the words of a royal sovereign, and not less applicable to him who is invested with the Chief Magistracy of a nation, though he wear not a crown nor the robes of royalty. My thoughts and my meditations are with you, though personally absent; and my petitions to heaven are that 'the things which make for peace may not be hidden from your eyes.' My feelings are not those of pride or ostentation upon the occasion. They are solemnized by a sense of the obligations, the important trusts, and numerous duties connected with it. That you may be enabled to discharge them with honor to yourself, with justice and impartiality to your country, and with satisfaction to this great people, shall be the daily prayer of yours—"
Soon as the funeral rites of Mrs. Adams, the venerable mother of President Adams, were performed, and the sad leave-takings over, Mrs. Adams set out to join her husband at Philadelphia, from whence the seat of government was removed in June, 1800, to Washington City.
Her impression of the place is graphically described in the following letter to her daughter, Mrs. Smith:
"My Dear Child:—
"I arrived here on Sunday last, and without meeting with any accident worth noticing, except losing ourselves when we left Baltimore, and going eight or nine miles on the Frederick road, by which means we were
