Adams:
March 15th. 1819
Dear
Sir
I have
to thank you for another valuable publication your travels in “Europe &
Africa” which though I cannot see well enough to read I can hear as well ever
& accordingly have heard read two thirds of it & shall in course hear
all the rest—It is a magazine of ancient & modern learning of judicious
observations & ingenious reflections I have been so pleased with it that I
wish you had continued your travels into Syria Judea & Jerusalem. I should
attend more to your <interesting>
remarks upon those interesting countries than to those of any traveller I have
yet read—If I were to let my <[. . .]>
imagination loose I Should wish you had been a member of Napoleons Institute at
Cairo nay farther I could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head
of a hundred thousand Israelites indeed as well disciplin’d as a French
army—& marching with them into Judea & making a conquest of that
country & restoring your nation to the dominion of it—For I really wish the
Jews again in Judea an independent nation For as I believe the most enlighten’d
men of it have participated in the ameliorations of the philosophy of the age,
once restored to an independent government & no longer persecuted they
would soon wear away some of the asperities & peculiarities of their
character possibly in time become liberal Unitarian Christians for your Jehovah
is our Jehovah & your God of Abraham Isaac & Jacob is our God I am Sir
with respect & esteem / your obliged humble servant
John
Adams
Manuscript Source:
Massachusetts Historical Society: Adams Family Papers, Letterbooks.
