The letters are very tender and gentle; sometimes they are written to children; they begin, "My deare Child"; "My Indear'd Sonn"; "To my dearly loved Friend and Child." One ends, "With my Indeared Love, committing thyself and thy duty and service to all our friends, and to the protection of the Almighty, I am thine." A mother addresses on the outside her letter to her son in these words, "To my very good friend, These Present," etc. John Cotton addresses a letter externally thus: "These, For the Reverend, his very deare Brother, Mr. Increase Mather, Teacher of a Church at Boston, Present." Sometimes the address ran, "Messenger present these to, etc." Hence it may be seen that the word "Present" sometimes seen on modern letters properly is the imperative verb Present. Occasionally the words "Haste! post haste!" were seen, as on English letters, but I have never seen the old postal inscription, "Haste! post, haste! on your Life! on your Life!" A very genuine and pleasing letter was written by John Quincy Adams when he was nine years old to his father, President John Adams:-- "BRAINTREE, June the 2nd, 1777. "DEAR SIR: I love to receive letters very well, much better than I love to write them. I make but a poor figure at composition, my head is much too fickle, my thoughts are running after bird's eggs, play, and trifles till I get vexed with myself. I have but just entered the 3rd vol of Smollett tho' I had design'd to have got it half through by this time. I have determined this week to be more diligent, as Mr. Thaxter will be absent at Court, & I cannot persue my other studies. I have set myself a Stent & determine to read the 3rd Volume Half out. If I can but keep my resolution, I will write again at the end of the week and give a better account of myself. I wish, Sir, you would give me some instructions with regard to my time & advise me how to proportion my Studies & my Play, in writing I will keep them by me & endeavour to follow them. I am, dear Sir, with a present determination of growing better yours. P.S. Sir, if you will be so good as to favour me with a Blank Book, I will transcribe the most remarkable occurrences I meet with in my reading which will serve to fix them upon my mind." We cannot wonder at the precision and elegance of the letter-writing of our forbears, when we know the "painful" precepts of parents in regard to their children's penmanship and composition. In the letters written by Ephraim Williams, a plain New England farmer, from his home in Stockbridge in the years 1749 _et seq._ to his son Elijah, while the latter was in Princeton College, is shown the respect felt for a good handwriting. Nearly every letter had some such sentences as these:--