TWENTY

Evils of a Serious Nature

John returned to Philadelphia alone in November of 1798. The thought of Abigail, “wrecked and exhausted,” making the journey with him—and he had no doubt of her willingness to do so—frightened him, and he said as much. He wrote back from Philadelphia assuring her that her company was “much desired” by everybody, and by none so much as he. But the thought of her attempting the journey “terrifies me,” he added, “lest it should prove fatal to a life that is dear to me beyond all expression.”1

By the end of December, Abigail had reluctantly given up all thoughts of leaving Quincy. Though she felt better than she had for the four previous months, she recognized herself as “tender, and impared” by constant confinement. The weather, too, had offered her little choice. The roads were blocked by snow; it would take oxen and shovels to open the way and even then, Abigail feared, two sleighs could not pass without one plunging to the side. She was defeated by the severe wind as well, and the intense cold that froze and even broke bottled supplies stored in her cellar, despite their being packed in seaweed and burning coals.2

She was, of course, not happy with her decision. She shadowed John’s footsteps incessantly in her imagination, her feelings of loneliness (“not a creature from Boston had looked in on her”) fused with a sense of guilt. She thought of herself as having “quitted” a place, namely Philadelphia, that it was her duty to occupy, of having deserted a “post” that required her attendance.3

John was patient, solicitous, and tender in response to Abigail’s agonized letters. Repeatedly he reassured her that if it were not for his fear that the journey over the horrid roads in the cold and damp weather would put an end to her, her coming to Philadelphia would be of “inexpressible” satisfaction to him. He tried to convince her, as well, that her low spirits were the effects of long and exhausting illness. They were also the “evils of a serious nature,” and he bade her to banish, as much as possible, all gloomy thoughts and avoid everything that might endanger a return of her old disorders.4

To help Abigail to reconcile herself to her fate, he had a great mind, he said, to give her a sampling of his, which was composed of little or no company, a daily “peck of troubles in a large bundle” of often “illegible” papers, and idle, empty ceremony; all of these were contributory factors to his sinking health. “You and I,” he concluded sadly, “seem to have arrived prematurely at the age when there is no pleasure.”5

Abigail understood John’s message fully. She had long preached survival methods to others. One must call reason and philosophy to one’s aid, she would say, to prevent “untoward occurrences of Life” from depressing one. Miraculously, she was personally almost always able to tap a third resource that remained undiminished in adversity, whether at the heights of snow or the depths of loneliness. This was her boundless curiosity about all phenomena of life, which was nurtured during periods of isolation by her flourishing correspondence. Hers was almost a sensual appreciation of the letters that very nearly transformed sheets of paper into physical incarnations of those she would have sought out to speak with and to touch. Furthermore, she encouraged intimacy that bordered on conspiracy: “You may write to me in a confidence which you know you may not talk in,” she assured her nephew William Shaw, employed now as the President’s secretary. How was he liking Philadelphia and its inhabitants, and how was he succeeding at the public dinners? she thirsted to know.6

By the same token, Abigail was truly responsive; she was of the confessional school herself, giving as well as receiving. At rare times when she did not feel up to writing, for one reason or another (flies buzzing about, her eyesight, illness), she was quick to explain her deficiency. In this particularly troubled winter of 1798, frail of mind and body, she apologized for, in essence, failing to keep her bargain with William, piteously volunteering that her “Imagination has full scope in the wide field of conjecture.” Her powers of concentration seemed to fail her; her mind flew from “one object to another, fixing sometimes upon one, and sometimes upon the other.” She was “puzzled” and “perplexed” and cried out for “more light” on the objects of her consuming concern, for which she so earnestly sought plausible resolutions.7

One object of Abigail’s concern, among many, was the state of her family, perhaps especially that of the Smiths. Their prospects were pathetically limited now. The past July, at the time of Washington’s appointment as commanding general, the Secretary of War had carried to Mount Vernon a list of officers for Washington’s “Selection and Approbation & arrangement,” as Abigail explained to her cousin William Smith. As a result, Colonel Smith had been named adjutant general, and the President had forwarded the nomination of his son-in-law to the Senate. Hours later, three members of the Senate paid an evening call on the President to request the withdrawal of Smith’s nomination on the grounds of his being a speculator, and that he was bankrupt and anti-Federalist. The President’s defense was immediate and resourceful. He accentuated the positive aspects—the colonel’s bravery as an officer, the likelihood that others to be appointed were also speculators, the unlikelihood that the colonel’s prospective position would entail financial responsibilities, the implausibility of his being anti-Federalist, in view of his recent nomination by George Washington.8

When, on July 19, 1798, the Senate confirmed all nominations except the colonel’s, Abigail was angry and suspicious. The first to acknowledge her son-in-law’s “folly and indiscretion,” which had earned him vast unpopularity, she was a steadfast admirer of his soldiering. A man of as much military skill and knowledge as any on Washington’s list had been discarded, in her opinion, and she suspected as the reason the manipulative influence of that extraordinary trio of Cabinet members, Oliver Wolcott, Timothy Pickering, and James McHenry, though she did not mention them by name.9

“It was the last day of the session & their were many Secrut Springs at work,” she wrote her cousin William on July 23. Some were the “tools” of others, she speculated, and some were glad to retaliate for their disappointment in their commander-in-chief, and some were glad to do anything they thought would wound the President. And some, she did allow, had acted on principle, though judging from their choices, they made no improvement on the colonel, in his mother-in-law’s eyes. She worried about the colonel, who would have served with “Zeal Bravery and Skill,” being wounded and hurt far more by this rebuff than any he had received before. He had not solicited the appointment, but he had said he was ready and willing to serve his country if he was called into service. Pensively, she speculated that the result would have been different if there had been more time.10

On December 19, the President discussed still another opportunity with the colonel in a remarkable letter that left little question of the dilemma both faced at this moment. Notice was on its way to the colonel from the Secretary of War, informing him that some officers had proposed that either he or a Mr. Hammond be made a lieutenant colonel commandant, the higher offices all being filled. “This event has embarrassed me,” John told his son-in-law. “I know not what to do. I know not whether the Senate will not negative the nomination if I make it, nor whether you will accept the appointment if they should advise and consent to it.”11

The President was blunt, out of apprehension rather than cruelty. He wrote harshly, as though compelled to remind the colonel that his future was at a standstill unless he mended his ways. The doubts he had confided to other members of his family were in the open now. He must be “explicit,” he insisted, and he was. It was with “inexpressible grief” that he observed Smith’s “pride and ostentation,” which excited so much envy and resentment among his neighbors that if they had to “alledge” against him any instance of dishonorable and dishonest conduct, they would not only do so, but neither forget nor forgive these allegations, factual or not. Those whose vanity, the President continued, caused humiliation in others, could depend on meeting their revenge, which was precisely what was happening now. Furthermore, he was convinced by prevailing reports that if he was to nominate Smith to anything more than a regiment, he had no doubt that the nomination would be voted down by the Senate.12

There was nearly an element of self-pity in the President’s concern for the colonel—provoked by desperation, perhaps. “It is a great misfortune to the public,” John wrote, “that the office I hold should be disgraced by a nomination of my son-in-law which the Senate of the U.S. think themselves obliged to negative. If the disgrace should be repeated, it will be a serious thing to the public as well as to me and you and our children.” Having unburdened himself without inhibition, the President relented. He asked that the colonel inform him immediately whether he wished him to make the nomination, and whether he would accept it “if made and consented to.” His signature was that of an “affectionate” father-in-law.13

Two days later, on December 21, the President informed his son Charles that another had been recommended in the colonel’s place, one Samuel B. Malcolm, who was favored over the colonel by the “worthy man and great magistrate” Governor Jay. This new loss would be even a greater misfortune for the colonel, the President predicted, than the loss of all his property. There was some family ill will that he never understood but that was obviously “fatal” enough to Smith.14

Spring brought no respite. In May the President wrote the colonel of reports of the latter’s “improper speculations in the neighborhood of Detroit,” of “Indian pretensions” fomented by him and his associates. John was infuriated. “If you desire the command of Detroit,” he wrote the colonel, “you might sollicit it of the Secretary at War, the commander in Chief of the army or Major General Hamilton. I will not interfere with the discipline and order of the army because you are my son-in-law.”15

Abigail was aware of some of the colonel’s difficulties immediately, but became aware of others only later. In either case, she was always apprehensive about their effect on Mrs. Smith and the children. Especially concerned about her grandsons in Mrs. Peabody’s care, she speculated candidly about their future struggle to make their way in the world, “without the gifts of fortune, dependent only upon their own industry and talents.” She wished this idea “imprest” upon their minds, she instructed her sister. The most she could hope for was that her grandsons might be educated, and that they might not make the “worse members of society, provided they do not inherit too great a share of pride,” which she wished to see “suppresst, should it discover itself.”16

Her sighing doubts gave way when she wrote, in various rearrangements of the same thoughts: “I make it my rule, not to repine—if all is not according to my wishes. I still have more than my desserts.” Then, refusing to be vanquished, she recruited help for Mrs. Smith to the best of her ability. Repeatedly, she asked members of the family to write to her troubled daughter. “Now and then tell her what is passing,” she bade William Shaw, for example, advising him that his cousin would “take it very kindly” if he would do so.17

*   *   *

But the plight of the Smiths was only one “object” among many that made Christmas of 1798 a trial for Abigail. Thomas was expected home momentarily. Having dutifully accompanied his elder brother to Berlin, he had begged for a replacement so that he might return home. Just when and on what vessel he would arrive were questions for Abigail to agonize over. She half expected him with Captain Jenkins’s but did not find him on the passenger list. Nervously she gauged the “thick” weather and the velocity of the winds, and worried now whether Thomas might instead be aboard the Barbara. The ship, rumored to be foundering at Salem, was one she seemed not to trust—just its name undermined her confidence, she implied, perhaps because it sounded frivolous to her. Lonely, sickly, Abigail could find no solace, even when her thoughts turned to her other sons.18

She was relieved, of course, by John Quincy’s assurance that he and his wife were in good health after a period of illness she only learned about four months later. But she was preoccupied this Christmas with grave news of John Quincy’s disastrous financial setbacks, suffered at the hands of the trusted family friend and recent bankrupt, Dr. Thomas Welsh, and compounded by the ill luck and poor judgment of his own brother Charles. She was bewildered; the situation was “unaccountable.” Though the facts were vague, the message was plain. John Quincy’s savings of four thousand dollars, invested in real estate at the discretion of Charles as well as Welsh, were “sunk”; fortunately, the power to draw on two thousand more had not been exercised. As details of the transaction sharpened, Abigail was more troubled than ever.19

From Charles himself, wretched with worry and guilt (“my sleep has been disturbed and my waking hours embittered”), Abigail learned of his own share in the mismanagement of his brother’s funds. Charles, never known to have “the power of resistance,” in his mother’s estimation, in an effort to bolster Colonel Smith’s limp fortune, had exchanged John Quincy’s mortgage for a note from Justus Bush Smith, the colonel’s brother, a prosperous landowner. As land values had declined abysmally, there was every reason to believe Justus Smith’s note was worthless and that therefore John Quincy’s investment was a hollow one. Abigail, solicitous of all concerned, including the bankrupt Dr. Welsh, suffered most of all, understandably, on John Quincy’s account. Hoping to transfer his financial affairs into Dr. Tufts’s safekeeping as quickly as possible, she enlisted her cousin William’s help in clarifying their content, explaining, just after Christmas, on December 28, that she could not bear it that the “poor fellow should be plundered by every one, in whom he has placed confidence.”20

While it was certain at this particular moment that John Quincy was the victim of this sorry set of circumstances, time would prove his brother Charles to be the true sacrificial figure. Essentially of frailer fiber than his siblings, weaned too early, perhaps, from the family circle, he was a lawyer, first in Alexander Hamilton’s office, then with Federalist congressman John Laurance, speculator in New York State properties. The realities of failure pervaded his very being. The following autumn, on a visit to Eastchester, Abigail would visit with Charles and his wife, and cherish the “sprightly Eyes” of his two daughters, Susan and Abbe (Susanna Boylston and Abigail Louisa), three years and one year old, and their fine complexions. The sight of them, however, elicited little joy, and she spared neither herself nor Mrs. Cranch the tragic realities of the situation. Charles’s plight was a heartbreaking repetition of their own brother’s, a trial of the “worst kind,” Abigail recognized from harsh experience. “Any calamity inflicted by the hand of Providence, it would become me in silence to submit to,” she wrote her sister, “but when I behold misiry and distress, disgrace and poverty, brought upon a Family by intemperence, my heart bleads at every pore.” Charles was an alcoholic, and the family would in the next year become increasingly resigned to the catastrophic end “which seems so inevitably to await us,” as Thomas would write his father.21

As she surveyed the landscape that was her family’s life, increasingly menaced by darkening shadows, she fought for some balance. “Who of us pass through the world with our path strewed with flowers, without encountering the thorns?” she consoled herself. “In what ever state we are,” she reasoned, “we shall find a mixture of good and evil, and we must learn to receive these vicissitudes of life, so as not to be unduly exalted by the one, or depressed by the other.”22

Her own complaints of sleepless nights—she got no more than one night’s rest out of five or six these days—reflected, of course, her inner state of turmoil. During this tedious period of halting recuperation and formidable solitude, the problems of her family’s distance and disarray were equaled if not surpassed by her country’s restive challenge to war with France. Abigail was all but consumed by these “untoward occurrences,” as she referred to them, but not quite. With her ingrained genius for survival, preaching “reason” and “philosophy” to herself as she always would to others, she knew her needs and fulfilled them as best she could. If she could not, for example, indulge herself in what was practically her favorite amusement, talking politics around the evening fire—or anywhere, in fact—she settled for the next best amusement, writing about it.23

Fortunately, she was comfortable with her nephew William Shaw; she both trusted and admired her sister Elizabeth’s son. Her letters to him, written during the waning days of 1798 and the ensuing months, were to be a meticulous seismographic record of every tremor and volcanic force that jolted the already severely fissured presidential administration. She explained the tone of one “rather censorious” letter with considerable charm: “As women are not masons, or bound to keep secrets, they are entitled to a greater lattitude of speech than Men.”24

As firm as her word, her criticism was unsparing and wide-ranging. The press remained an enduring source of irritation. She would hope that Peter Porcupine would have less “Billingsgate” when Congress sat, and that the son of John Fenno, Boston-born founder of the Gazette of the United States, would maintain the “purity” of tone established by the father. David C. Claypool’s paper, the American Daily Advertiser, was only interesting while Congress sat, because he recorded the debates earlier than the rest. Despite his death from yellow fever on September 10, 1798, Bache was, as always, Abigail’s leading target. “Ye yet speaketh,” she noted caustically; the party that had supported the loathsome editor still stood by the press devoted to his cause, so that the Aurora could hardly be counted as an Adams sympathizer.25

Whether their influence was foreign or domestic or both, it was imperative, in her opinion, that decorum be maintained by the press. And it would be; the “rascalls” would certainly yield to the law, if there were not such a “milk and water” Attorney General in office, she insisted. Then again, the way things were going with Kentucky and its mother state, Virginia, and their disaffected attitude toward the Alien and Sedition Laws, Abigail wondered if the government would have to pay out the tribute due to Talleyrand before the two states would be quiet.26

The question of those who were disloyal to the President’s views on the subject of France was explored in detail, with the guilty “Brainless” ones brashly named. William Findley of Pennsylvania, Anthony New, Matthew Clay, and John Clopton of Virginia were members of the House of Representatives who “ought never to be admitted to the table of the President again.” There were still others, and surely, if she was in Philadelphia, “not a wretch of them all should come.” She could not mention the President’s opponents without thinking about Jefferson. “Why then should the Matzzie Letter writer be invited?” she asked William. She had to guess at the answer, she said, but she supposed that he would be invited as Vice-President—as an officer of the government, she added as an afterthought.27

Abigail would flatly comment on the reelection to Congress of Matthew Lyon, who had spat in the eyes of Connecticut Representative Roger Griswold, as “mortifying” proof that “something was rotten in the State of Denmark.” Lyon, called “ignoramous” by the Federalist press, was not a “Noble British Lyon” but “the beastly transported Lyon,” Abigail had said of the Vermont representative, who was born in County Wicklow, Ireland. On the very day of her writing to Mary Cranch, Lyon had to defend himself with fire tongs from Griswold’s beating cane. Abigail also briskly disputed the value of Dr. George Logan’s self-appointed mission to France, the Philadelphia Quaker’s personal interview with Talleyrand, and his subsequent report to the President of the French foreign minister’s conciliatory views. Her disapproval of Jefferson almost always kindled some provocative soul-searching.28

She was unquestionably preoccupied, at the start of 1799, with those who opposed the President, with “a low groveling faction” that continued to exist, encouraged by the “Ambitious and designing views of some disappointed and unprincipled Men.” Yet she did not include Jefferson among the latter, though she did indicate her unease concerning his role. “The absence of the VP at this time,” she wrote William, “when a Spirit of resistance to Government appears in the State to which he belongs, and the State immediately descended from it, has an unfavourable aspect … and subjects him to suspicions which whether well or ill founded, injure him in the minds of all Good Federalists.” There was never any doubt, now or later, that Jefferson’s position was difficult for Abigail to understand.29

In subsequent discussion of her “relative attachment” to most of the Federalists of the Senate and House, she referred obliquely to a “Friend,” once esteemed and loved, who could only have been Jefferson, whom she had “too much reason to fear … an apostate.” His change, she told William Shaw, on January 25, 1799, was a “painfull reflection as it respects my self, but more so, as it affects my Country.”30

As passionately as Abigail wished “all party bickerings and personal resentments would yeald to the great and momentous national interests,” she faced bitter denial on both counts. The battle for power had begun; opinion on whether to go to war with France was fragmented not only without, but, more significantly, within the Federalist party, even at the highest levels of the President’s administration. As Wolcott, Pickering, and McHenry remained loyal to Hamilton, their colleague of the Washington administration who was committed to war with France, John never could claim their loyalty, and only, in fact, incurred their active deception.31

But there was no question at this time that the country was preparing to defend itself in case of war. During the past months, from March 27 through July 16, 1798, Congress had approved twenty acts in the cause of national defense. A Navy Department was established on April 30; treaties with France were repealed on July 7. Three frigates were to be completed and an additional twelve armed vessels built; the President was authorized, to provide, “if the same shall appear to him necessary,” small ships not exceeding ten in number. U.S. merchant vessels would now be armed; French vessels of war and privateers could be seized without a formal declaration of war. A provisional army of ten thousand men was to be raised. The choice of Alexander Hamilton as the army’s second-in-command under Washington would be accurately measured by John Quincy as the “forerunner of greater defeats” for his father.32

Washington had recommended Hamilton, Pinckney, and Knox for the three major-generalships. But Hamilton had already solicited Washington for “a station … proportion to the sacrifice” he would make. This clearly meant he must be made second-in-command, with the title of inspector general. “The public must judge for itself as to whom it will employ,” he wrote on June 2, “but every individual must judge for himself as to the terms on which he will serve and consequently must estimate himself his own pretentions.”33

Hamilton’s lobbying was effective; Knox, who had outranked Hamilton in the old war, refused his commission. The President, home in Quincy with Abigail, seemed stunned by the turn of events. And though he reprimanded his Secretary of War, James McHenry, for his part in the intrigue, he was hardly a match for the formidably ambitious Hamilton. The latter was blatant: “If the Chief is too desultory, his Ministers ought to be more united and steady,” was Hamilton’s theme. His own policy would include maintenance of a regular army and navy; he talked about “looking” to possession of Louisiana and Florida, of sending an army to Mexico, of intentions “to squint at South America.” Hamilton was an expansionist; the President, in his single-track fashion, was intent, despite warlike preparations, on working toward a peaceful settlement with France. At a time when Abigail felt the country threatened “from within & from without” news of Elbridge Gerry’s long-impending return to Boston on October 1 was full of promise.34

*   *   *

Sick as she was, Abigail could not resist taking a “peep” at Gerry’s papers, now in the President’s hands. She read them carefully and was greatly relieved by their content. Later, in January, before their publication, when there was talk of Gerry’s impeachment, she no longer worried about her old friend. The truth about the papers was a happy one. Gerry would not “sink” in the estimation of his countrymen. However much they all condemned his separation from his colleagues, his remaining alone afterward, his appearing to be more “yealding than the Honor of his country required,” and “tedious” in his communications, his honesty and integrity were unquestionable.35

Gerry brought to the President welcome news of Talleyrand’s wish to negotiate with America in order to avoid war. His story, combined with official and unofficial correspondence—the body of material that would eventually reach the public domain—marked the beginning of the end of two years of monumentally complex international negotiations. The French, after baiting the Americans on their initial peace mission in the fall of 1797, had crucially reversed their course. They had had little choice. The Directory had merely meant to express displeasure with America’s ratification of Jay’s Treaty by authorizing spoliations on American commerce, rather than initiating war. Talleyrand’s intelligence warned him of overconfidence in France’s popularity with America; some of the most fervent American opponents of the treaty with England had lost sympathy for the French since the disclosure of the highly undiplomatic treatment recently accorded America’s representatives. Talleyrand’s information was as accurate as it was dismaying. A statesman of thorough habits, he had turned in dissatisfaction from Joseph-Philippe Létombe to Victor-Marie Du Pont, from whom he would receive the report précis he so urgently needed in order to deal seriously with America.36

Du Pont, who had left his post at the Charleston, South Carolina, consulate in May 1798, to succeed Létombe as consul general of the French Republic at Philadelphia, was refused recognition—“exequatur” was the official word—by the President. But on May 31 he did have a fruitful meeting with Thomas Jefferson as well as others, who collectively elaborated on the grave situation between France and America. Three days after his arrival in France, Du Pont was writing, on July 6, 1798, of the many in America whose hope for a peaceful solution lay with Talleyrand and “dans la sagesse, la dignité, la puissance, la modération du Directoire.” Otherwise, Jefferson warned, France would push America over to England’s side.37

Talleyrand, who was already convinced that an Anglo-Federalist trap must be avoided—rumors were rampant that the British minister proposed to lend the United States a naval force to combat France, in return for recruiting Americans for the Royal Navy—now viewed the situation as urgent. Undoubtedly responding to the measures the President had chosen to “formulate” in the two legislative chambers, Talleyrand, in a letter of July 16, put some crucial questions to Du Pont. What precisely were the actions of the French cruisers along the coast and in the Antilles that were causing such an uproar? What were the procedures of the colonial tribunals and consuls regarding prisoners? How were arrests made? How were neutrals treated? Americans?38

Du Pont, who was to settle in America in 1800, responded exactingly. His letter of July 21 ran to forty-one paragraphs, tabulating in relentless detail American complaints. He was also emphatic in his belief that previous reports by him and his colleagues on the reckless behavior of the French in American waters had been either lost or overlooked. Otherwise, it appeared to him that the Directory, without precedent and contrary to the principles of justice necessary to and evident in any healthy political system, had ignored its country’s excessive acts of violence, spoliation, and piracy against America’s commerce. In fact, far from being stopped, corruption was encouraged, as men with the title of consul were almost always, in the Spanish colonies at least, captains’ agents and gunrunners. At the conclusion of his fervent report, Du Pont restated his belief in the gravity of differences between the two countries that might result in consequences “fatale.” He also reaffirmed his confidence in Talleyrand. The reputation of the “Citoyen Ministre,” and his personal acquaintance with the United States, would put him in the best position to judge the situation, and arrive at a decision “le plus favorable aux intérêts et à la gloire de la nation.”39

Fortunately, Du Pont had not underestimated Talleyrand. There was no mistaking this time that not only had Talleyrand read Du Pont’s account, but so had members of the Directory. An order went out that depredations on American commerce were to end on July 31, 1798.40

Elbridge Gerry’s story concerning the “softening” on the part of the French Directory, and Talleyrand’s wish to negotiate with America, was further substantiated in the fall of 1798 by a report from William Vans Murray, friend of John Quincy, seven years his elder and his replacement as the United States minister in Holland. Both the Gerry and Murray reports undoubtedly influenced the President’s determination to avoid war with France. On December 8, a little over a week after his arrival in Philadelphia from Quincy, he spoke at the opening of Congress. To the dismay of the Cabinet members, he had altered their draft of his speech. He had tossed out their uncompromising words asserting that sending another minister to make a new attempt at peace would be “an act of humiliation,” and requiring France, “if she be indeed desirous of accommodation,” to initiate the requisite steps. On the contrary, the President, though resolute, was also yielding:

The United States will steadily observe the maxims by which they have hitherto been governed. They will respect the sacred rights of embassy. And with a sincere disposition on the part of France to desist from hostility, to make reparation for the injuries heretofore inflicted on our commerce, and to do justice in future, there will be no obstacle to the restoration of a friendly course.

The President made a genuine peace offering, as he continued:

In making to you this declaration, I give a pledge to France and to the world that the executive authority of this country still adheres to the humane and pacific policy which has invariably governed its proceedings, in conformity with the wishes of the other branches of the government, and of the people of the United States.

There was, however, no mistaking his commitment to protect his country:

But considering the later manifestations of her policy towards foreign nations, I deem it a duly deliberately and solemnly to declare my opinion, that, whether we negotiate with her [France] or not, vigorous preparation for war will be alike indispensable. These alone will give us an equal treaty and insure its observance.”41

Abigail weighed every single syllable of the address. She sounded defensive when she reported to William, on December 20, that the President’s speech had been “firm, very cool & moderate” even “mild” compared to what had been expected. “It is what it ought to be; not a personal feeling in it,” she told him, “but as connected with the honour and dignity of the nation.”42

One month later, on January 21, 1799, the Directory’s answer (through Dutch mediation) reached the President. Its members maintained that France’s wish for reconciliation was already known in Philadelphia. If the United States insisted on misconstruing France’s motives, then responsibility for the consequences was theirs. Ten days later, Murray exercised decisive influence. His letter to the President summarized his talks with the French agent, Louis André Pichon, at The Hague, and included Talleyrand’s assurance that a new American envoy to France would be “received as the representative of a great, free, powerful, and independent nation.”43

The President deliberated his next step, but not for long. In the face of anticipated opposition from his Cabinet, he made his decision alone, “in his own secret heart,” John Quincy would say. That February 18, he sent a message to the Senate nominating William Vans Murray, the Marylander who had served in Congress from 1791 to 1797, presently at The Hague, as minister to France. Reaction, especially among those who professed ignorance of the latest exchanges between France and America, included “surprise, indignation, grief, and disgust.” The Federalist Theodore Sedgwick echoed many others who stridently disapproved of sending a new mission to France and, not knowing much about Murray, decided that he was unworthy of the responsibilities involved: “Had the foulest heart and the ablest head in the world been permitted to select the most embarrassing and ruinous measures, perhaps it would have been precisely the one, which has been adopted.”44

The President was extremely wary about the success of his suggested appointment. He wrote Abigail on February 22, 1799:

Since my nomination of Murray I have been advised by some to name my son John and Mr. King, with Mr. Murray. But I answer that the nomination of either Mr. King or Mr. Adams would probably defeat the whole measures. Rivalries have been irritated to madness, and federalists have merited the Sedition Law, and Cobbett the Alien Bill.

However provoked he was, he assured Abigail he would not take revenge: “I do not remember that I was ever vindictive in my life, though I have often been very wroth. I am not very angry now, nor much vexed or fretted. The mission came across the views of many, and stirred the passions of more. This I knew was unavoidable.” How difficult he felt his position to be, however, was indicated by his mention to Abigail, at this point, of future plans: “I have no idea that I shall be chosen President a second time; though this is not to be talked of. The business of the office is so oppressive that I shall hardly support it two years longer.”45

Two days after Murray’s nomination, five senators called to dissuade the President from his plans. Or, as an alternative to a single minister, they suggested sending three, the public having been told that “in a Multitude of counsellors there is safety.” Abigail did not take to these suggestions readily. The very day she learned of them, on March 4, she wrote to William:

I cannot but own that this intelligence has given me much pain and anxiety; and I shall not feel less, untill I hear from you. I should regret indeed if a Majority of the Senate should become the Dupes of intrigue be it as it will. Each have exercised the powers given them by the constitution—and time will discover, who is right & who is wrong.46

On March 9, Abigail assured William she was “better humourd” than when she had last written. However, she was “very wroth with a certain set of people who profess to be federalists just as long as the measures of the government forward and promote their interests but lose all confidence and exclaim against them when ever their views are opposed.” Her outburst was precipitated by charges that the President would not be advised, that he “would act of his own Head,” that he was “determined to support Gerry in opposition to all his Friends.” Gerry’s entire mission to France, despite his reports, was suspect to Pickering and his followers, who threatened him with severely censorious measures. As with Gerry, William Vans Murray was another fixed target of this faction.47

There did seem to be no letup. Critics insisted the President must “tread back” the steps he had taken, as the Senate would never advise and consent to the nomination of Mr. Murray, who was neither a man of experience nor of talents. Absurdity added to incredulity: “Then comes the New Nomination, aya the Senate advised to that in order to defeat the measure.” Three would go, three chosen by the President in a conciliatory move. Abigail wondered at the extraordinary additions to Murray. Oliver Ellsworth, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was in ill health, though she conceded he was a kind man, and Patrick Henry was so old that he would not go, she correctly predicted, the latter replaced by William R. Davie, governor of North Carolina.48

Abigail insulted was irrepressible. “But are not the Senate pointed out by the constitution as the advisers of the President?” she mimicked, obviously repeating a particularly irritating question and answering it in the affirmative, with mock deference. “Are there any others whom he is obliged to consult?” was another repetitious question. The popular answer that “Washington always did consult with others” was a flawed one in Abigail’s judgment; for in doing so, she would point out, he had paid a large price, criticized by many for being “led” by Hamilton. “And why was not the Secretary of State consulted?” she continued. “Aya theres the rub.” The answer was obvious, as Pickering had done his utmost to negate the President’s actions. In sum, such had been the “zeal without knowledge of some of our hot Heads,” Abigail said, though she noticed, with relief, certain “cooling down” on their part.49

In April the President returned to Quincy, earlier and in better health than Abigail had anticipated, considering his “close application” to his business for four months in a row. Her bitterness toward the past winter’s proceedings, presumably nurtured by the President’s confidences, was magnified. “He has sustained the whole force of an unpopular measure which he knew would excite the passions of many; thwart the views of some, and shower down upon his Head a torrent of invective,” she wrote Elizabeth Peabody on April 7.50

Abigail blamed “ignorance malevolence and jealousy,” touching on the fact that the information on which the President had based his decision to reopen negotiations with France was largely unknown. “Yet thinking as he did, the measure necessary,” she continued, “and upon grounds which it was not proper to devulge, if to our own Country, not to others, and if to one, it would necessarily go to others—he took the Step and braved the effort.” The reaction had, in some instances, approximated his expectations; in others it had been something of a shock to him, and therefore to Abigail. “He has been abused and calumniated by his enemies,” she said, but “that was to be looked for.” Matters were different, however, in “the House of his Friends, by those calling themselves friends of their country—They have joind loudest with clamour.…” It was Abigail’s claim, though, that the President was not dismayed, that “time and circumstances will prove who has been right.”51

If anything, however, the clamor was to be augmented, rather than lessened, by the President’s departure from Philadelphia. Six months, the President would discover upon his return to Trenton* on the advice of his old and trusted friend Benjamin Stoddert, Secretary of the Navy, was an ideal amount of time to set his political house in disarray, to guarantee his political doom. The President had taken his example from Washington, who had retreated to Mount Vernon for long periods of time while in office. But John Adams’s own position was not comparable. He commanded neither the loyalty nor the respect of Washington’s appointees, and although he knew their differences with him, he seemed to have no conception of the significance of those differences. Concern for Abigail, fatigue, and naïveté would be given as explanations for his attitudes. John Quincy worried about his father’s “unguarded letters”; in his definitive judgment, “too much trust in the honesty of others was the source of the mistakes which did the most to injure his reputation in his lifetime.” Historians would cast him as a master of issues not men.52

Left on their own, certain members of the President’s Cabinet did all they could to postpone accommodation with France, hopeful, in the end, that the mission so contrary to their ambitious war policy would be suspended. Though Abigail’s retrospective commentary on the French-American negotiations, written the following December, mirrors only a partial view of the complexities of the “most noted event” of her husband’s administration, the distortions are immediately evident. Three months before the three American envoys presented their credentials at the Tuileries on March 8, 1800, and nine months before the signing of the peace treaty at Mortefontaine, September 30–October 1, when the Directory was overthrown and Bonaparte became the self-appointed First Consul, and Talleyrand the foreign minister of the Consulate, Abigail wrote of the drama to Mrs. Cranch. Of “the wisest, the most resolute and disinterested action” of her husband’s life, she reported on December 30, 1799:

I think every days experience must convince the people of the propriety of sending the Envoys at the time they went. After the President had received the Letter from Tallyrand containing the assureances from the Directory which he requir’d, he would not allow it, to be made a question whether they should proceed tho he knew certain persons set their faces against it as far as they dared. Gen’ll. Hamilton made no secret of his opinion. He made the P[residen]t a visit at Trenton, and was perfectly sanguine in the opinion that the Stateholder would be reinstated before Christmass and Louis the 18th upon the Throne of France. I should as soon expect, replied the P[resident], that the sun, moon & stars will fall from their orbits.…”53

Were the governments to change, however, the President speculated that there was nothing wrong with the envoys’ being in France. Finally, he had answered Hamilton by asking a question:

if France is disposed to accomodate our differences, will she be less so under a Royall than a Directorial Government? Have not the Directory Humbled themselves to us more than to any Nation or Power in contest with her? If she proves faithless, if she will not receive our Envoys, does the disgrace fall upon her, or upon us?

The President, according to Abigail’s account, had concluded that America would be no worse off than it was at present, and that the people of the country would be “satisfyed” that every honorable method had been tried to accommodate the differences.54

One month later, when it was definite that the American envoys would have to deal with Bonaparte, Abigail was more irreverent than awed at the prospect. Some called him “King,” she noted, but in her opinion, his head was in more danger in Paris than in Egypt. She even questioned just how long he would be able to call it his own. She did, however, allow that he was “an adventurous Man,” and though one did not know what he stood for, or what his views were, she did not sound so much impatient as curious. “Times must develope them,” she said, and, furthermore, “astonishment with respect to [the French] has long ceased, and wonder is baffled.”55