Notes. By Mr. S [amuel] A [dams] I sent to
Mr. G [erry] the original Print. I assure you there is only the Levity of an
Hieroglyphic instead of the Words at home that I regret.

I must now be very serious. There is in the World, in the Hands of one of my best Friends, a
Bond of about 80 Pounds Lawful Money against me, but I have that Amount and more against a
Farm mortgaged to me for myself and others, tho’ not worth what it is dipped 6 for. This is the whole Connexion I have with Money matters, and
a poor one it is, except with my Pay for Time and Service as a Delegate, which ceases the day I arrive in Boston , though my Wife and Children will expect
to dine the day after and peradventure they will be extravagant enough to expect it the third
Day also. I shall not say much about the Probability, that many of those who have dined and
supped formerly, often, for a Course of years, elegantly
both as to the Table and Sideboard, tho not luxuriously, upon the Product of the exemplary
Industry of the Usher of a Grammar School , will call to pay their
Compliments to the Honorable Delegate of Congress , and wellcome
him Home, while He poor Wretch cannot in Return offer them a Glass of small Beer to drink in
Case of Thirst.

Do those who condemn my Absence mean to take me into their Stores as a Clerk? Will they risk
such a Test of my Desire to live with one of the most faithful endearing Wives within the
Circle of my whole Acquaintance, the tender and discrete Mother of my numerous Children, the
benevolent Neighbour, the chearful sensible Companion of both Sexes.

“I must return if only for a short Visit.” 7 Will
they be willing to maint… —But, I shall forget who I am writing to, and shall draw upon
myself, and not myself only, a Condemnation of a secret Compact against short Visits.—I am told that a Dollar and an Half per Day is to
cloathe me as a Delegate, and to support the Wife and the seven Children of the same Delegate!
Some of my Boys however begin to help me.

And now Madam, do not think that this serious Subject shall prevent my taking Occasion to
censure your Sophistry in one part of your Letter. 8

“What Right has She, who is appropriated, to appear lovely or
charming in any Eyes but his whose Property she is?” I answer, all
that Right and Title which Virtue inherits above Vice.

“I am persuaded” says a Lady who had seen much of the World, “that a Woman who is determined
to place her Happiness in her Husband’s Affections, should abandon the extravagant Desire of engaging public Adoration.”

I underscore Part to show that it had nothing to do with your own Question above.

But I go further, and say, that the Lady needed not to travel to get double the Wisdom of
what she here discovers. She might have sat in her Chamber and known that a Woman who is
determined to place her Happiness in her Husband’s affections not only “should” but would abandon “the extravagant” and even any Desire of Engaging “public Adoration. ” 9

“Portia can join with Juba in the Play.” “By Heavens I had rather have that best of Friend’s
approve my Deeds than Worlds for my Admirers.” In Troth a very pretty Scrap of a Play! but
quoted very unseasonably. For let me ask may not those very Deeds be approved and the Author of them consequently be
admired by Thousands and Tens of Thousands; and has not a Wife, as well as a Maid, a Right thus “to appear lovely and charming to
other Eyes than his whose Property she is”? Property! oh the dutch Idea! 10

Besides, Madam, your fine tuned Instrument cannot be an american one; it must be english
with which we are at War. It cannot be italien, or it would be more sensibly touched by the amiable than by the lovely , the
first being of roman and the last of british Extract; but otherwise, critically the same.

My Letter dated April 13. was written the 23. 11 —The Duke of Leinster not Leominster carried your Letter
safely, but she is herself carried into New York.

I begin now to be uneasy about your Goods. Oeconomy has banished all Waggoning almost from
this City; and if I send by Water to Trenton I know not the Store Keeper’s there, so that I
shall run new Risques. Perhaps I may hear from you or Mr. Cranch Tomorrow. I am worried by a
Paragraph in one of my Son’s Letters which mentions your Good’s by Doctor Winship being
injured by the Rain. It must have been before Mr. Hughes boxed them; and he mentioned no such
Thing to me.

I “have received your Letter of March 27 12 (and worse ones too) in that Spirit of Friendship with which they
flowed from the Pen of Portia.” 13 You see
nevertheless that I think it a bad one and it is that Thought
which prevents me from following the Dictates of my own Sincerity in subscribing:

I have not yet worn out the Word Madam

J L