John Quincy Adams to William Cranch, May 27, 1789

Newbury-Port. May 27 th: 1789.

I should have answered your last favour, 1 ere this [but in?] [conse]quence of the information you gave me, I went to Haverhill
[last?] Thursday and returned but the day before yesterday. Regularly the Sunday is my
scribbling day, but as there are several opportunities for sending at present, I
[can]not suffer the week to pass over without noticing you, and must there fore [steal?]
an hour or two from—from whom?—why first negatively not from my Lord Coke: no nor from
any other Lord or gentleman that has any connection with laws, except the eternal and
immutable laws of nature. But from the divine Shakespear whom I read with more fervent
admiration than any thing—but enough of this.

[With respect?] to Charles the tender solicitude, which you feel in regard to his
conduct is only an additional evidence of a disposition, which I have long known to be
peculiarly yours. it adds to the number of obligations for which I feel myself indebted
to you, but it cannot add any thing to the settled opinion which I have of the
excellency of your heart.— I wrote him a very serious Letter three weeks ago and
conversed with him at Haverhill upon the subject in such a manner as must I think lead
him to be more cautious. 2 However I
depend much more upon the alteration which is soon to take place in his situation, than
upon any advice or counsel, that I can ever give him. I am well convinced that if any
thing can keep him within the limits of regularity, it will be his knowlege of my
fathers being [near him and the?] fear of being discovered by him.—

If you have an opportunity to send to Braintree I wish you would inform my Mother, that
by sending the articles [which?] I [men]tioned to her, immediately to Boston, I shall
probably soon get them here. But 17? Cave, Cave, Cave! 3

You say nothing concerning the Letter which I [enclosed in my?] last for Thomas &
C o: I should be glad to hear if it was transmitted to
them.— 4 I believe I shall not soon
attempt to mount my Pegasus again Some of the characters contained in a certain Vision which [you] have seen have
been handed about in this Town. All of them have been applied to as particular persons,
and reports have been spread, that I avow’d myself to be the author, and named the said
persons for whom they were written— Not a word of truth in all this, and yet it has made
me enemies— 5 And the circumstance has
been employ’d as an argument to prove me to be the author
of a scurrilous enigmatical list which I have mentioned to you heretofore. 6 “He abuses people in rhyme, and therefore, he
doubtless abuses people also in prose.” Such is the reasoning; and so little capacity or
inclination is there to distinguish between a Satire and a lampoon.—If you wish to
thrive in the world and to pass for an amiable, clever, discreet good man, let your
invariable maxim be NEVER TO DISAPPROVE.

Adieu.

J. Q. Adams.