Thomas Boylston Adams to William Smith Shaw, December 7, 1800

Philadelphia 7 th: December
1800

Dear William

I thank you for your favor of the 3 d: inst t: and
the newspapers enclosed. 1 I will endeavor to comply with your request, that I communicate with you
more frequently, but I will be free to confess to you, that every year
of my life, I grow more selfish & less disposed to write letters,
merely of friendship. You will experience the same thing in a few years,
& I believe you assigned the true cause of it when you attributed it
to “commerce with the world.” I would not be understood, as subscribing
to the force of your comparison & its application; for I do not find
that the “concerns of life” have at all weakened my friendships, though
they have destroyed that relish for epistolary correspondence, which
youthful ardor generally feels. So long as professions of friendship
will pass for common civility they may be made without risk, but a man
should be very cautious in pledging himself upon paper, where the utmost
confidence does not exist between the parties. It is better to be
wanting in profession than in performance & sincerity. Our friend
M r: T Johnson will subscribe to this
truth, which he was so fond of calling to my memory, I know not exactly
why.

I am as you conjectured, again seated in my Office,
though not full of business—a small portion nevertheless falls to my
share, and I look to time & perseverance for a moderate increase.
Since my return I have spoken once in the Court of Oyer & terminer,
by appointment of the Judges, in behalf of a man, who was indicted for
high-way robbery, and had the good fortune to obtain a verdict of not guilty , directly against the charge
from the bench. The Attorney Gen: & one of the Judges told me I had
great luck, and I was much of their opinion. 2

I was joined by Forbes & Sumner at Baltimore, and
the latter came on with me hither, where he remained several days. 3 M r: Rogers told me he had seen you & the family a few days
since.

Your young male friends here are all well—several of
them have within a few days assumed the dignity of professional
advancement. Rush, Peters, Ewing & Bird, are of the number. 4 Your friends of the
other sex, are, I believe, likewise well.

I enclose at the request of my friend M rs: Rutter a sample of Cotton, which you
will give to my Mother and request her to write to New England, for two pounds,
(or one pound, if she think there will be a difficulty in sending so
much as two pounds) of Cotton, of the same quality and to direct that it
be sent to me , by some private hand. 5 It is a commission for a
lady to whom I am greatly obligated for numerous acts of kindness, I
shall therefore be the more anxious to have this performed to her
satisfaction. My mother is my sole resort in such cases.

I share your apprehensions on the score of Southern
faith; if the failure of the federal ticket shall lie at the door of
S o Carolina, there will never be any
future confidence on the part of N England in that State. I believe the
elections of several of their City members is contested for no other
purpose than to lessen, perhaps entirely take away the federal
majority. 6

We have no news from New York yet.— I am sorry to
hear that my Mother had taken a severe cold— There must be Dutch stoves
put up in the great Hall, or you will all be sick.

Please to offer my congratulations to Miss Caroline
Johnson upon her happy recovery. I hope she will have her health
confirmed. present me kindly to all the family & to our own—to M r: Cranch & his lady—

Your’s sincerely

T B Adams. 7

I shall send you the Rush light, though a spurious
one, I believe. 8 Did
Judge Washington write those strictures in the Augusta paper? If you
write to Sturgiss he will inform you. 9