John Quincy Adams to John Adams, February 25, 1804

25. Feb y: 1804.

I received last Evening yours of the 11 th: inst t: — 1 You cannot employ your leisure more charitably , than in writing me these long letters— They give
me some of the sweetest of my enjoyments, and comfort me amidst the thorns and briars of
the path I am travelling.

I shall endeavour to complete your set of the journals; but I am
not sure that I can get spare sheets of all the numbers you want. I now enclose with the
last and current numbers, three immediately preceeding the first you have received— So that now you will have from N: 25.
inclusive— But you do not tell me what sheets you want of the Senate’s Journals— These are mark’d with letters ,
at the bottom of the first page of each sheet.

I am still so much engaged, at once in attendance upon the public
business, and upon the Supreme Court, that I have not even found time to enclose you
these journals, the very day they came out— So that you will now receive at once N’s 55
and 56. of the House’s Journals— 2 I wrote
you that I argued last week a question, on a cause of Insurance— We had a Judgment of
the Circuit Court of Rhode-Island (Judges Lowell and Bourne) […] This morning the
opinion of the Court was delivered— Unanimous to reverse the ju[dgment.] M r: J. T. Mason of Georgetown was with me and argued the Cause
admirably well— [. . . .] against us a M r: Hunter of
Rhode-Island, a young man of very handsome talents, and […] L. Martin of Baltimore— I
mention all these circumstances, for the fire-side only ;
because there they will be interesting— And it will give pleasure to learn that my first
opening at the Supreme Court of the United States has
been successful, as to its issue.— 3 With
my own argument I was very far from being satisfied— And it completed my conviction that
the seven years chasm in my attention to legal practise and legal studies can never be
repaired.— I have now another cause to argue, in the course of a few days.— Here we have
a Judgment of the Circuit Court in Boston, (Cushing and Davis) in our favour— But the
papers are so irregular and informal, that the Judgment will be reversed in all
probability, on this account.— The merits however are
clearly with us. 4

I have subscribed for the Washington Federalist, and ordered it to
be sent to Quincy , from this time— So tell Shaw, not to stop it at the Post-Office in Boston— I wish you to receive it, at the Post-Office in Quincy; and keep the
file for me till I come home.

We are to adjourn 12 th. next month— 5 I hope to see you by the last of it.— You
say nothing in your last of my dear mother’s health— I hope she has recovered— My wife
& children are well— M rs: Cranch much better—

The bills to protect foreign Seamen,
have not yet been acted upon— Some suppose they will be abandoned; at least in their
most obnoxious principles— I wait patiently and calmly, to see whether we are to have
another deb[at]e upon them. 6