William Willis to John Adams, March 30, 1819
New Bedford 3d Mo. 30th. 1819
Respected & Dear Sir
I have some time wished, and from day to day intended to write you a letter: And your esteem’d favor of the 21st of last month encreas’d that desire. But whenever I have place’d paper before me for that purpose, my hand has been arrested by an afflicting thought, that by expressing my condolence for the trying loss you have met with, I might open in your bosom a healing wound. But a confidence that expressions of sincere respect for one whose memory must be ever dear to you, cannot at any time be unwelcome to your ear. And also an assurance of you possessing a large share of that Christian fortitude, and resignation, which afford a healing balm to the afflicted mind, have encouraged me to break through the barriers which before arrested my pen.
Although your loss, Sir, is irreparably great: Although those virtues which endear’d your Amiable Consort to all her acquaintance, endear’d her still more to you. Yet you have the consoling reflections, that the same virtues endear’d her also to that Saviour, who was able to transport her to those realms where pain and sorrow can never enter. And where you have the enlivening hope of meeting her again, in a State of never–ending bliss
When an overruling Providence Seperates from us by death, our dearest connexions; how allieviating is the confidence, that our loss, is their gain. And that the Beneficent Author of their being has call’d them from a world of woes, to regions of everlasting joy and Peace. And I am very confident, Sir, that no person who has been depriv’d of a belov’d partner of his bosom, ever had greater reason to believe, than you have, that yours has join’d the company of Celestial Spirits in “a City not made with hands eternal and on high”.
That the Almighty Being who has thus depriv’d you of a deservedly belov’d consort, may aid you by his consoling Spirit; and render serene the evening of your days, is the prayer of / Your very Sincere / Respectful freind
Willm Willis