April 30, 1806

My Dearest Whales & Cops,

May G-d damn your eyes! It has been a Wiltshire County orphans' age since last my withered valet crouched groveling at my bedpost, the latest co-respondence from Messrs. Whales and Cops clenched between his stained and irregular Irish teeth! I fear the vigor with which I snatched the document from out his purplish jowls this morning has quite ruined the poor man's dentifrice entirely! (I shall have him buttered and flayed by Jesuits in any case.)

What cheek! What effrontery! You expect me to believe you have completed your musical "album" after all? Balls and garters! My operatives have sighted you almost exclusively at bordellos and public bath-houses, that is to say when you are not obscured entirely by the thick and billowing fume from out your opium pipes! Ought I to dash your heads apart with my cudgel for bearding me thus? Young master Kruk advises I ought! (He has gotten into the nog again, and I fear if I do not close this letter soon I shall taste none of it myself.) I shall hear the dulcet piping of your promised new music soon, sirs, or it will go hard with you!

Yours in Holy Cruelty,
John Quincy Adams