in thanksgiving and praise to the Supreme Being, who hath so remarkably delivered our enemies into our hands. And, hearing that an express is to go off to-morrow morning, I have retired to write you a few lines. I have received no letters from you since you left Philadelphia' by the post, and but one by any private hand.

Burgoyne is expected in by the middle of the week. I have read many articles of capitulation, but none which ever before contained so generous terms. Many people find fault with them, but perhaps do not consider sufficiently the circumstances of General Gates, who, by delaying and exacting more, might have lost all. This must be said of him, that he has followed the golden rule, and done as he would wish himself, in like circumstances, to be dealt with. Must not the vaporing Burgoyne, who, it is said, possesses great sensibility, be humbled. to the dust? He may now write the Blockade of Saratoga. I have heard it proposed, that he should take up his quarters in the Old South, but believe he will not be permitted to come to this town. Heaven grant us success at the southward. That saying of Poor Richard often occurs to my mind, 'God helps them who help themselves ;" but, if men turn their backs and run from an enemy, they cannot surely expect to conquer him.

This day, dearest of friends, completes thirteen years since we were solemnly united in wedlock.

1 For Yorktown, whither the Congress had adjourned.

Three years of this time we have been cruelly separated. I have, patiently as I could, endured it, with the belief that you were serving your country, and rendering your fellow creatures essential benefits. May future generations rise up and call you blessed, and the present behave worthy of the blessings you are laboring to secure to them, and I shall have less reason to regret the deprivation of my own particular felicity.

Adieu, dearest of friends, adieu.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

8 March, 1778.

"T IS a little more than three weeks since the dearest of friends and tenderest of husbands left1 his solitary partner, and quitted all the fond endearments of domestic felicity for the dangers of the sea, exposed, perhaps, to the attack of a hostile foe, and, O good Heaven! can I add, to the dark assassin, to the secret murderer, and the bloody emissary of as cruel a tyrant as God, in his righteous judgments, ever suffered to disgrace the throne of Britain.

I have travelled with you over the wide Atlantic, and could have landed you safe, with humble confidence, at your desired haven, and then have set myself down to enjoy a negative kind of happiness,

1 Mr. Adams, with his eldest son, sailed for France in the frigate Boston in February of this year.

in the painful part which it has pleased Heaven to allot me; but the intelligence with regard to that great philosopher, able statesman, and unshaken friend of his country,' has planted a dagger in my breast, and I feel, with a double edge, the weapon that pierced the bosom of a Franklin.

"For nought avail the virtues of the heart,
Nor towering genius claims its due reward;
From Britain's fury, as from death's keen dart,

No worth can save us, and no fame can guard."

The

The more distinguished the person, the greater the inveteracy of these foes of human nature. argument of my friends to alleviate my anxiety, by persuading me that this shocking attempt will put you more upon your guard and render your person more secure than if it had never taken place, is kind in them, and has some weight; but my greatest.com. fort and consolation arise from the belief of a superintending Providence to whom I can, with confidence, commit you, since not a sparrow falls to the ground without his notice. Were it not for this, I should be miserable and overwhelmed by my fears and apprehensions.

Freedom of sentiment, the life and soul of friendship, is in a great measure cut off by the danger of miscarriage, and the apprehension of letters falling into the hands of our enemies. Should this meet with that fate, may they blush for their connexion

An unfounded rumor of the assassination of Dr. Franklin in Paris.

with a nation who have rendered themselves infamous and abhorred, by a long list of crimes, which not their high achievements, nor the lustre of former deeds, nor the tender appellation of parent, nor the fond connexion which once subsisted, can ever blot from our remembrance, nor wipe out those indelible stains of their cruelty and baseness. They have engraven them with a pen of iron on a rock for ever.

To my dear son remember me in the most affectionate terms. I would have written to him, but my notice is so short that I have not time. Enjoin it upon him never to disgrace his mother, and to behave worthily of his father. Tender as maternal affection is, it was swallowed up in what I found a stronger, or so intermixed that I felt it not in its full force till after he had left me. I console myself with the hopes of his reaping advantages under the careful eye of a tender parent, which it was not in my power to bestow upon him.

taken place in the poThis letter will go by

There has nothing material litical world since you left us. a vessel for Bilboa, from whence you may, perhaps, get better opportunities of conveyance than from any other place. The letter you delivered to the pilot came safe to hand. All the little folks are anxious for the safety of their papa and brother, to whom they desire to be remembered; to which is added the tenderest sentiments of affection, and the fervent prayers for your happiness and safety, of your

PORTIA.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

18 May, 1778. I HAVE waited with great patience, restraining, as much as possible, every anxious idea for three months. But now every vessel which arrives sets my expectation upon the wing, and I pray my guardian genius to waft me the happy tidings of your safety and welfare. Hitherto my wandering ideas have roved, like the son of Ulysses, from sea to sea, and from shore to shore, not knowing where to find you; sometimes I fancied you upon the mighty waters, — sometimes at your desired haven, sometimes upon the ungrateful and hostile shore of Britain, all times, and in all places, under the protecting care and guardianship of that Being, who not only clothes the lilies of the field, and hears the young ravens when they cry, but hath said, but hath said, “Of how much more worth are ye than many sparrows;" and this confidence, which the world cannot deprive me of, is my food by day, and my rest by night, and was all my consolation under the horrid ideas of assassination, the only event of which I had not thought, and, in some measure, prepared my mind.

but at

When my imagination sets you down upon the Gallic shore, a land to which Americans are now bound to transfer their affections, and to eradicate all those national prejudices, which the proud and haughty nation, whom we once revered, craftily in