FIVE
Ten Thousand Difficulties
The morning of August 11, 1775 was a time to sing of “Mercies and judgments,” a mixture of joy and grief. It marked John’s return after four months’ absence, and the death of his brother Elihu, after a week’s suffering from dysentery. By September Abigail was swept with melancholy—John had begun his journey back to Philadelphia on a rain-cleansed August 27 to participate in a third Congress—and she could only write what she called “a bill of Mortality.” Eight neighbors had been buried in one week alone; some poor parents mourned the loss of three, four, and five children; some families were stripped of every member. Tommy lay ill; she had sent Charles and Johnny out of the house in hope they would remain free of disease. Dr. Tufts was tending to sixty or seventy cases of distemper in Weymouth; four Sabbaths had passed without any meeting because their minister, Reverend Wibird, was so ill he could hardly walk a step.1
Abigail was almost apologetic about her “doleful tale.” Characteristically, she studied the remotest corners of her mind and heart, trying reason as well as faith for answers that might help her govern her emotions. Momentarily, her grip was tenuous. If it weren’t for the “tender connections” that bound her, would she wish to live on? Were she to lose those she loved, could she relish life any longer? Or wish to be “Wedded to the World?” Almost immediately, as though realizing the futile indulgence of questioning her lot, she reworked her thoughts. She talked now about self-deception and her failure to recognize that her path was not chosen but forever ordained, and that “To Bear and Suffer is our portion here.” Once again she affirmed that “Unto him who mounts the Whirlwind and directs the Storm I will cheerfully leave the ordering of my lot, and whether adverse or prosperous Days should be my future portion I will trust in his right Hand to lead me safely thro, and after a short rotation of Events fix me in a state immutable and happy.”2
Abigail, supplicant that she seemed, sincere as she professed her readiness to be led, also proposed very definitely to meet her destiny on her own two feet. Being devout did not mean being devoid of responsibility and motivation. She defined her role staunchly in words that might come to haunt her in view of her mother’s illness: “God helps them that help themselves as King Richard said and if we can obtain the divine aid by our own virtue, fortitude and perseverance we may be sure of releaf.”3
* * *
On September 25, Abigail wrote John that “Woe follows Woe and one affliction treads upon the heal of an other.” She had not felt well earlier, was exhausted from caring for Tommy, and welcomed her mother’s daily visits to both of them. Now her mother lay ill, and was not expected to live. Abigail commuted between two beds, the one in her own home holding Patty, her servant, whom Abigail thought such a “putrid mass” that it was scarcely possible to take care of her, and the other, that of her own mother, with whom she stayed for twelve hours at a time. She could only think that until now she had tasted a small portion of the “Bitter Cup,” in comparison with many others. But presently, she feared, “a large draught” was being prepared for her. She prayed to be able to submit “with patience and resignation to the rod and him who had appointed it, knowing it is directed by unerring wisdom.” She reminded herself that the consolations of religion were the only “sure comforters in the day of affliction.”4
On the morning of October 1, Abigail brought her mother tea, raised her head so that she might swallow a few drops, heard her gasp, saw her look up at her—“It was the eagerness of a last look”—and recognized “the last sad silence of a Friend.” Elizabeth Smith died at five o’clock that afternoon; by chance, it was the communion day on which Reverend Smith was welcoming his granddaughter, Betsy Cranch, into the church. “I know I wound your Heart,” Abigail wrote John, after pouring out her grief. “Ought I to give relief to my own by paining yours?” she worried.5
There seemed to be no choice. Her heart would burst if she could not give vent to her feelings. Having witnessed more than one death, she explained, “My Heart is made tender by repeated affliction. It never was a hard Heart. The death of Patty came very near me, having lived four years with me, under my care.” Responsibility for others was a great trust. Daily she felt the weight and importance of it, she said, and of her own inability to cope. She wished more assistance from her “dearest Friend,” regretting the perilous times that swallowed him up. She pleaded for his understanding: “My pen is always freer than my tongue. I have wrote many things to you that I suppose I never could have talk’d.”6
John’s response to Abigail was all she could have hoped for, considering their separation. His letters were a comfort to her “wounded Heart,” as well as a tender appreciation of her woes: “If I could write as well as you, my sorrows would be as eloquent as yours,” he told her, “but upon my Word I cannot.”7
John’s appreciation of Elizabeth Smith, this “valuable ancestor,” was astonishingly sensitive. His affectionate criticism of her left no doubt as to his expectations of the women he respected—and where Mrs. Smith fell short of them—but in no way tempered his feeling that her death was a loss not only to Abigail but to himself and to their children. In a special letter of condolence to Nabby, he reminded his daughter that Grandmother Smith had been an excellent instructress to her, a bright example of every amiable virtue. Her piety and benevolence, her charity, prudence, patience, and wisdom, would have been, if it had pleased God to spare her life, an admirable model for Nabby to copy. Now he hoped Nabby would remember a great deal of her grandmother’s advice, and be careful to heed it. Also, he urged her to be more attentive than ever to the instructions and examples of her mother and her aunts. They would give her assistance in forming her heart to “goodness” and her mind to “useful knowledge,” as well as to those other accomplishments that were “peculiarly necessary and ornamental” in her sex.8
John’s letter to Tommy, the only one who did not attend his grandmother’s funeral, was firmer in tone, though kind. John was glad that Tommy was recovered from his illness, hopeful that he would imitate his grandmother’s goodness, and cautionary that he be dutiful and obedient. The ultimate message, however, had more to do with John Adams than with Grandmother Smith: Tommy was to mind his books, because “it is only from your Books and the kind Instructions of your Parents that you can expect to be useful in the World.”9
Meanwhile, Abigail wrote freely to John about her mother, the stoic woman who had neither smiled nor wept during her illness, though she had continued to dispense advice “where she thought it necessary.” Abigail was preoccupied with memories of her mother’s kindness and tenderness, her watchfulness in Abigail’s infant years, her great care and “assiduity” in instilling religious principals into her children early on. This example, which Abigail followed with obvious faithfulness in rearing her own children, had probably been shaped even a generation earlier. In a rush of nostalgia, Abigail vigorously affirmed John’s belief in parental and grandparental powers:
The instructions of my own Grandmamma are as fresh upon my mind this day as any I ever received from my own parents and made as lasting and powerful impressions. Every virtuous example has powerfull impressions in early youth. Many years of vice and vicious examples do not erase from the mind seeds sown in early life. They take a deep root, and tho often crop’d will spring again.10
Although when he wrote to his children on the subject of Grandmother Smith he showed only deep regard and affection for her, it was to Abigail that John delicately broached the subject of what was, in his opinion, his mother-in-law’s single failing. The “Thing” he was talking about was public service, and he openly solicited Abigail’s support for the “exact values” that would be thought of as “distinctly branding” future generations of Adamses. With regard to her mother, John asked Abigail:
Were not her Talents, and Virtues too much confined, to private, social and domestic Life. My Opinion of the Duties of Religion and Morality, comprehends a very extensive Connection with society at large, and the great Interest of the public. Does not natural Morality, and much more Christian Benevolence, make it our indispensible Duty to lay ourselves out, to serve our fellow Creatures to the Utmost of our Power, in promoting and supporting those great Political Systems, and general Regulations upon which the Happiness of Multitudes depends.11
The rest of John’s letter extended the most thoughtful possible welcome to women to participate in the world at large. Remarkably, John harbored aspirations for women that would not be thought of, let alone achieved, for generations. He envisioned a boundless horizon, and he told Abigail so exactly:
The Benevolence, Charity, Capacity and Industry which exerted in private Life, would make a family, a Parish or a Town Happy, employed upon a larger Scale, in Support of the great Principals of Virtue and Freedom of political Regulations might secure whole Nations and Generations from Misery, Want and Contempt.
He did not distinguish between male or female when he concluded that “public Virtues, and political Qualities therefore should be incessantly cherished in our Children.”12
By deep autumn, Abigail’s immediate sadness was blunted slightly, faded into resignation and the feeling that “Life is a poor play.” She mourned for her mother, for Patty, for her brother-in-law Elihu and his baby, dead six weeks after her father, and for countless others; she was also worried that both her sisters were sickly. Letters from John offered some diverting moments, but it was an invitation to dine with Dr. Benjamin Franklin on October 27 that actually extracted the “nun” from her cloister, as she described her situation. It also allowed her to observe the highly regarded statesman firsthand—and to enlist him as a courier of her letters to John. Abigail’s interest in Franklin was long-standing and, judging from her report of their first meeting, it would seem improbable that anything but goodwill could ever mark the relationship between her or John and the elder statesman whom Abigail had been taught to venerate, she said, from infancy.13
The “ingenious and worthy Dr. Franklin,” after ten years in England, had sailed for America on the Pennsylvania packet, docking in Philadelphia on May 5, 1775. Not three weeks later, Abigail was writing of how Franklin’s arrival afforded reason to “rejoice greatly,” as he must certainly be able to inform “very particuliarly” of the situation in England. As Franklin had been chosen a delegate to the Second Continental Congress one day after his arrival in Philadelphia, Abigail must have assumed that John and he would meet, and that John would learn some vital news to share with her. Her instructions in this regard were specific: “Be as particuliar as you may, when you write—every one here abouts comes to me to hear what accounts I have.”14
By July, when she had received no answer, Abigail nudged John: “You scarcely make mention of Dr. Franklin. Surely he must be a valuable member.” This time, John tried to satisfy Abigail’s curiosity. “You have more than once in your Letters mentioned Dr. Franklin,” he wrote on July 23, “and in one intimated a Desire that I should write you something concerning him.” Apparently with a great deal of thought, John crafted a painstakingly judicious portrait:
Dr. Franklin has been very constant in his Attendance on Congress from the Beginning. His Conduct has been composed and grave and in the Opinion of many Gentlemen very reserved. He has not assumed any Thing, nor affected to take the lead; but has seemed to choose that the Congress should pursue their own Principles and sentiments and adopt their own Plans: Yet he has not been backward: has been very useful, on many occasions, and discovered a Disposition entirely American. He does not hesitate at our boldest Measures, but rather seems to think us, too irresolute, and backward. He thinks us at present in an odd State, neither in Peace nor War, neither dependent nor independent. But he thinks that We shall soon assume a Character more decisive.15
In other words, Franklin was optimistic about America’s future, in John’s opinion. He was encouraging the colonists to think they had the power of preserving themselves—even if they should be driven to the “disagreeable” necessity of assuming total independence and setting up a separate state. And, while Franklin could not be credited with leadership in the implementation of what was to happen, he could certainly be counted as an advocate of the colonists’ cause. The subject of credit was apparently of vital concern to John; repeatedly he sought to analyze, with studious accuracy, precisely how much was owed Franklin.
The people of England, have thought that the Opposition in America, was wholly owing to Dr. Franklin: and I suppose their scribblers will attribute the Temper, and Proceedings of this Congress to him: but there cannot be a greater Mistake. He has had but little share farther than to cooperate and assist. He is however a great and good Man. I wish his Colleagues from this City were all like him, particularly one, whose Abilities and Virtues, formerly trumpeted so much in America, have been found wanting.16
By November 5, Abigail could speak for herself on the subject of Franklin—he called on her at her home; they dined together at Colonel Quincy’s—and add some flattering highlights to John’s cameo. Innocent of the future, fretful, sometimes bitter, often infuriated reactions to the elder statesman’s politics, morals, fresh-air theories, French grammar, French friendships, and the behavior of his son and grandson, Abigail was full of praise for Franklin:
I found him social, but not talkative, and when he spoke something usefull droped from his Tongue; he was grave, yet pleasant, and affable. —You know I make some pretensions to physiognomy and I thought I could read in his countenance the Virtues of his Heart, among which patriotism shined in its full Lustre—and with that is blended every virtue of a christian, for a true patriot must be a religious Man.17
Franklin must have appealed to Abigail for purely personal reasons. She seemed quite ready to accept his invitation to spend the winter in Philadelphia—she was miserably lonely—unless John should return to Braintree. In response, John said he hoped to be excused from going to Philadelphia again, at least until others had taken their turns. In any case, he would never go without her, if he could persuade her to come with him. He even elaborated: “Whom God has joined together ought not to be put asunder so long with their own Consent.” He proposed that Abigail’s father and her sister Betsy keep their house in Braintree, and that she bring Johnny with her—both to “have” the smallpox in Philadelphia, that is, to be inoculated against the disease—and he promised her, “We will be as happy, as Mr. Hancock and his Lady.”18
For the time being, however, John seemed to be writing only to placate Abigail. He had no precise “Thoughts of it,” and he wrote telling her as much on December 3. Affairs were in a critical state and “important Steps” were being taken every day. John’s plans were not surprising to Abigail. Colonel Warren had already “damp’d” her spirits by telling her that John’s stay had been prolonged. Physically she was not in the best of condition, either. Jaundice, rheumatism, and a violent cold from which she had suffered late in November had been relieved only after her taking a “puke.” She was hardly alone with her ailments. She felt that the “great and incessant” rains all that autumn might have occasioned the present illnesses that felled many others. It was now Abigail’s hope that the frigid weather (“as cold as January”) and the snowfall that had followed the rains would purify the air. Abigail also lamented the loss of hundreds of bushels of apples, spoiled by the unseasonable weather, that would cost her family alone five barrels’ worth of cider.19
Having tabulated her woes in some detail, and vented her disappointment that John would not be joining her, Abigail almost abruptly disallowed another moment of complaint or regret. “Tis in vain to repine,” she sighed, hoping the public would “reap what I sacrifice.” She knew that “mighty things were fabricating,” and it was to those things that she now turned her attention.20
* * *
Abigail’s correspondence with John in the last days of 1775 and the spring of 1776 delineates with amazing intensity the agonizing issues crucial to the construction of what she called the “Great Empire.” Her decision, arrived at with the greatest deliberation possible, was absolutely clear-cut. She might have been pounding her fist on her desk as she wrote. As staunch a “delegate” as America would ever nurture, her farewell to England was unequivocal: “Let us separate, they are unworthy to be our Breathren. Let us renounce them and instead of suplications as formerly for their prosperity and happiness, Let us beseach the almighty to blast their counsels and bring to Nought all their devices.”21
Her problem was not with the decision to reach for Independence, but how to arrive at this desperately desired goal with thought and in peaceful order. In her opinion, “ten thousand Difficulties” were bound to arise; the reins of government had been slackened for so long she feared the people would not quietly submit to the restraints necessary for the peace and security of the community. Intermittently, consoling herself that “great difficulties may be surmounted, by patience and perseverance,” she worried that “if we separate from Brittain, what Code of Laws will be established. How shall we be governed so as to retain our Liberties? Can any government be free which is not administered by general stated Laws? Who shall frame these Laws? Who will give them force and energy?”22
Abigail, wandering about her “Labyrinth of perplexities,” was preoccupied not only with the form of government, but just as much with the form of the governors. In one of her most anxious moments of skepticism, she said she was more and more convinced that man was a dangerous creature and that power, whether vested in many or few, was “ever grasping.” She had reached the opinion, she continued, that “great fish swallow up the small,” and that he who most championed the rights of the people, when vested with power, was as eager after the prerogatives of government. As for those who favored ancient customs and regulations, they made her more anxious for the fate of the monarchy or democracy, or whatever was to take place. Witheringly, she dismissed these people as “a little of the Spanel kind. Tho so often spurned still to fawn argues a meanness of Spirit that as an individual I disclaim, and would rather endure any hardships than submit to it.”23
In her exhaustive examination of the components of the future “Empire,” Abigail was not about to overlook economic as well as legislative questions. “As I have been desired to mention to you some things I shall not omit them,” she wrote John, by way of attracting his attention to her thoughts about a tax on liquor. As it was, with Massachusetts paying the tax—while the other colonies paid little or none—trade was drawn away from her state. And though she foresaw objections to her plan, she thought all the colonies ought to be taxed, not only in the interests of fairer trade, but because, she said, “too frequent use of Spirit endangers the well being of Society.”24
Another issue, called to John’s attention by Abigail, concerned the loss of silver and gold that was poured into the West Indies in payment for molasses, coffee, sugar, and other commodities. As a result of this daily occurrence, Abigail could tell John that a dollar in silver was a great rarity, and that traders would give a hundred pounds of paper for ninety of silver, or about that proportion. Abigail’s remedy was ingenuous: “If any trade is alloud to the West Indias would it not be better to carry some commodity of our own produce in exchange?”25
* * *
Communication between Abigail and John was by no means one-sided at this time. His wish was equal to hers to share a “compleat History from the Beginning to the End of the Journey.” What he had no time to write about, he promised to tell her at a future time. Guarded though he was—“Pimps destroy all freedom of Correspondence,” he wrote—he seemed, nevertheless, to write amply about the climate, food, characters, and work he encountered in Philadelphia. “No Mortal Tale could equal it,” he insisted, mincing no words about “the Fidgets, the Whims, the Caprice, the Vanity, the Superstition, the Irritability of some of us.…”26
In spite of the complexities of the gathered assembly, John was intrigued from the beginning by such prospects as establishing monetary and postal systems, and consideration of Dr. Franklin’s draft of the “Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.” Alternately burdened and inspired, John defined for Abigail the breathtaking scope of the work ahead:
The Business I have had upon my Mind has been as great and important as can be intrusted to [One] Man, and the Difficulty and Intricacy of it is prodigious. When 50 or 60 Men have a Constitution to form for a great Empire, at the same Time that they have a Country of fifteen hundred Miles extent to fortify, Millions to arm and train, a Naval Power to begin, an extensive Commerce to regulate, numerous Tribes of Indians to negotiate with, a standing Army of Twenty seven Thousand Men to raise, pay victual and officer, I really shall pity 50 or 60 Men.27
After an unexpected visit home—contrary to his earlier word, he had requested leave on December 8 because he was “worn down with long and uninterrupted Labour”—John took his seat in Congress two months later, on Friday, February 9. Once again the established routine was observed, with John packing newspapers and pamphlets along with his letters, which were more reticent and less frequent, but, if anything, more eagerly sought by Abigail. On February 18, 1776, he wrote of sending her a recently published pamphlet he thought written in “Vindication of Doctrines” to which they were both committed. The pamphlet, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America, published anonymously, was significant to Abigail and John on several counts.28
At the time of the publication of Common Sense, on January 10, 1776, Independence was still a matter of theory and even dispute, though John saw “no Prospect, no Probability no Possibility” for an alternative. He could only despise credulous minds that expected an honorable peace. He detested the hypocritical hearts, he said, that pretended to expect it, when in truth they did not. The pamphlet, which included fifty pages of “simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense,” according to its author—“conceived to challenge even the warmest advocate of reconciliation to show a single advantage that America could reap by being connected with Great Britain”—added another block of votes, or would when it achieved its full readership, to the cause of Independence.29
Abigail agreed. She was much obliged for the pamphlet, though its author was unknown to her at the time. It was highly prized around Boston, she said, and carried conviction wherever it was read, and she tried to spread it around as much as she could. “Everyone assents to the weighty truths it contains,” she said, and she could only wish it could gain credit enough in John’s assembly, to be “carried speadily into Execution.” Her personal assessment was a complete endorsement:
I am charmed with the Sentiments of Common Sense; and wonder how an honest Heart, one who wishes the welfare of their country, and the happiness of posterity can hesitate one moment at adopting them; I want to know how those Sentiments are received in Congress? I dare say their would be no difficulty in procuring a vote and instructions from all the Assemblies in New England for independancy. I most sincerely wish that now in the Lucky Minuet it might be done.30
A few weeks later, on March 19, John answered Abigail’s query on how Congress felt about Common Sense.
Sensible Men think there are some Whims, some Sophisms, some artful Addresses to superstitious Notions, some keen attempts upon the Passions, in this Pamphlet. But all agree there is a great deal of good sense, delivered in a clear, simple, concise and nervous Style.… His Sentiments of the Abilities of America, and of the Difficulty of a Reconciliation with G.B. are generally approved. But his Notions, and Plans of Continental Government are not much applauded. Indeed this Writer has a better Hand at pulling down than building.31
John added one other stunning bit of information to his provocative appraisal—there were many who thought he was the author of the pamphlet, an opinion he could not accept as a compliment. While he could not have written anything in so “manly and striking a style,” he flattered himself, he said, that he should have made a “more respectable figure as an Architect.” And further, the writer seemed to him to have “very inadequate Ideas of what is proper and necessary to be done, in order to form Constitutions for single Colonies, as well as a great Model of Union for the whole.”32
For the time being, John’s differences with the author of Common Sense, the Englishman Thomas Paine, were entirely intellectual. Paine, who would be known variously as “pamphleteer laureate” of America, propagandist, opportunist, meddler, and gadfly, was introduced to the colonies by Benjamin Franklin as an “ingenious worthy young man”; his recognition by Thomas Jefferson would one day imperil the latter’s friendship with John, and therefore with Abigail. A Quaker, a student of Newtonian science, the son of a corset maker, Paine was said by the painter John Trumbull to be a dull companion until after a bottle, which helped him talk, to everyone’s surprise, like an “oracle.”33
The complexities of Thomas Paine’s personality and contribution were, however, for the spring of 1776, future history. But John was stirred to write an anonymous reply, called Thoughts on Government, to what he thought were Paine’s naïve notions about prospective new governments in America. Thoughts (published in Philadelphia by John Dunlap on April 22, 1776), synthesized John’s lengthy studies of British law, of the principles of Aristotle and Plato, of Livy and Cicero, of Sidney, Harrington, and Locke. It concluded that all men by nature were equal, that kings had only delegated authority. Thoughts concentrated on the goals of American Independence as John saw them: “The happiness of society is the end of government … the happiness of the individual is the end of man … the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or in one word, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree is the best.…” As a representative assembly, John envisioned one “in a miniature an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them.”34
On May 9, Abigail commented on Thoughts, which she had received two days before its publication date.
Upon reading it I some how or other felt an uncommon affection for it; I could not help thinking it was a near relation of a very intimate Friend of mine. If I am mistaken in its descent, I know it has a near affinity to the Sentiments of that person, and tho I cannot pretend to be an adept in the art of Government; yet it looks rational that a Government of Good Laws well administered should carry with them the fairest prospect of happiness to a community, as well as to individuals.35
By the end of May, in response to Abigail, John maintained a modest or perhaps apologetic stance on the subject of Thoughts. It was best to say little about it, he cautioned Abigail. It was a “hasty hurried Thing of no great Consequence, calculated for a Meridian at a great Distance from N. England.” It had one merit that he had to acknowledge: if it had done no good, it would do no harm, he said, and did accomplish something. It set people thinking. Since the publication of the letter, the “Manufactory of Governments” had been as much talked of “as that of salt Petre was before.”36
* * *
In the third week of February 1776, Abigail explained to John that she had not written because she had nothing worth saying. Except for the burning of some houses on Dorchester Neck, it had been a “dead calm of dull repose.” It was true that preparations were increasing, that something great, something “terible” was predicted daily. On Saturday evening, March 2, she seemed almost despondent: “It has been said to morrow and to morrow for this month, but when the dreadful to morrow will be I know not.” She had to stop writing at this point; her house was shaking. She ran to her door to learn from a passerby that the army had begun to fire, and the remaining militia was ordered to report within forty-eight hours. There was no sleep for Abigail that night. And if there was none for her, free of guilt for whatever was to happen—and she did presume that something would take place—she could hardly think that the “misirible wretches,” the “procurers of this Dreadfull Scene,” would rest easy, burdened with the “load of guilt” they bore upon their souls.37
That Saturday night Abigail’s pen kept pace with the cannonfire, as did her heartbeat, she assured John. Sunday was fairly quiet, but she was apprehensive. On Monday, the militia marched past her house at 3 P.M. (though they did not have to report until 8 P.M.), fortified with three days’ provisions. She had climbed the giant slabs of stone to the top of Penn’s Hill to look across the harbor, awed by the meaning of the evening’s sights and sounds of shells and cannon, meant to harass the enemy and divert their attention from the plans to fortify Dorchester Neck. “The sound I think is one of the Grandest in Nature and is of the true Species of the Sublime. Tis now an incessant Roar. But O the fatal Ideas which are connected with the sound. How many of our dear country men must fall?”38
What happened to Dorchester Hill mattered crucially. The only hill not fortified by the British, it was mounted with cannon that General Knox and his men had hauled hundreds of miles, over ice and snow and frozen rivers, 43 cannon and 16 mortars, 5,500 pounds in all, from Fort Ticonderoga. There was hope that the British, who had made Bunker’s Hill impregnable, would be vanquished—a hope miraculously fulfilled, with the evening’s help of a wild storm. By six o’clock on Tuesday morning, March 5, all was quiet, and Dorchester Hill was considered the colony’s once more.39
By Sunday, March 17, Abigail finally had a subject “worth writing upon.” She proudly informed John of movements among the “Ministerial Troops,” and that General William Howe, possibly sensing he had been outmaneuvered, thought Boston’s troops had done more work in one night than the British had done in three months. She did not think this a bit of exaggeration, considering that two forts and long breastworks had sprung up almost instantly, besides a number of barracks, and that in the dark, foggy evening, an estimated four thousand men had dedicated themselves to backbreaking work with “good Hearts.”40
The enemy was quitting at last, and Abigail thought the American generals could say with Caesar, “veni vidi et vici.” Monday, March 18, was a fine, quiet night—no alarms, no cannons—an ideal time to mull things over. Abigail was frankly amazed by General Howe’s decision, on March 7, to evacuate Boston, leaving behind such a harbor, such fortifications, such entrenchments. Most of all, she could not comprehend his reason for leaving the Americans in “peaceable” possession of a town that hadn’t cost them a drop, let alone the river, of the blood they had anticipated losing. By March 26, Howe, all his troops, and 1,000 Loyalists would set sail for Halifax. “Shurely it is the Lords doing and it is Marvelous in our Eyes,” she said contentedly. “Every foot of Ground which they obtain now they must fight for, and may they purchase it at a Bunker Hill price,” she told John.41
Abigail confronted the changing aspect of the war with guarded elation. She was relieved that Boston was not destroyed, and hoped it would be so secured and guarded as to baffle all future attempts against it. Still, she did not see that the enemy quitting Boston was the solution to the problem; rather, “tis only lifting the burden from one shoulder to the other which perhaps is less able or less willing to support it.” She sensed some “very important Crisis” near at hand:
Perhaps providence see’s it necessary in order to answer important ends and designs that the Seat of War should be changed from this to the Southern colonies that each may have a proper sympathy for the others, and unite in a separation. The Refuge of the Believer amidst all the afflictive dispensations of providence, is that the Lord Reigneth, and that he can restrain the Arm of Man.42
Just two weeks made the most extraordinary difference in Abigail’s outlook. Like a butterfly freed from an intolerable cocoon, on winged spirits, Abigail soared to heights of optimism at which she could not help but marvel. “I feel a gaieti de Coar [sic] to which before I was a stranger,” she said, almost bemused by her findings that the sun looked brighter to her, birds sang more melodiously, nature put on a more “cheerful countanance.” She felt a temporary peace with the world and even a tentative sense of security—as though she and all those about her “might sit under our own vine and eat the good of the land.” It had all been so different under the British, she wrote: “We knew not then whether we could plant or sow with safety, whether when we had toild we could reap the fruits of our own industry, whether we could rest in our own Cottages, or whether we should not be driven from the sea coasts to seek shelter in the wilderness.…”43
Under the now more promising circumstances, Abigail could think about reclaiming the house in Boston. Because she was afraid of smallpox, she sent someone else to inspect it. To her relief, she learned it was very dirty but not damaged, the way General John Burgoyne, that man of “dark” designs and “Horrible wickedness,” had left Samuel Quincy’s house. There, it was reported by a neighbor, mahogany tables had been ruined by hacking raw meat on their surfaces, and superb damask curtains and cushions had been exposed to the rain as if they had no value at all. Abigail, elated at the prospect of retrieving her household, regarded it as a new acquisition that she could not have realistically valued at a single shilling just weeks before, and could, “with pleasure,” have seen it go up in flames in the colony’s cause.44
Also in the interests of the cause, Abigail continued to make soap, manufacture clothing for her family (“which would else be naked”), and considered experimenting with saltpeter. She had recently seen a small manuscript describing the proportions for the various sorts of powder fit for cannon, small arms, and pistols, and would have it transcribed, she wrote to John, if it was of any “Service” down his way. Though it seemed at times as if all of Abigail’s energies were confined to practical and immediate issues, such was hardly the case.45
* * *
Abigail remained consistent in her pursuit of Independence; her bold concept of its horizons was singular. By March 31, 1776, in a letter to John, she had launched, unwittingly, the timeless campaign for women’s rights. Accustomed to John’s “indulgence,” she had always written truthfully her thoughts about people, speeches—“tis a heavy unelegant verbose performance,” she reported about one that did not strike her fancy at all—and places. “Tis a liberty I take with you,” she admitted to John. Risking his finding her “saucy,” Abigail proceeded:
I long to hear that you have declared an independency—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.… That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness.46
The breadth of Abigail’s concept was undoubtedly enhanced by the mounting possibilities of its realization. Still, the subject was of continuing interest to her, and she had already alerted John to the universality of her views of independence. She had written to him in September, 1774, of a cumbersome situation in which Negroes agreed to fight for the Governor if he would arm them and then liberate them if his side won. “You know my mind upon this Subject,” she had said. “I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in the province. It allways appeared a most iniquitious Scheme to me—fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.47
Again, in the summer of 1775, Abigail intimated a sense of deprivation regarding the subject of Independence, but this time in a highly personal way. She and her sister, Mary Cranch, had driven their chaise eleven miles to Dedham to hear the Reverend Jason Haven, and to spend time with Mrs. Samuel Adams. In reporting the pleasant events of July 25, Abigail referred to Mrs. Adams as her “name sake and Sister Delegate,” living with “patience, perseverance and fortitude” in a little country cottage. Somewhat defensively, Abigail explained the honorific she conferred on Elizabeth Adams: “Why should we not assume your titles when we give you up our names.”48
John, who fretted about finding a way for two “friendly Souls” to “converse” together, although the bodies were four hundred miles apart, appeared to experience no difficulty unburdening himself as to precisely what he thought about Abigail’s letter, with its brave declaration of independence for the ladies. While excusing the brevity of his letters because of the “critical State of Things and the Multiplicity of Avocations,” he responded, on April 14, in ample detail, more indulgently than condescendingly:
As to your extraordinary Code or Laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our Struggle has loosened the bands of Government every where. That Children and Apprentices were disobedient—that schools and Colledges were grown turbulent—that Indians slighted their Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their Masters. But your Letter was the first Intimation that another Tribe more numerous and powerful than all the rest were grown discontented.—This is rather too coarse a Compliment but you are so saucy, I won’t blot it out.49
Having acknowledged Abigail’s argument on behalf of her sex, John, by way of an elaborate and affectionate rebuttal, insisted that Abigail overstated her case and that it was really the men, rather than the women, who were threatened. To enforce his point, he even left out the onerous word.
Depend upon it, We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems. Altho they are in full Force, you know they are little more than Theory. We dare not exert our Power in its full Latitude. We are obliged to go fair, and softly, and in Practice you know We are the subjects. We have only the Name of Masters, and rather than give up this, which would compleatly subject Us to the Despotism of the Peticoat, I hope General Washington, and all our brave Heroes would fight. I am sure every good Politician would plot, as long as he would against Despotism, Empire, Monarchy, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, or Ochlocracy.—A fine Story indeed. I begin to think the Ministry as deep as they are wicked. After stirring up Tories, Landjobbers, Trimmers, Bigots, Canadians, Indians, Negroes, Hanoverians, Hessians, Russians, Irish Roman Catholicks, Scotch Renegadoes, at last they have stimulated the to demand new Priviledges and threaten to rebell.50
Either Abigail had received no response from John as yet, or she chose to ignore it, in her determination to make her thesis emphatic. She had rephrased her initial pronouncement in her letter of May 7, but the message was whole, and almost threatening:
I cannot say that I think you very generous to the Ladies, for whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to Men, Emancipating all Nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over Wives. But you must remember that Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken—and notwithstanding all your wise Laws and Maxims we have it in our power not only to free ourselves but to subdue our Masters, and without violence throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet
“Charm by accepting, by submitting sway
yet have our Humour most when we obey.”51
One person with whom Abigail discussed thoroughly the subject of women’s independence, and her exchange with John, was Mercy Warren. The two women’s correspondence was already a thriving success. No matter how careworn she was, no matter how she might complain of the “multiplicity” of concerns, Abigail always rallied. “Let your letters be of the journal kind,” she enthusiastically urged Mercy. “I could participate in your amusements, in your pleasures, and in your sentiments which would greatly gratify me, and I should collect the best of inteligence.”52
True to character, then, Abigail interrupted her preoccupation with her family, farm, country, and particularly her thoughts on the ramifications of independence long enough, in the spring of 1776, to inquire about a recent resident of Boston. “How do you like Mrs. Washington?” she asked Mercy. “Any other person you have seen, and noticed should be glad of your opinion,” she added.53
Mercy responded obligingly. She would endeavor to gratify her friend, as her “Curiosity seems to be awake with Regard to the Company I keep and the Manner of spending my time.” She had met with Mrs. Washington in Cambridge one April morning at eleven o’clock, as well as with her son and his wife. She had been received with that
politness and Respect shewn in a first interview among the well bred and with the Ease and Cordiallity of Friendship of a much Earlier date.… If you wish to hear more of this Ladys Character I will tell you I think the Complacency of her Manners speaks at once the Benevolence of her Heart, and her affability, Candor and Gentleness Quallify her to soften the hours of private Life or to sweeten the Cares of the Hero and smooth the Rugged scenes of War.54
Mercy seemed equally impressed by John Parke Custis, whom she described as “A sensible Modest agreable young Man.” His wife, Eleanor Custis, received a more equivocal tribute:
His Lady a Daughter of Coll. Calvert of Mariland, appears to be of an Engaging Disposition but of so Exstrem Delicate a Constitution that it Deprives her as well as her Friends of part of the pleasure which I am perswaded would Result from her Conversation did she Enjoy a Greater share of Health. She is prety, Genteel, Easey and Agreable, but a kind of Languor about her prevents her being so sociable as some Ladies. Yet it is Evident it is not owing to that want of Vivacity which Renders youth agreable, but to a want of health which a Little Clouds her spirits.55
As a result of Mercy’s account of the members of the Washington family, Abigail said she should “most certainly” be tempted (if coveting her neighbor’s goods was not prohibited by sacred law), to envy her friend the happy talent she possessed—“above the rest of her Sex”—of adorning with her pen even trivial occurrences, as well as dignifying the most important.56
Abigail’s compliment, one of many she bestowed on Mercy, was returned in kind and quantity. Furthermore, however much they deferred to one another, however much Mercy insisted she fell short of Abigail “in many Female accomplishments,” she did believe they were on equal footing in one quality. She was speaking of curiosity, consigned to them “so Generously” by the other sex for no other reason, she supposed, but that men had opportunities of indulging their “inquisitive Humour to the utmost in the Great school of the World,” while women, on the other hand, were confined to the “Narrower Circle of Domestic Care.” But Mercy insisted she was not defeated on this score. It afforded them “yet one Advantage peculiar to ourselves,” she told Abigail with mischievous pleasure:
If the Mental Faculties of the Female are not improved it may be Concealed in the Obscure Retreats of the Bed Chamber or the kitchen which she is not often Necessitated to Leave. Whereas Man is Generally Called out to the full display of his Abilities but how often do they Exhibit the most Mortifying instances of Neglected Opportunities and their Minds appear Not with standing the Advantages of what is Called a Liberal Education, as Barren of Culture and as Void of Every useful acquirement as the most Triffling untutored Girl.57
Given their special relationship, their binding persuasions, Abigail was at ease discussing her recent exchange with John. On April 27, 1776 Abigail confided to Mercy that John had been “very sausy” to her in return for a “List of Female Grievances” she had transmitted to him. She thought she would ask Mercy to join her in a petition to Congress, as it was very probable that their wise statesmen would erect a new government and form a new code of laws. “I ventured to speak a word in behalf of our Sex,” she explained to her friend, “who are rather hardly dealt with by the Laws of England which gives such unlimited power to the Husband to use his wife Ill.” Repeating her extraordinary plan to establish some laws in favor of women on “just and Liberal principals,” she also mentioned John’s wishfully conciliatory reply. “So I have help’d the Sex abundantly,” she had concluded.58
On the whole, Abigail was probably more effective than she realized. On May 26, in a letter to Brigadier General Joseph Palmer, Mr. Cranch’s brother-in-law, John discussed his ideals of government and who had the right to vote, and under what circumstances. He was certain in theory that the only moral foundation of government was the consent of the people; his question was to what extent this principle could be carried out. “Shall we say, that every Individual of the Community, old and young, male and female, as well as rich and poor, must consent … to every act of Legislation?” And if this was impossible, as he judged Palmer would say, then what about the “Right of Man to govern women without their consent,” John probed, or the “Right of the Old to bind the young without theirs?”59
John labored specifically over his presumption that Palmer would exclude women from voting because it was the obligation of the minority to obey and because their delicacy rendered them unfit for the hardy enterprises of war, as well as for the cares of state, and besides, nature had made them “fittest” for domestic cares. “But will not these reasons apply to others?” John insisted.60
Men who were destitute of property, for example, were also too infrequently associated with public affairs, too dependent upon other men, to have a will of their own. If, therefore, every man was given a vote without regard to property ownership, then, by the same reasoning, ought not women and children be entitled to vote? After all, he reasoned, men who were destitute of property were “to all intents and purposes” as much dependent on others to feed, clothe, and employ them as women were “upon their husbands, or children on their parents.”61
It is impossible to disassociate John’s final paragraph to the general from Abigail’s threatened rebellion. It was as though he had her letter open before him when he wrote: “Depend on it, Sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitfull a source of Controversy and altercation, as would be opened by attempting to alter the Qualifications of Voters. There will be no end to it—New claims will arise—Women will demand a Vote.…62
* * *
Just two months after the evacuation from Boston, Abigail’s silken spirits were frayed by impatience and disappointment. Parliament had passed the American Prohibitory Act as of December 22, 1775, declaring all American ships and goods subject to British seizure, an act John regarded as “the last Stretch of Oppression.” He assured Abigail that they were “hastening rapidly to great Events,” but hardly rapidly enough for her. In her opinion, the eyes of their rulers were closed, and a lethargy had seized almost every member. She feared that a fatal sense of security had taken possession: “Whilst the Building is on flame they tremble at the expence of water to quench it,” she complained to John. She was distressed that Boston’s Harbor lay unprotected: “Tis a Maxim of state That power and Liberty are like Heat and moisture; where they are well mixt every thing prospers, where they are single, they are destructive.”63
By May 9, Abigail could at last report the awakening of “the Spirit of fortification.” Fort Hill, the Castle, and Dorchester Point were almost completed; a committee had been sent down to Nantasket; orders had been given to protect Moon and George’s Island. Still, a government of more stability was much wanted in the colony; people were waiting expectantly for direction from Congress. As she was already inclined to making “Maxims of State,” she added another. It was possible, she said, “that a people may let a king fall, yet still remain a people, but if a king let his people slip from him, he is no longer a king.”64
John’s letter of May 17 bolstered Abigail’s hope for decisive action. Great Britain, he reported, had “at last” driven America to the final step, “a compleat Separation from her, a total absolute Independence, not only of her Parliament but of her Crown, for such is the Amount of the Resolve of the 15th.” John was referring to the preamble, adopted on May 15, to a resolution voted after a debate of May 10, recommending to the assemblies and conventions of the individual colonies that they “adopt such government as shall, in the Opinion of the Representatives of the People, best conduce to the Happiness and Safety of their Constituents in particular, and America in general.” Though ostensibly the work of a committee of three, including Edward Rutledge and Richard Henry Lee, the preamble was written by John, whose strong recommendation for separation from Great Britain was objected to by conservatives as “a Machine to fabricate independence.”65
John was not unaware of his responsibility. He was also humbled by his decisive role:
When I consider the great Events which are passed, and those greater which are rapidly advancing, and that I may have been instrumental of touching some Springs, and turning some small Wheels, which have had and will have such Effects, I feel an Awe upon my Mind, which is not easily described.
Despite the particular “Flickerings of Parties,” he was optimistic about the future. He had reason to believe that any colony that assumed a government “under the People” would never give it up. With vision, he realized that “there is something very unnatural and odious in a Government 1,000 Leagues off. An whole Government of our own Choice, managed by Persons whom we love, revere, and can confide in, has charms in it for which Men Will fight.”66
Abigail, too, was vigorously persistent in the belief in eventual Independence, even as she allowed that the “dissagreable News” from Quebec was a “great damper” to their spirits. “But shall we receive good and not Evil?” she reasoned. At a time like this, she relied on the wisdom of one of John’s favorite writers, Maximilien de Béthune, the Duc de Sully. The seventeenth-century Frenchman had taught Abigail the importance, “in bold and difficult enterprizes,” of subduing one obstacle at a time, and of not being “deprest by their Greatness and their Number.” Paraphrasing Béthune, Abigail’s message to John was decisive and hopeful:
We ought never to despair of what has been once accomplished. How many things have the Idea of imposible been annexed to, that have become easy to those who knew how to take advantage of Time, opportunity, lucky Moments, the Faults of others, different dispositions and an infinite Number of other circumstances.
Furthermore, it was a sincere wish, she admitted, that they might be fortunate enough to have the “Spirit of Sully animaeting our counsels.”67
* * *
Abigail was able to write, on May 27, “My Heart is as light as a feather and my Spirits are dancing.” She had received John’s “fine” parcel of letters, a “feast” for her. She was also pleased that she had been able to hire a “Negro fellow” for six months, at ten pounds less than she had expected to pay, and that her farmhand Belcher was “exceeding assiduous” (and should he “purloin a little” she would look the other way). She even managed, on June 17, to spend “a remarkable day”—her first away from Braintree since John’s departure—at Plymouth. There, with her sister Betsy, and with Mercy, she had been entertained aboard the brig Defence, where she had admired its captain, learned of its nine sea engagements, viewed a mock engagement, sipped tea, and observed dancing on the quarterdeck to violin and flute music. Her departure with her party at day’s end was heralded by gunfire—an honor that Abigail said she could have dispensed with “readily.”68
Having enjoyed one excursion, Abigail planned another, of a drastically different sort. Anxious over the disastrous news from Canada that smallpox had been one of the main reasons for the precipitous retreat from Quebec (“The Small Pox is ten times more terrible than Britons, Canadians and Indians together,” John said), Abigail made definitive plans to remedy her family’s vulnerability. On July 7 she invited John Thaxter—he had always expressed a desire to have the smallpox with her family—to join her the following Thursday. Those in her party would include the Cranches and their children, her sister Betsy, Cotton Tufts, Jr., a maid, and an elderly nurse.69
If Thaxter chose to enter as part of the family, at the cost of eighteen shillings weekly, he also needed to be prepared to pay his doctor for inoculation—a guinea per week was the cost, she had heard. She promised to find a bed and a bedstead for him, but said she would appreciate his bringing along two pairs of sheets and a counterpane. She was also taking a cow, hay, and wood from Braintree. If all went well, they might return in three weeks. “If you conclude to go, be at our House a wednesday Night,” she added.70
When word of Abigail’s plans reached John, he wrote back almost immediately to tell her that he was happy to find her “resolved” to be with the children in the first group of patients to be received by Dr. Thomas Bulfinch. It was not until Sunday, July 14, however, that Abigail was able to reply—her eyes were so badly inflamed—to comment on the “Spirit of inoculation” that pervaded the town and every house in it, drawing not less than thirty people from Braintree to Boston.71
That Sunday, Abigail felt well enough not only to write about family news, but to pay attention to the world beyond her sickbed. She could report that she was not only recovering, but actually happy. John’s letters never failed to give her pleasure, whatever the subject. But these, dated July 3 and 4, that “heightened” the prospect of the future happiness and glory of her country, were especially prized. They brought her the momentous news she longed for. On July 3, John had written from Philadelphia:
Yesterday the greatest Question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater perhaps, never was or will be decided among Men. A Resolution was passed without one dissenting Colony “that these united Colonies, are, and of right ought to be free and independent States, and as such, they have, and of Right ought to have full Power to make War, conclude Peace, establish Commerce, and to do all the other Acts and Things, which other States may rightfully do.
He also promised Abigail: “You will see in a few days a Declaration setting forth the Causes, which have impell’d Us to this mighty Revolution, and the Reasons which will justify it, in the Sight of God and Man. A Plan of Confederation will be taken up in a few days.”72
John’s obvious elation over the news of independence dispelled tedium, discomfort, even doubts, momentarily. Acknowledging his inadequacies, proud of his responsibilities, humbly determined to do as well as he could, and make “Industry supply, in some degree the place of Abilities and Experience,” he was inspired by the achievement.
When I look back to the Year 1761, and recollect the Argument concerning Writs of Assistance, in the Superior Court, which I have hitherto considered as the Commencement of the Controversy, between Great Britain and America, and run through the whole Period from that Time to this, and recollect the series of political Events, the Chain of Causes and Effects, I am surprised at the Suddenness, as well as Greatness of this Revolution. Britain has been fill’d with Folly, and America with Wisdom, at least this is my Judgment.—Time must determine. It is the Will of Heaven, that the two Countries should be sundered forever.73
At this moment of euphoria, even as he wistfully considered that an earlier Declaration would have advanced foreign alliances and might have achieved possession of Quebec, John recognized the positive values in the delay. Waiting had, in his opinion, “gradually and at last totally extinguished” hopes for reconciliation. Time had allowed for the “whole” people to consider maturely the “great Question of Independence,” and to ripen their judgments, dissipate their fears, and “allure their Hopes,” so that they had adopted it as their own act. He concluded, “This will cement the Union, and avoid those Heats and perhaps Convulsions which might have been occasioned by such a Declaration Six Months ago.”74
Having yearned and worked for the concept of Independence, John understood its startling significance and envisioned its enduring brilliance.
The Second Day* of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.—I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.75
The significance of the Declaration, so grandly defined, did not obliterate knowledge of its price. John was full of apprehension. The new governments would require a “Purification” from their vices and an “Augmentation” of their virtues, or there would be no blessings. The people, too, presented problems. As they were extremely addicted to “Corruption and Venality,” he would submit all his hopes and fears to an “overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the Faith may be,” he believed firmly. He hoped Abigail’s brother and his would serve their country “at this critical Period of its Distress.” His words were both ominous and splendid at once as he wrote Abigail:
You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States.—Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even although We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.76
With the Declaration, Abigail seemed to forget the eye inflammation that had prevented her from writing to John for nearly a month. The news seemed to soothe her many cares, particularly over her children’s recovery from their inoculations. She was thrilled not only by the actual event, but by the fact that a person “so nearly connected” with her had the honor of being a “principal actor” in laying a foundation for her country’s “future greatness. May the foundation of our new constitution, be justice, Truth and Righteousness,” she wrote to John. Craving permanence, she added: “Like the wise Mans house may it be founded upon those Rocks and then neither storms or tempests will overthrow it.”77
Abigail did not speak of John’s coming home, and she promised to write very often. She asked to be informed “constantly” of every important transaction. And she reaffirmed his place in her life. All expressions of tenderness were invaluable, each a “cordial” to her heart. Unimportant as they might be to the rest of the world, to her, she emphasized, “they are every Thing.”78