“The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable, time and silence are the only medicine. I will not, therefore, by useless condolences, open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both that the time is not very distant at which we are to deposit in the same casement our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose again. God bless you, and support you under your heavy affliction. “TH. JEFFERSON.” Side by side in the Congregational church in Quincy, to which he had given the donation to erect it with, lie the mortal remains of Mr. and Mrs. Adams. Within the same house, a plain white marble slab, on the right hand of the pulpit, surmounted by his bust, bears the following inscription, written by his eldest son: Libertatem. Amicitiam. Fidem Retinebis. D. O. M. Beneath these walls, Are deposited the mortal remains of JOHN ADAMS, Son of John and Susanna (Boylston) Adams, Second President of the United States, Born ¹⁹⁄₃₀ October, 1735. On the fourth of July, 1776, He pledged his life, fortune, and sacred honour, To the Independence of his country. On the third of September, 1783, He affixed his seal to the definitive treaty with Great Britain, Which acknowledged that independence, And consummated the redemption of his pledge. On the fourth of July, 1826, He was summoned To the Independence of Immortality And to the judgment of his God. This house will bear witness to his piety; This Town, his birth-place, to his munificence; History to his patriotism; Posterity to the depth and compass of his mind. At his side, Sleeps, till the trump shall sound, ABIGAIL, His beloved and only wife, Daughter of William and Elizabeth (Quincy) Smith.