This Congress will support the Massachusetts. But we have an amazing field of business before us. When I shall have the joy of meeting you and our little ones I know not.
The military spirit which runs through the continent is truly amazing. This city turns out two thousand men every day. Mr. Dickinson is a colonel, Mr. Reed a lieutenant-colonel, Mr. Mifflin a major. He ought to have been a general, for he has been the animating soul of the whole.
Colonel Washington appears at Congress in his uniform, and, by his great experience and abilities in military matters, is of much service to us.
Oh that I were a soldier! I will be. I am reading military books. Everybody must, and will, and shall be a soldier.
38. John Adams.
Philadelphia, 2 June, 1775.
I had yesterday the pleasure of two letters from you, by Dr. Church. We had been so long without any intelligence from our country, that the sight of the Dr. gave us great joy. I have received no letters from England, until the Doctor brought me one from Mr. Dilly.[76]
Mr. Henly goes, to-morrow, to the camp at Cambridge. I am not so ill as I was when I left you, though not well.
Our debates and deliberations are tedious; from nine to four, five, and once near six—our determinations very slow—I hope sure. The Congress will support us, but in their own way. Not precisely in that way which I could wish, but in a better way than we could well expect, considering what a heterogeneous body it is.