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Note on the text:

Miss in Her Teens was a popular British comedy, and spectacles are Parisian comedies that JQA hoped to attend more frequently.
Like his peers, JQA kept letterbooks, volumes into which he (or a secretary) copied all of his correspondence. Since in this case the letter he sent is not available, the document imaged below is from his letterbook.
Those selections students are instructed to read appear below in color.
For instructions on how to read the transcriptions, click here.
 

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John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams 2d

Passy Septr. ye 27 1778

My Dear sister

it is some time since I wrote you a Letter & if I should neglect it a great while longer you would have no right to complain because you have been negligent in writing to me. however I think I will not take advantage of you.

But what Subject Shall I write you upon as you have now the honour to be miss in <her> your teens I suppose you begin to look about the world for Diversion. if you was here you would have a surfeit of them. the number of <them> gay amusements in this Country is Litterally infinite & therefore it would be

Adams, John Quincy. Letter to Abigail Adams 2d, September 27, 1778. Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society. Published in Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 3: April 1778 - September 1780 (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1973). Pages 93-94.