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98 dear son, and it is five months since I had an opportunity of conveying a line to you. Yet I know not but you are less a sufferer than you would be to near from us, to know our distresses, and yet be unable to relieve them. The universal cry for bread to a humane heart is painful beyond description." Mr. Adams returned to his family after an absence of eighteen months, but no sooner was he established in his happy home, than he was ordered to Great Britain to negotiate a peace. Two of his sons accompanied him on this trip. He went over night to Boston to embark early next day, and the sad heart left behind again, found relief in the following touching words: "My habitation, how disconsolate it looks! my table, I sit down to it, but cannot swallow my food! Oh, why was I born with so much sensibility, and why, possessing it, have I so often been called to struggle with it ? Were I sure you would not be gone, I could not withstand the temptation of coming to town though my heart would suffer over again the cruel torture of separation." Soon after this time, she wrote to her eldest son in regard to his extreme reluctance at again crossing the ocean, and for its perspicuity and terseness, for the loftiness of its sentiments, and the sound logical advice in which it abounds, ranks itself among the first literary effusions of the century :

"June, 1778.

": 'Tis almost four months since you left your native land and embarked upon the mighty