FOURTEEN
Circumstances and Connections Respectable
When, on August 2, 1784, Abigail arrived in London with Nabby to wait for John, she wrote a letter to her sister Mary that invited intrigue:
If at any time you wish to communicate to me, anything that no other person ought to see, let it be always inclosed in an other letter with such a mark upon the outside as this
What might be embarrassing ought to be private, Abigail thought. Though the sisters might try to hide their brother’s existence from the outside world, to one another they worried over his relentlessly bad news. Alarmed by his intemperance and his debts, they feared, only too prophetically, that the “drama was not fully played out.” It almost seemed as if they were preparing for his predicament of the next years—to hear him charged with counterfeiting, to wait in suspense to learn that he had been found guilty of passing notes others had fabricated, but not actually of forgery. The neat little symbol in the corner of the letter would act as their flag to signal news they would want to slip into a pocket, news they did not wish to share with others.1
But news of their brother, their “unhappy connection,” was not the only secret between Mary and Abigail. There was also “the family affair” to deal with, and Mary Cranch might easily have availed herself of the secret cipher to help channel her insistent flow of opinions regarding Nabby’s romance with Royall Tyler, which had taken a curiously optimistic turn just a few months before Nabby boarded the Active. With Nabby and Abigail gone, Tyler, as a boarder with the Cranch family in Germantown, might have been safer in a lion’s cage. Though his life was not actually threatened, his future as he had conceived it—meaning marriage to Nabby—was under siege. His recollection of their tearful farewell, of “throwing” himself into a chair despondently after Nabby’s departure, was translated as a scene of foolish hysteria by Mary and her daughters. Their version was that Tyler had sobbed irrationally about not seeing Nabby again, that he had bawled “like a great boy who had misbehaved and was obliged to go to school without his dinner.” The cousins’ imitations of Tyler’s hysteria made John Quincy laugh as they had never seen him before, or so they claimed. What motivated the Cranch family’s malicious behavior is difficult to ascertain, but there is no doubt that while many kept Tyler under scrutiny, Mary would have had him in chains. Possibly she could not forgive him his “wild oats” days; perhaps she was disappointed that he preferred Nabby to her own eligible daughters. Whatever the reasons, her boarder did not have an easy time. Mary, especially, was insatiably curious about how he spent his time and his money, even when and how often he wrote letters; no detail was too petty for her shrewish pen.2
Mary had assured Abigail that her letters would not be of politics, that she knew her sister expected subjects in which her “heart” was interested. She met her promise exhaustively. Initially, for Mary, considering the rest of her “reports,” Tyler received passable grades. To Abigail, while she was in Auteuil, Mary wrote: “His business I think increases and as far as I can judge he attends it with steadiness. He has his share at this court.” By January 4, 1785, she had, however, sounded the alarm. Captain Lyde was to sail the next Sunday, she wrote Abigail, yet
Mr. T would not write till the court which began to sit this week was over so that unless he writes in Boston which I should think he may he will not write by this vessel. I dont know how it is with you but I had rather have a Letter by every vessel than a volume at a time and that but seldom. I wish you could see him when he is writing shut up in his chamber for a week together with about forty books round him. I told him one day [a] Letter … from the Heart in season was worth all of them. I asked him what example he could make for his neglect. He said he should make none. I confess I felt too much [to] answer him.3
An ignored Mary Cranch was indeed a most vengeful Mary Cranch. Tyler was far too independent, his habits too unconventional and too whimsical for her approval. Besides, he was rudely impervious to her suggestions, a factor that could only orchestrate her main theme, his unsuitability for marriage to Nabby. Of course, she had more to say, she assured Abigail, but would wait for another vessel. What she omitted, her sister Elizabeth Shaw supplied, though in somewhat more sympathetic tones, based, of course, on the assumption that Tyler was the villain of this on-going drama. Mrs. Shaw lamented that “infelicity” must be Nabby’s present portion, advised her sister of the necessity of “Candor, & impartiality” because it was not sufficient to hear only one side, and assured her that “Time was the helper,” and that her own prudent goodness of heart would direct her in the “critical, delicate” part she had to act.4
* * *
Abigail was quite aware of the delicate course on which she was uncomfortably embarked, and confided her misgivings to Uncle Tufts. Her impression of the romance was not a satisfactory one, either, though her view of it differed from her sisters’. Nabby was disturbingly quiet, and, to a degree, her mother understood her moods. Every thoughtful young person who was about to “connect” herself for life had to think through the decision. Still, Nabby showed none of the joy Abigail remembered of her own young life, and she did not need to tell her uncle that her own marriage had been of the happiest kind. Most of all, she very much wanted this same happiness for Nabby. While Abigail had, at the beginning of the year, addressed Tyler as “the person to whom care & protection I shall one day resign a beloved and only daughter,” she found herself doubting her own words. Troubled, she confided as much: “This Sir is between ourselves.”5
Another letter from Mary, that June, did nothing to soothe Abigail. Mary’s saga of Tyler’s eccentric handling of a packet of mail from Nabby that he was meant to distribute among friends and relatives continued in obsessive detail. Letters that had arrived in the fall he gave out in the spring; letters received in April he hadn’t delivered until that June. Mary even suspected that Tyler kept some of them for himself, and said she thought about asking her niece not to enclose letters meant for the family along with those to her fiancé. Mary had more to say and only wished her sister could be reached more easily so that she might not feel so inhibited about the information she felt bound to send her. By no means a skimping intelligence agent (though a self-appointed one), Mary made an offer: “If there is any thing which you may wish to be informed of which I have not told you ask me and I will endeavour to satisfy you.” Burdensome as her household duties were, demanding of her time as the periodic examinations of Abigail’s woolens were (to keep the moths from devouring them), Mary was happy, she told her sister, to be helpful to her in every way.6
* * *
By July the matter had reached a critical stage. To answer Abigail’s inquiries about Tyler, to reply to her hopes that he was “very busy and to great purpose,” Mary could only say, “I hope so too.” She knew very little about him these days. He was seldom in Braintree, and even then “very little” at home. She did know that he had attended the courts in Boston the last winter and that summer, and that he would not be home until the sessions were over. Obviously, “Certain parts” of her letter were bound to cause Abigail and Nabby anxiety, Mary surmised correctly. They also effected a decision that had been in the offing for months now.7
It was at morning chocolate with her mother that Nabby finally unwound her knot of troubles. Abigail would repeat her daughter’s words to her sisters; they would haunt her the rest of her life. “Do you not think a gentleman of my acquaintance a man of honour?” Nabby asked. “Yes, a man of strict honour,” Abigail answered, adding, “I wish I would say that of all your acquaintances.” There was no mistaking Abigail’s meaning. “But a breach of honour in one party would not justify a want of it in the other,” Nabby said. Abigail took only a moment to decide that this was the time to speak up. “If you are conscious of any want of honour in the part of the gentleman, I and every friend you have in the world would rejoice if you could liberate yourself.”8
Nabby’s reaction was instantaneous. She picked up her skirts, ran out of the room, and bounded up the staircase and into her own room. Two hours later she sent down to her mother copies of two letters from Royall Tyler (she had received four in the past fourteen months—the last, a short one written in December), and her own personal note. She wanted her mother to know how concerned she was about her father’s thoughts, and wondered whether he was one of the “friends” who wished for her liberation from her engagement. She dreaded his displeasure, and promised never in the future to take a step he had not approved. She also thanked heaven that her mind was not in so weak a state as to feel a “partiality” that was not returned. No state of mind was so painful as that which allowed fear, suspicion, doubt, dread, and apprehension. “I have too long known them all,” a stoic Nabby confided to her mother.9
Abigail did not waste a moment that evening. Nabby had given her permission to “communicate” her thoughts to her father, if her mother thought it proper. Abigail obviously thought it exceedingly proper, and within moments, father and daughter were in one of the most personal conversations of their entire relationship, the father awkward and sorrowful over his daughter’s sad bewilderment, almost apologetic. Tyler was a stranger, and John explained that though he had not given his consent as freely as he wished, his sympathy for their affection for one another reflected his own romantic attitude toward marriage. Now, if her feelings were different, her plans changed, he hoped she had arrived at her decision with mature deliberation, because it was a serious one. If she had reason to question Tyler’s honor, or if she supposed Tyler was capable of telling her he had written when he had not, then Nabby’s father assured her he would rather follow her to her grave than see her united with Tyler. As a result of this talk, Abigail was able to write on August 11 to warn John Quincy of surprising news to come. She assumed he would approve of Nabby’s wise conduct and admire her firmness of mind and her prudence, which did her honor. “Be silent!” the mother pleaded. “We are all rejoiced because it came of her own accord free and unsolicited from her and was the result I believe of many months anxiety as you were witness.”10
* * *
Neglect was presumed the primary reason for the demise of Nabby’s romance. By the same yardstick, it was impossible for a young woman in Nabby’s ambivalent state not to be exhilarated by the attentive Colonel Smith’s affectionate interest. Abigail would later confide to John Quincy that they were not long at Grosvenor Square before she saw that “the gentleman who made a part of the family” was happier reading to the ladies and walking, riding, and going to the theater with them, than in any other company or amusement. So much so that she felt anxious about his being a “stranger” to Nabby’s situation; yet she felt awkward about saying anything to him, not sure the colonel was aware of his own feelings. Finally she could not restrain herself another moment, and was convinced it was her duty to speak up, to “hint” to the colonel about Nabby’s “being under engagements in America.”11
Though Abigail introduced the subject “carelessly,” she was proud that not a syllable of her message was lost in transmission. As a result, the colonel decided it would be best for him to go away on business, from which he would not return until December. He also assured Abigail that in the future his attentions would only be “general,” and asked her to excuse him if, on some occasions, he appeared negligent. Abigail commended his resolution, struggling successfully, she thought, against confiding to him that she hoped the estrangement would be a temporary one.12
Abigail made an odd-looking Cupid—her slender, erect figure and thoughtful eyes were less than cherubic—but her aim was neat, her targets readier than she imagined. On the colonel’s return, he dined with the Adams family, but retired immediately, skipping the fireside conversations of previous months. After several weeks of what Abigail would later describe as “perfect distance,” the situation changed abruptly. After theater one evening the colonel asked for a moment’s audience. “As the connection which appeared an insurmountable obstacle to the accomplishment of the wishes nearest his Heart, existed no longer—and from the opinion he had of the Lady” he had assembled his credentials and asked that Abigail read them and then bring them to John, who was already upstairs in bed.13
Abigail read with pleasure, but without surprise, of the thirty-year-old colonel’s commissions, of testimony to his brave conduct during his seven years in the army. She had liked the colonel immediately. The tall soldier with a “good” figure and a ruddy complexion, a graduate of Princeton University, class of 1774, the son of a New York merchant, appeared to be a “modest worthy man,” she wrote Thomas Jefferson, and she had known all along that their family would have “much pleasure” in connection with him. What she did not know was that the colonel, too, was on the rebound, from a Miss Read, with whom he might once have been happy, though of course not now, in view of his new ties. “You need not fear I’ll make another slip with her,” he reassured his dear friend the Prussian general and fellow soldier, Baron Friedrich von Steuben.14
* * *
From all appearances and actions, Colonel Smith was charming and modest; it was only in his confidences to von Steuben that he appeared another man, this one ambitious, striving, impecunious, flirtatious. “I put up at the Pall Mall near the Palace of St. James, thinking it best to strike at the highest peg at once,” he had written. He had been pleased with his reception by the Adams family, though hardly mesmerized by them initially. “Mrs. A——is a very sensible and discerning woman, and Miss is an amiable and sensible girl”; at court they had “behaved to a charm.” A short while later, in a letter to Rufus King, he was more enthusiastic: “Mr. A. full answers yours and Mr. Jays account of him, & the ladies of his family do honour to this country. As for the young lady—she is more than painters can express, or youthful poets fancy when they love.” And though it was treason to say so in this hemisphere, and being absolutely impartial, he had to assert that they were “fully equal” to any attending the Queen’s reception.15
Charmed as he now seemed by the Adams family, he was still captive of a most elemental problem. “I should have no objections to an enlargement of salary for reasons obvious as follows,” he mentioned to King. He planned to live with Mr. Adams’s family, though he had no right to expect this. He was worried that Mr. Adams would find his own allowance short, no matter how economical he was, for his station was remarkably expensive and required a “tolerable” supply of money to maintain standards he had set for his family and his country. As for himself, Smith wrote: “I mean with Apulius to choose my allowance as I would my coat rather neat and fit than too long or too full, for what ever exceeds convenience and moderation turns more to burthen than to use.” But without facing the reality of his expectations or his position, Colonel Smith’s “burthen” was a considerable one. He had entered, in his own words, on “a very extensive and Gay theatre, the acts many, the Plott immense. I move with great caution lest I should stumble—I must confess I do not find that intoxication which I was led to expect,” he concluded critically.16
Surprisingly, for one so thorough and astute as Abigail, her correspondence reveals not a trace of doubt about the colonel’s integrity. She seemed to accept him off the battlefield in gleaming uniform; his own pleasant, competent, interested personality, bolstered by official commendation, was enough to justify her approval as well as John’s. Yet a casual acquaintance, a passing visitor, Matthew Ridley, caught the colonel in an entirely different light and reported his impressions of him and the entire Adams ménage to Catherine W. Livingston with blunt yet skilled strokes. The family was well, Abigail appeared “a very good woman and one I am much pleased with,” but he had reservations about the newcomer. “Colonel Smith is entirely in the gay Circle—he keeps his chariot—will a Secretary’s Appointment afford this?” Ridley asked, without needing to hear the answer. “I know the Ambassador complains that he cannot make his appointment do and I sincerely believe him. I am convinced it is impossible it should.”17
Perhaps the parents, ingrained skeptics of all luxury or frivolity, were blinded by their delight in Nabby’s new mood, grateful for her shy smiles. It would seem as though they had lost their way in an unaccustomed climate, their judgment dulled by their gratitude. Nabby joined conversations now, and no longer sat around in defeated silence, writing in her small notebook, copying lines from Shakespeare that left no question but that Royall Tyler had sorely wounded her:
I am sorry I must never trust thee more
But count the world a stranger for thy sake
The private wound is deepest, oh time most accurs’d.
’mongst all foes, that a friend should be the worst.18
In December of 1785, Nabby recorded her change of heart in her journal. The tone was tentative, but the careful, girlish script was deliberate: “Events have taken place respecting myself, in which, perhaps, my future happiness may be interested. To that Being, under whose guidance I would fain believe all our actions to be, I must submit and leave the events.”19
* * *
The news at which Abigail had hinted for months was considered official when she wrote to Mary on February 26: “Your niece is engaged to a gentleman worthy of her; one, whom you will be proud to own as a nephew.” Abigail was so pleased by the “Circumstances and Connections respectable” that she could not pass a higher “encomium” upon the prospective son-in-law than to say that he often reminded her of her dear brother Richard Cranch. The colonel appeared to be a gentleman in every thought, word, and action, “domestic in his attachments fond in his affections, quick as lightning in his feelings, but softened in an instance; his character is that of a dutiful son, and most affectionate brother.”20
And that was not all. As though the display were incomplete, Abigail had further medals to show. The colonel was also a hero of sorts, having trod the “uncultivated wilds” through Indian country, having received ample testimony from Generals John Sullivan and George Washington, having been appointed by the latter and by Congress to inspect the evacuation of New York, and afterwards commissioned as Secretary of the Legation to the Court of St. James. He was a man of such stellar attributes that Abigail could not help but conclude that as an officer his character was “highly meritorious; as a citizen he appears all that ought to be.” Colonel Smith was a man who loved his country, and was willing to devote his talents to its service. With his “high” sense of honor and his independent spirit, founded on religion and morality, Abigail was proud to say there was every reason to believe that her son-in-law’s character would bear the “strictest scrutiny.”21
Abigail shared her confidences with Uncle Tufts as well as with her sisters. The patient, kindly man had reassured Abigail of his appreciation of their difficult position regarding Royall Tyler. The faithful friend had read the anxious sentiments of a parent with sympathy, and wished he could have given Abigail fresh information that would put her mind at ease. He had hoped time would remove doubts. He scarcely knew what to say except that the subject was so delicate he wished her to burn his letter as soon as she had read it.22
Mary Cranch was guilty of no such thoughtful subterfuge; to her, Colonel Smith’s entrance into their lives was a brilliant personal victory, a vindication of all her dedicated effort. At last she could unburden herself of all that was on her mind about what a time the dear girl must have had ever since she had been in Europe, how she wished now to congratulate her dear niece for acting with a spirit worthy of her parents, how she feared making mischief, yet fretted over whether she had done her duty toward her. Further, what a relief it was that they would have more tranquil moments now than they had enjoyed for these past three years. Quite willing, however, to postpone these tranquil moments for a little bit later, Mary went on to ask whether Abigail had received her letter describing Tyler’s habit of detaining mail, and to fill her sister in on his activities, about which she had to make a grudging confession: “I know no more about his business than you do.”23
Only temporarily out of touch with Tyler, Mary was to note in the following months that since his “dismissal,” Tyler seemed gayer than ever, that he showed Nabby’s letters around, that he had built a windmill to power his chocolate mill and bolting mill. Also, he indulged in ballooning, had put his sleigh into elegant repair, was assisting in a course of lectures on natural philosophy, planned to change his lodging, and had hired a Negro woman and also a boy to take care of his stock, which consisted of three horses, a yoke of oxen, and a cow (this last from a neighbor). Just in case Mary had left a crevice of doubt as to her opinion of Nabby’s former suitor, she added that it was the belief of their relatives that Tyler was a man of no abilities with no profession, and that Nabby had bettered herself.24
Mary, who could be not only ugly but clumsy about her likes and dislikes, was, not surprisingly, very strongly suspected by Tyler of meddling and influencing Nabby’s decision. She protested her innocence of the “fibs” and “foul play” that Tyler complained about, even talked about being “thanksful” that she had been so “cautious” in what she had said about him. Just how influential she was in coloring Nabby’s opinion is difficult to appraise. Yet there is firm evidence that her campaign against Tyler was long-standing. Even before Nabby had put one foot aboard the Active, Mary had managed to alienate her niece, an admission she found it impossible to make until Tyler had departed from both their lives. Then she wrote to her sister Abigail:
Could I be with her I would convince her how tenderly I love her. I would if possible regain those affections which I lost by endeavouring to preserve her from being miserable. I thought I did right. She mistook my motive or she would have thought so too. I shall leave it to her reason and good sense to determine whether I do not deserve a higher place in her affections.…25
By the third week of April 1786, Abigail had faced the reality of the impending marriage. The zealous soldier, Abigail complained cheerfully, would hardly give her time to tell her friends that such an event was likely to take place. She claimed that she had no idea why he was in a hurry, though sympathy generously tempered her anxiety. Any time now, John might be reassigned, and it would be consoling to have Nabby happily settled with her colonel. But conscientious, prudent woman that she was, she worried about the finances involved, knew the young couple would find marriage “very chargeable,” and was under no illusions about either of their fortunes. Keeping house was easier in America, and required half the salary one needed in London, where, as a public character, one was expected to be surrounded by servants, whom she considered the “greatest moths” she could conceive of. In spite of all caution, one ran into debt easily.26
But there were other problems she faced in parting with Nabby. Perhaps Thomas Jefferson’s presence in London, at John’s urgent invitation that he help negotiate with the Portuguese and Tripolitan ambassadors, had revived a barely quiescent sense of distance from friends and family. When Jefferson and Adams left London on April 4 to tour England’s gardens together, Abigail was reminded of the pain of past partings and of the privileged time together these past months; this six-day sojourn marked her first separation from John in almost two years. Abigail felt threatened now. She wished she might keep Nabby and the colonel with her if she did go home, which she believed was the best place for all of them. She admitted she could not refrain from imposing her puritan values—which dictated that learning, personal merit, and virtue were “the only distinctions worth making”—on London’s fashionable world, or on those who styled themselves the “polite people,” any more than she could have installed a picket fence around Buckingham Palace. But she could nurture her own preferences for herself and for Nabby.27
Money, values, and even personal deprivation paled next to the subject of romance. She had compassion for the colonel, and knew her husband would understand why the young folks wished to rush into marriage; because of what a “dance” he had had, she thought he would consent immediately. With happy resignation, Abigail realized there was little to justify postponement. Judging from her own lot—so many circumstances at “first sitting out” had surprised her and required an adjustment—she did not think it worthwhile now to object to Nabby’s present connection. Though it would be very hard to part with her daughter, Abigail rationalized that at least she had the consolation of being able to say, “I have not an anxiety with respect to the man.”28
On May 25, Abigail told Mary that it was not unlikely that when she wrote again she might “add another nephew to the list of your relatives.” The couple had rented a furnished house, and had need of linens, china, and glassware, which Abigail was busily assembling. When they learned that the Bishop of St. Asaph was going to the country, a date was finally settled. Dispensations from church ceremonies were usually granted only to members of Parliament and the nobility, but special attention was given to the colonel’s request; twenty-four hours later, because they were foreigners and in consideration of Mr. Adams’s station, the couple had their license. The young couple, as timid as partridges in Abigail’s opinion, were terribly afraid of a bustle, and said they wished as few people at their wedding as decency permitted. They did, however, invite John Singleton Copley and his wife and daughter, “worthy good people” with “delicate manners,” without elaborating on the fact that a wedding was to take place when the bishop arrived.29
Nabby had done pretty well, her mother thought, repeating after the bishop “I, Abigail, take thee, William,” an embarrassing phrase for one accustomed to acknowledgment of intention with a silent curtsy. But, generally speaking, the ceremony performed on Sunday, June 12, was satisfactory; the bishop, a surprisingly sensitive and liberal man, made some omissions in the traditional ceremony, for which the Adams family thanked him “in our Hearts.” Once the marriage was official, Abigail was especially reassured when the kindly bishop took the trouble to say that he had never performed a wedding ceremony with more pleasure, and added, from the knowledge he had of the parties involved, that he had never known a couple with a better prospect of happiness.30
The wedding that united Nabby and her colonel also signaled the breaking up of her parents’ household. The separation was as difficult for daughter as for mother; though the Smiths actually moved into their house on Wimpole Street on July 1, they returned home to Grosvenor Square for dinner each day. But the house seemed empty now, and Abigail, who could not help thinking that time had flown strangely fast this past year, yearned for the countryside; she was feeling like a shut-in in a noisy, smoky town. It was not so much that she was confined physically as spiritually; she was sequestered in the house on Grosvenor Square with the realities of separation from all but John. She now appreciated for the first time that a person might be alone in a crowd. And she no longer wondered, as she used to, how people who had no children substituted cats, dogs, and birds, as well as friends.31
John was tremendously sympathetic; the pleasure of having his wife and his daughter by his side had spoiled him. He dreaded Nabby’s leaving. She and her husband had been gone exactly twenty-four hours when he changed his morning schedule. Usually, it had been the pattern for John to work in his library after breakfast, for Abigail to retire to her bedroom, and for the two to meet again at one o’clock in the afternoon. But not this morning. It was barely eleven o’clock when Abigail heard her door soundly thumped, and opened it to find her husband with hat and cane in hand. “Well, I have been to see them,” he said. “Could you not have stayed in the house until the usual hour of departure?” Abigail asked. “No, I could not. I wanted to go before Breakfast.” And he had, though one o’clock in the afternoon was the usual time for his daily walk.32
* * *
Despite florid self-congratulations and her family’s enthusiasm for Nabby’s “connection,” Abigail could not exorcise the past. The night before the wedding, she dreamed of Royall Tyler; it was as though some evil spirit had sent him to visit her. Overwhelmed by guilt, she tossed in her bed, the tangled deeds and misdeeds of the past year parading through her mind until her head ached with confusion. On the one hand, she was sure that Royall’s failure to write to her daughter in no way indicated his lack of affection for her. But on the other, he had been warned—she herself had heard Nabby say it repeatedly—that she would “erase” from her heart and mind every sentiment of affection, however strong, if she was conscious that it was not returned, for she was incapable of loving a man who did not love her. Abigail almost admired Tyler’s eccentricities; she understood that he was an original, but she also understood her daughter’s needs. At her most conciliatory, she worried about Tyler being “mortified” by Nabby’s rejection of him, sympathized “not a little” with his loss of all hope of a connection he had obviously cherished, and wished him every possible happiness.33
Having thought all the good and charitable things she could about the man who had nearly been her son-in-law, she was unable, however, to negate her doubts or her bitterness, which verged on fury. While Abigail talked about respecting Tyler’s abilities and his amiable qualities, she also mentioned that he was as unstable as water, that he lacked the foremost of virtues, sincerity. Memories brimmed, and she recalled how she had found herself “trembling,” before coming to England, for the fate of her only daughter, and hoping that the separation would be therapeutic, that it would help “fully develop and try characters” that were obviously in need of ripening. Tyler’s abilities, specifically applied, might have won him respect, but bound as he was to “triffel” with a thousand themes, his waxen wings would melt, she predicted, and he would fall “headlong” to the ground. But it wasn’t just her own reservations and Mary’s vicious denunciations that convinced her that Tyler, with his “certain habits,” would be happier if connected with another family than theirs; it was Uncle Tufts who had confirmed all her doubts.34
Being a punctilious businessman and a courteous gentleman, Tufts had thought it best to settle Tyler’s involvement with the family’s business, now that he was no longer to be part of it. But that was easier said than done. No matter how many letters he wrote, or how many times he journeyed to Braintree, he could never get the young lawyer to give him a proper accounting of what moneys he had collected, what papers he had on file. Tufts, who eventually spoke of “not a little rejoicing” that Tyler and Nabby had broken off their correspondence, was truly puzzled and tried to understand Tyler’s irresponsible behavior. Was it Tyler’s resentment at doing business with a former near-relative, or was it his “moveable spirit” caught from his windmill project, that accounted for his oddly elusive attitude? Whatever it was, Tufts had grown impatient. “I shall not long be interested to feed hallucinations,” he told Abigail. On July 6, Tufts thought he might have to resort to the law to retrieve the Adamses’ papers and money, and he asked that Abigail consult with John as to whether he thought it proper to “specially order” the delivery of all books and papers into his hands—“such an order to be used as prudence may direct,” he added. Before he had a chance to receive an answer, Tufts was able to report with relief, in August, that Tyler had “voluntarily” turned in the material sought, offering some vague excuse about the scarcity of current coin impeding the collection of moneys owed.35
* * *
At her angriest, Abigail would call Tyler a “hyena,” indignant that she and Nabby should be dupes of his “cant & grimace.” She would have liked to obliterate the suffering he had caused them; she hoped she would never again hear from him or about him. She was, of course, forgetting about her sister Mary, who refused to give up her vigil. Tyler had moved out of the Cranches’ household around May, on the worst of terms. Except for breakfast and dinner on Sundays, he came and went as he wished, mostly before the family rose, and after they went to bed. Mary said she did not like this kind of boarding, and thought it would be better for him to lodge where he dined. Besides, she wanted his room for her nephews. As though complying with her thoughts, and without a word, he appeared that July, took some of his clothes, and was no longer, from that time on, to be seen, even at the meeting house. Thus far his mill and farm had been maintained, as had his office, and he appeared to be having his house repaired.36
By September, news of Tyler altered drastically. “He looked I cannot tell you how,” Mary reported of her recent encounter with him. “He did not rise from his seat, perhaps he could not.” He had gone off as quickly as he could, and he had not spoken to her. She learned that he had not only returned the necessary papers to Tufts, but also the gifts of a miniature and a morocco pocketbook, at Nabby’s request; her stiff little note to him also mentioned her hopes of his being “well satisfied with the affair as is.…” Mary had learned still more: that Tyler owed his laborers, that his farm was mortgaged and that it was predicted he would not be able to hold on to it for long at the rate he was going. Most of Mary’s information was secondhand because Tyler, after visiting his mother in Jamaica Plains over that summer, returned to Boston, still restless and visibly unsettled, to board with the Palmer family, his warmest and now seemingly his only friends. Palmer (whose daughter Mary, though eighteen years Tyler’s junior, would eventually marry him), seemed alone in his loyalty to Tyler. Maintaining that he was entirely ignorant of the cause of Nabby’s conduct, he even wrote to ask her the reasons for her change of heart. Palmer insisted that Tyler was as worthy a young fellow as any who had ever lived, that he was attentive to his business, but that he had many enemies who had been libeling him.37
* * *
Ultimately, Royall Tyler was to elude the eyes of Germantown and Braintree by circuitous and surprising routes. He was disturbed by rumors that a group of farmers, angered by depressed economic conditions in western Massachusetts, planned to attack the federal arsenal at Springfield. He decided to join up with General Benjamin Lincoln, the leader of the state troops, as his aide-de-camp, and was able to successfully squash the rebellion led by Daniel Shays, who eventually retreated into deep Berkshire snows, and further to Vermont. Then, as though to prove that a man who enjoyed tilting at windmills and riding balloons had other appetites as well, Tyler went on to New York where his play, The Contrast, premiered five weeks later, on April 6, 1787, an intriguing accomplishment on several levels.38
The Contrast was to be regarded as the first American play to be produced commercially. It would also be interpreted as Tyler’s comment on his flawed romance with Nabby Adams. As Abigail speculated to Mary in a letter that July, the writer was indeed drawing a contrast between his own character and another gentleman’s, whose name wasn’t difficult to guess at in any disguise. The subject was that of broken engagements and the contrast between a colonel—a gentleman who has read Chesterfield and received the polish of Europe—and an unpolished, untraveled American named Billy Dimple, a “good natured, decent-dressing young fellow, with a little dash of the coxcomb.”39
Tyler’s play was thought by some to be the first American comedy. It also had to be judged as a private satire, if not revenge, on Nabby Adams and close relations. There were parts for all of them in his play. Aside from the polished and unpolished males in leading roles, there was a “grave” heroine named Maria, who was willing to die to make her father happy, who spoke dramatically of those who had never lived with their parents and did not know what influence “a father’s frowns have upon a daughter’s heart.” Another bit of Maria’s dialogue sounded as though it had been transported from a corner of the library at Grosvenor Square. Of whom could she have been speaking when she said, “His late conduct towards me has turned my coolness into contempt. He behaves as if he meant to insult and disgust me; whilst my father, in the last conversation on the subject of our marriage, spoke of it as a matter which laid near his heart, and in which he would not bear contradiction”?40
Nor did Tyler forget to write about New England gentlemen who have such a “laudable curiosity of seeing the bottom of everything,” about a deacon’s daughter with twenty acres of land (“somewhat rocky though”), a Bible, and a cow. Did he have Abigail or Mary Cranch or even Nabby in mind when he wrote about women who look as if they didn’t know a journal from a ledger, but when their own interest was concerned “they know what’s what, mind the main chance with the best of men”? Which of the three inspired one character to cry out against a woman who had kept him from speaking his mind all his life, who threatened to “henpeck” him even though she was dead? And who provided the model for the female who kept saying, “My will is yours … my will is yours … but took special care to have her own way, though, for all that?”41
* * *
Increasingly as she strove, however lamely, to put Tyler at a distance and to face candidly the emptiness of her household since Nabby’s marriage, Abigail thought more of home and found less that was worthwhile about life in London. Not that she didn’t admire the French ambassador, who filled his house each Sunday with hundreds of people, and served them oranges and sweetmeats and coffee, blending the magnificence and splendor of France with the neatness and elegance of England. Not that she didn’t appreciate the gossip (and pass it on) about the Prince of Wales, rumored to be married to Maria Anne Fitzherbert, of an “ancient and respectable family,” who was said to be expecting a child in the course of that summer. But Abigail did not think of this sort of exposure as being in society, or the polite life, as she conceived of it. Its impersonality was distasteful to her, except for one aspect: one could leave these parties without disturbing a soul; since one was never introduced, even when one saw the same person three nights in a row, one could never be rude.42
Abigail made it a rule now, whenever a vessel arrived from Boston, to send a card to its captain, whom she usually found very intelligent, she said, to come for dinner in Grosvenor Square. In this way she could question him about new houses, bridges, trade, whether Boston was growing more frugal or more luxurious, even how the trees were flourishing in the Boston Common. It was a “feast” to her when she could sit and talk about her country and learn about its husbandry, fishery, its trade, which she realized was “in a cloud” that she hoped would be dispelled in time. Even a feast had drawbacks. “I do not believe that ever any people made a greater show with less capital than my dear mistaken countrymen. Our Countrymen owe millions here, hard to believe, but “alass it is a miserable truth.”43
Abigail admitted she was weary, as she repeatedly dwelt on the “useless insipid life” she led, compared with her time in Braintree. However melancholy she might be, Abigail did not lose her sense of humor. Though the bride, Nabby, was as slender as a greyhound, half her size when she had left America, the same could not be said for her mother. She wished she could send to Mary or Mrs. Shaw a little of what Shylock was so determined to take from poor Antonio.44
And John had kept pace. If one horse had to carry both of them, she should pity the beast. True, her weight was increased, her hair was dressed and powdered and suffered more “torture” than in America, and she was two years older—these were changes, she admitted. But they were the only ones. Her clothing was the same; she wore the same calicoes, chintzes, and muslins, wound with double-gauze handkerchiefs, as she had by her Braintree fireside. And more important, “the Heart and mind are the same,” she assured her sisters, as was her regard for her family. She ought to be home with them, with her “lads,” she ought to be seeing her friends “in a social way, loveing them and being beloved by them.” In this tentative mood, the latest letter from her friend Thomas Jefferson was especially welcome.45